10-14--2025 Kyrene Governing Board Study Session and Meeting

001Good evening. Item 1.1, call to order study session. Our study session is call to order. Today is October 14th, 2025. It is 5.08 p.m. Item 1.2 is our transportation update. I'll turn it over to our chief financial officer, Mr. Chris Herman. Thank you, President Walsh, board members, Superintendent Tenius. We're going to have a couple of presenters tonight in this transportation update. I'm going to start off by giving a little bit of background information. and a little bit of information about transportation funding. And then Michelle Parmley, our Director of Transportation, is going to speak a little bit more about some things in the current year that have been happening, some strategies for this year, as well as some additional things to consider in the following year and beyond. And then finally, we're going to have our

002superintendent speak a little bit about evaluating our proposed... any proposed school closures that we've talked about or boundary changes and how that might impact your transportation. And so just want to be really clear that there will be no proposed changes to school start and end times or tier assignments will be shared prior to governing board action on closures and boundary changes. And any updated bell schedules and tier assignments will be presented no earlier than January. So just want to make sure that's clear for anyone who might be wondering timing for those areas. So as far as some history from bus driver positions, I think it's just really important to just be grounded a little bit on where Kyrene was maybe historically and where we're at today when we talk about shortages and positions and how

003that all works with all the drivers and transportation. So this graph shows the total number of bus drivers in history for the last 15 years. And you can see, if you look at all the numbers, that prior to the 2014-2015 school year, so the first three bars that are shown, the district was on a three-tier bell schedule, and that required anywhere between 96 and 99 bus drivers at the time. When Kyrene went to a two-tier bell schedule between 2015 and 2019, the number of drivers increased to anywhere between 107 and 111 drivers. And that number dropped to 84 drivers when we changed back to a three-tier schedule for the 2019-2020 school year. So, you know, just want to make sure you know that when we went back to three tiers, we've done a lot of

004things to... change the way transportation works, right? So we just didn't go back to a situation where we needed close to 100 drivers when we went back to a three-tier schedule. You can also see a few other things that were dramatic changes over time. There was a further drop of about seven bus driver positions in fiscal year 22. That was in an effort to right-size a lot of our staffing to lower enrollment that we started to see across the district. and the impact that had on bus ridership, and also deal with the shortage of bus drivers that has been impacting Kyrene, as well as the entire state of Arizona, and for that matter, the entire country over the last several years. The ability to decrease the number of driver positions needed across the district reflects

005some of the changes and efficiencies that have been implemented by the transportation team, which Mrs. Parmelee will be speaking to that later in the presentation. And the other thing that I want to talk about was transportation funding, just again to kind of ground us on what that means or doesn't mean. And when you look at transportation funding, that is included as part of the school district's total maintenance and operations funding. And we went through this back on the April 8th. study session with the board, but I think some of these elements are just worth bringing up and kind of going through again just to refresh everybody on what that means. So when people ask how much state funding is provided for transportation, the general answer is it's based on how many miles are driven multiplied

006by a funding amount per mile. So that's theoretically how that's calculated. In the world of school finance, The calculation for transportation funding is to calculate an amount that's called the transportation support limit, which is based on the number of miles driven times the state funding amount. And so for the current 25-26 year, that's $3.01 per mile. I personally think that this calculation is one of the more complicated things to explain in school finance. So I'm going to do my best to not make it confusing or to hopefully not, you know, make it a math problem. But when you look at that calculation, you'll see we really haven't had any changes in our funding for many years. So even though the state does increase its transportation funding amount each year. And so you might ask, well,

007you know, we've been at $5.3 million pretty much every year. Why is that the case? And so the reason is that any increases in that transportation support limit that you calculated or you calculate, you add that. difference from the prior year. And whatever that difference is, you add it to whatever your transportation revenue control limit, which is your transportation funding. And there's a test involved with that. And as long as that increase is less than 120% of your current transportation support limit that you've calculated, you can add that funding from last year. If that amount is greater than 120%, the school district receives the same transportation funding as the previous year. So what does that mean, right? Essentially what that means is that school districts will not receive and do not receive less funding the

008prior year, even if that mileage declines. And that has been the case for Kyrene for many years as we've driven fewer miles. You can see how many drivers we've had that have been less and less. Our enrollment has dropped. We've driven fewer miles since the peak around the 2000 time period. So, that would be the case, again, for other districts that have experienced declining enrollment as well. So, on the flip side of that, it also means that if Kyrene were to drive more miles in future years, we would have to significantly increase the number of miles driven almost to the same level that we were back in the 2000-year time period in order for that transportation support limit and that transportation funding to be at the same level. that it was prior to having any

009enrollment declines. So that is generally why we see the same number every year, because school districts are not penalized for having less miles driven in their funding. So hopefully that wasn't too much of a math problem to get things started. I'm going to turn it over now to Michelle Parmley, our director of transportation, who's going to talk a lot more about current year status and then again some things that their team has been doing to deal with all the challenges in transportation. Good evening. Thanks for having me. So I'm here tonight to talk about some of our driver stats, some of our challenges that we're facing, current strategies that we're implementing, and strategies for the future. If you can see in slide one, we have 56 positions. We have 45 filled. And by the 45,

010I mean district CDL drivers. And CDL means a commercial driver's license. We have 34 currently employed with Kyrene. And we have 11 contract drivers. Now, contract drivers are drivers that we hire from a third-party agency to help us out. They're quite expensive. And the good thing about that is we can terminate the contract at any time. We don't have to keep them for a solid year. 2526 route driver totals by bell schedules and tiers. And what tiers is, is the start time. So the first tier is a 730 start time. The second tier is a 820 start time. And the third tier is a 910. Currently, we have 41 drivers who are able to drive all three tiers. Excuse me. Seven of those drivers are only able to drive two tiers or less because of

011their routes. And when we have inefficiencies, we do have office staff fill in. I would like to add that since the beginning of this school year, we have hired and trained five new bus drivers. And we have two in training right now. We don't actually count them as drivers until they're fully certified and can be on the road. We currently have 48 routes with the need of possibly creating more. We typically staff for more drivers to accommodate athletic shuttles, developing new routes when necessary and when drivers call in. On the next slide, I have current year number of buses and drivers by school. So you can see in the first column, we have the 13 elementary schools on Tier 1, and next to that is the number of buses that currently drive out of those

012schools. You can see the middle schools on Tier 2, and then the seven additional schools on Tier 3, and the amount of drivers that drive out of their schools. So for current year out-of-district transportation, which means the Baseline Corridor and or Maricopa, we transport approximately 300 students. The earliest pickup time for these students is 6 a.m., which is the earliest pickup we have. And sometimes those students, depending on where they're going, can be on a bus for up to an hour and 45 minutes, which... Going down to Maricopa, as you know, if anything is happening on the 347, our drivers are going to be hours past. The seven out-of-district drivers are limited to driving two tiers or less only based on the time it takes them to do their routes. Some upcoming construction projects in

013Maricopa, which are going to be problematic for us in the upcoming years, the State Route 347, if you haven't heard, I-10 to the City of Maricopa is going to be under construction for about six years. Riggs Road is going to have a traffic interchange, which will all help us in the end. But for the next couple of years, it's going to be very challenging. And they're also adding a Mammoth Way intersection at Casablanca, which all these things are going to take years. So some of our current year challenges, we have 22 open bus driver positions. We have office staff that covers routes as needed. And obviously the preference is to hire Kyrene employees and not to hire contract drivers. So that is our goal. Students arriving late to school and home. Now, our goal is

014to get students to school 30 minutes prior to the bell time. And sometimes we can't do that. Morning delays and afternoon delays are primarily due to traffic situations. Again, anything happens on the 347, we're delayed. Anything happens on baseline, we're delayed with that as well. And then some of the construction projects that are in district are challenging for us as well. Two to three routes per day arrive less than 30 minutes before the bell. And what that means is they will arrive before bell time, about 10 minutes before bell, just not the 30 minutes that we strive for to get them there in time to get ready for their day to have breakfast if they need it. Six to seven routes per day arrive approximately 20 minutes late or more home. Again, everything is due

015to traffic. So unfortunately, those things we can't accommodate or we can't plan for, but we do our best. We send out dialers. We send out communication to the schools whenever those are going to be late, as well as parents. We do send dialers to parents if our buses are going to be 15 minutes or more later. Current strategies that were currently implemented are we do what we call rolling routes. So we have these at two middle schools, actually three. And what that means is we will go take a route home and then return back and take a second group home. And this is for middle school only. We designed those. With the thought in mind that we wouldn't need to add a route for that, we just had those drivers not cover a third tier.

016It's 30 minutes max before they get back to school. And we did this at the beginning of the school year. So the schools know, the parents know that the times that they're coming home are obviously later than normal. We do deploy office staff for transportation gaps. Something that I'm very happy with is we do have a core office staff that are always in the office. And I know in the past we had an issue when everybody was driving that nobody would be there to answer the phone or to answer radio calls. Well, now I have a core group of people who do not have a commercial driver's license that stay in the office and phones are always being answered between 5 a.m. and 6 p.m. and radio calls are answered as well. Consolidating routes and

017bus stop locations is something that we do. We did implement a 40-hour work week for our CDL drivers, which has helped immensely with coverage in the afternoon. We do still have 30-hour positions available should anybody want lesser time. And we do have routes developed with those work hours in mind. What we've also had to do is restrict additional rider placements. And if you're not sure, if you're not... aware of what that is. That is where a parent wants their child to ride home with their friend one day or babysitting reasons. You know, I want my son to go on this bus. They're not eligible for transportation, but we have placed them in the past due to capacity. But since consolidating our routes, we have had to do, we didn't do away with it, but we

018haven't been, I think we've placed a handful this year and I'm leery of placing any additional just for capacity reasons. If we get notoriously after the beginning of the calendar year, we do get a lot more students that come in. So I'm trying to account for all of those. We do utilize vans for students with individual education plans, IEPs. And new this year, we are rewarding consistent attendance with quarterly stipends. So I'm so excited to say that 76% of our drivers got the quarter one stipend this year. So the average number of call-outs we had last year was eight per day, and this year is less than one per day. So I'm very excited about that. We've also maintained the $2 an hour driver stipend that began in the 2021 school year. So some additional

019proposed strategies that we have, and this is my most favorite thing I think I've ever done in transportation, is implementing a 925 driver. And if you don't know what that is, a 925 driver has the ability to operate that type of a school bus. That bus has the same safety. It will have the three-point harness seatbelts that we have in all of our buses. Everything will be the same. You just don't need a commercial driver's license to drive it. I do have employees already willing to drive those. And what that does is it will take an ESS driver out of driving their route, and we can put that on one of those smaller buses, and we can put them back into the pool of drivers that we have and that we need for shortages. My

020goal is to start doing away with some of the contractors because we will have our own employees be able to go back into that role. These are 15 passenger vans, one of the passengers being a driver, so it can hold up to 14 students, which we average less than that on a bus right now anyway, so it's perfect. Having these buses will reduce the need for CDL drivers. And we can utilize those drivers elsewhere. This also addresses the Kyrene driver shortage and would be used for ESS students only. We might talk about doing some sort of athletic transportation with them, but that's in the future. So in tonight's agenda, you will see there is a, on the consent agenda, I want to purchase 10 of these buses, which after polling some of my staff, several

021are willing to drive them. They just don't want to get a CDL. So all of the safety measures are exactly the same. It will have amber lights, red lights, three-point harnesses. So that will be on tonight's agenda. Also, we'll be managing down our ESS fleet for our capital plan. We have that capital plan out a few years, and we're going to reduce that with these buses. And these buses are considerably less expensive than the regular buses by a lot. Areas to improve routing efficiencies. So these are going forward, what we're planning. Implement more centralized stops for middle school students. What this means is rather than making 12 stops in a neighborhood, we have one centralized stop that they all come to, which eliminates. quite a bit of time when doing a route, which would also

022allow for these drivers to go back and do additional routes if they needed to. We're going to implement the opt-in feature, which I'm very excited about. And for those of you that don't know, opt-in, when we route every summer for the upcoming school year, we route eligible students, not actual. So let's just say in one area, we have 100 eligible. We route two buses to that area. With opt-in transportation, the parent will have the option of saying yes or no to transportation. So rather than finding out two months later, it will help us be more efficient at the beginning of school rather than placing buses where we don't need them. We're going to continue to evaluate and consolidate all of our district routes. We will develop transportation boundaries for exceptional students, ESS programs. Program boundaries

023will align with the middle school feeder patterns as much as possible. Shorter commute times for students. and more time to do routes. So what this means is these drivers will have the ability to possibly do three tiers versus just two with the amount of students and the driving distance they have to go into the neighborhoods. So with that, I think I'm going to turn the last slide over to Superintendent Tenyes. Thank you. So this last slide doesn't have a whole lot of information yet because we're not quite there yet, but we just know there's been a lot of questions about how will the long-range plan, specifically school closures and or boundary changes, impact transportation. And some of that's a little too early for us to have 100%. shared. As we said, what we will do

024is as we get closer and once the board has actually taken action on what the boundaries actually will be, then we will be able to come back with a proposal for start and end times and tier assignments. So tier assignments for those that don't know the word tier. I think you saw on one of the beginning slides, we saw tier one is our earliest start times for schools. Tier two is that middle start time. Tier three is our late start time. So there may need to be a little bit of shifting around tiers. There may need to be a little bit of changes to start and end times. Not significant, we do not anticipate. But until we know what the board's actual... final vote is, it's really hard to share that information. So we're working

025on that behind the scenes right now. You know, I think it's already been shared in our previous retreat that anytime you're going to close schools, you're going to increase the number of routes you need. Because obviously, kids who maybe had been walking to a certain school will now need busing. But students within the one and a half to two miles of a closed school will now need that transportation. However, the opt-in feature that we spoke about a minute ago will also help us get a more accurate determination of who actually needs transportation. And then, of course, having two schools with no boundaries will also help reduce the burden on transportation. And then I think I just kind of shared that last part already is that those start and end times along with their tier assignments

026will continue to be evaluated. And then, of course, depending on what the board's final vote is in December, may need to be reevaluated. If they need to be reevaluated, depending on how significant those changes are in December and when the board actually takes final action, we'll determine when we can roll those out because it's not as simple. as push a button and all the routes are boom done. It sounds like it might be that simple, but it's really not. There's a lot of moving pieces. And so if for some reason the proposal as is, is not the proposal that ends up being the board's vote in the end, transportation will need a couple weeks at a minimum to go back and rerun those routes. It's a little like the demographers work with rerunning the boundaries

027and that takes a minute. So I just need everyone to know that you probably won't know exactly what tiers. and what the start and end times are until closer to the vote. And then also, we have to remember that with implementation being phased over two years, it's going to take a minute because what the final transportation routes would look like. will look different than what the transition year is of next year, assuming, you know, we vote in December. Assuming that's moving forward next year, then you'd have one year of different routes, if you will, with the following year, the other new routes adding on. So it's a little bit of... You know, we'll keep providing information as quickly as we can. I'm hopeful, depending on, again, the board's decisions in December, is that we could

028come back in January to look at start and end times and see if there's any changes needed. The board typically votes on bell schedules. They don't necessarily vote which school goes into which tier. That's more on operational. But they do vote on what the bell schedules are. So we'll bring back a proposal, I'm hopeful, as quickly as we can. January. But the number one thing we're trying to do is to minimize disruption as much as possible, same as with the boundary changes, is that it won't be 100% possible for everybody to stay on their current tier, obviously, with schools closing. But we're going to do our best to try to keep schools as closely aligned to where they currently are. Anything else? No. Thank you to our presenters, board members. Comments or questions? I have

029some questions. All right. First off, thank you for this presentation. I am curious. One, I really appreciated you talking about... balancing capacity versus utilization, that's actually really helpful, especially around the additional writer piece. I am curious. I know on, okay, I'm going to break this up into a few different parts. So on slide nine, we talk about out of district travel. Slide nine. Yes. Slide nine or eight or that. I just saw the nine on the, there we go. Okay. On here. I am curious. Is this number of students stable year over year, or do we see that there is maybe a decrease in students coming from either the baseline quarter or Maricopa? There's definitely been a decrease over the years of how many students we transport from Maricopa and Baseline Corridor. If I recall,

030didn't we look back at one time it was like close to 700 or 800 back early on? I think we uncovered the first year we started this was about 2004. Does that sound right? Right around there is what we could find historically. There's not a ton of information for us to go back. But I think at one point we looked in the highest was right around eight or nine hundred students we used to transport. So it's significantly gone down over the years. OK. Yeah, I was just curious about that as far as if we've if that's something that we've seen year over year. But going back to some of the. I know it's going to be on the agenda, so I'll still give you the same compliment during the actual presentation as well. But the

031925 driver, I think that's really innovative, especially if we have people who are willing to drive, but maybe hesitant about getting the CDL, even though driving for Kyrene is awesome and anybody should really want to do it and help us out. But I think that's a really great way to, one, support. students, our ESS students, you know, with their transportation needs, but also freeing up some capacity to maybe decrease some of the, what did you call it? The round where they do the drop off? Oh, rolling. Rolling, thank you. Rolling middle school stops, yes. The round robins. No, the rolling starts or things like that. So just very innovative. I am curious about the centralized stops for middle schools that you're thinking of. I don't imagine that you have a big plan in place, would

032those still adhere to that two mile range? So if I live out, maybe like a hair out, like, is it just kind of finding a central neighborhood for students at KMS? Everybody who lives kind of within this two mile radius meets at the corner here. Yeah, so they would be centrally located in neighborhoods. We would never expect anybody to cross an arterial road to get to one of our stops. So if you have like a one square mile grid, we would make one or two stops in there rather than having 12. Because we now place stops where students' homes are and the least amount of impact to them. So we have a one mile walk to bus stop. policy so nobody would be walking more than a mile to a bus stop. Perfect thank you

033and then my last question kind of getting back to that capacity versus utilization rate do you anticipate some kind of mechanism if we're moving to an opt-in for transportation you obviously know how many seats we have on buses and things like that for different areas how do you kind of plan on marrying the two of those together. I don't know if I'm saying this right, because I know right now, if I live in a neighborhood, technically you could have 50 kids who could take the bus. But if only 10 are showing up, is it at that point currently that then you would bring in if people were requesting to be an additional writer? Yes. How does that work? Yes. So we always say we don't place additional riders until after the first 30 days of

034school. And the reason we do that is because we want, you know, the first couple weeks of school, mom or dad takes you, and then they realize that the parent pickup line is really long, and they want to have their students start riding the bus. So we wait 30 days, and once that is done, then we would typically place additional riders. Now, for the opt-in policy, for exactly the reason that you just pointed out is things change throughout the year. If I live in an area that I could be eligible to take a bus, if I don't opt in at the beginning of a school year, am I able to do so later on? Like some of my circumstances change and suddenly I need to opt in. Yes. If you're eligible and you live within

035the transportation boundaries. Yes. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. I learned a lot, especially about what tier means. So thank you also. I have kind of a way out there question. Is there any possibility when road work is being done? I know they... They let ambulances go through. They figure out a way to let ambulances go through. And if you have kids going to school in a school bus that need to go get to school on time or close to on time, and there are such profound delays, I wonder if there's any way to work with the Department of Highway, whatever. I don't even know what it's called. But whatever department is in charge of traffic control, maybe the police, maybe the... you know, the patrol on the highways to figure out

036if there's a bus that comes every school day at a certain time, whether they can be sort of ushered through and not have to wait in line as if they were an ambulance. Yes. So I have reached out to the city of Maricopa to ask for that very consideration. And they said, unless you are an emergency vehicle, you don't get through. So, okay. And I'd like to speak about that later at some other point. I don't feel like letting that go. So right now, anyway, just so that's one question. And then what type of fuel do the new buses use? The new buses use gasoline. Okay. Unleaded fuel. Okay. And do they fill up at a central place in the morning that we provide the fill-up area? Yes, they fill up in our yard. That's

037how you say it, in the yard. In our bus yard, yes, in our bus lot. Okay. Great. Thank you. Do we, and we pay the same, who sets the price of the gas that we use in our yard? The fuel company. Like? Whatever the going rate is for. per gallon for that load is what we get charged. And the going rate is the same as at a commercial gas station? No, we're a government entity, so we do get a little bit of a break on it. Not a lot, but a little bit of a break. Okay. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, thank you so much for all the information that you provide tonight. Very helpful. I also wanted to call out again the news on the Q1 incentive. So that was great to

038hear that incentives work. I had another question about the opt-in as well. So that's going to, does that going to have a default or? How does the opt-in work? Is that going to be like when you register your student, you're filling out the information, and that's where it appears? They can opt-in at registration if they're a new student. The other students will get an email encouraging them to opt-in, and that communication will go out around the same time, I believe, enrollment communication goes out. I'm worried we're going to have students who think they're getting on a bus. Well, we take everybody to school. So anybody that's at the curb, we call it, we will take them to school, whether they're a bus rider, they belong on that bus. If they miss their bus to Esperanza

039and we're doing, you know, a CMS route, we'll always pick them up and take them to school. Where they don't, excuse me, where they're not able to get on is in the PM at school. So they would have to call their parents or the school calls their parents. But if they opt in, they'll be right on the bus the next day. There's no waiting period to get them on a bus. Okay. Just a little bit worried about the communication on there. So like. I guess if I brought my student in in the morning thinking that she was going to be on the bus on the way home, that might cause a little bit of confusion if I missed that opt-in option. I think we're going to start communicating that during enrollment. Yes. So there will

040be several communications going out about it. Okay. Well, hopefully it doesn't turn into an issue then. I hope not. And then the microbird bus. Did I say that right? Yeah. Microbird bus. And there's going to be, there's 10 of them that were being requested. Okay. Are there already plans on when and how they will be used? Like, do we have? an action plan in place? So they're scheduled to come in with all of our specs because the ones they did have on order weren't the Kyrene specifications. So they have to go back and spec to our specifications. So those are scheduled to land early spring of 26, which I'm hoping to utilize them for the remainder of the year if I can. Okay. And so we decided 10 would work. We have where they would

041be used ahead of time. We know where. Okay. And do we think that they might help bring in more drivers since they don't have that CDL requirement? I do. I do. I know a couple of other districts I talked to said when they promoted that, that you did not need the commercial driver's license. That generated a lot of interest because a lot of people don't want to get the commercial driver's license. They need to drive a school bus. Okay. Great. Sounds like a good option. Thanks. Thank you. Ms. Parmley, question about compensation. I'm glad to hear that the attendance stipend has been well received and utilized. I know we've had a stipend in place for several years, but globally, how does Kyrene compare with bus driver compensation relative to our immediately surrounding districts? So that's

042a great question. We are actually the highest starting paid district of the five surrounding districts that we have. The highest? Starting, yes. Highest starting, got it. Yes. Very good. So we've got five new, you said five hires already this school year? Yes. That's great. I know with the hires is great, but sometimes we get resignations and retirements. How have we been doing to stabilize that as well? Have we seen a decline in the amount of resignations in that role? Yes, actually we have. I believe we've only had one this year and he wasn't a driver. He was an office staff. That's good to know. I appreciate the questions on the opt-in model. As I understand it, the opt-in model won't reduce the number of routes, but it might shorten the duration of the routes. Is

043that right? It might, in fact, reduce the number of routes as well. It would reduce the number of routes as well. Yes, depending on, you know, if you have 30 kids at this stop and 20 kids at this stop and you have two buses going, we're going to take one of those buses away and we're just going to combine them on one bus. So that would free up that driver to drive that tier. Got it. Okay. That's encouraging. I have a question on slide nine, the same question, same slide that Vice President Nelson had. Maybe just for my curiosity, I was surprised to see the number of schools that we provide transportation to. I know we've provided from Baseline and Maricopa for a long period of time, but I don't just see one elementary and

044one middle school for each. And I wondered if there was a reason for that. Well, I don't know if I can speak to the reason how this was put into place, but what I can tell you is on. Thursday in our first public hearing, when we share the boundary changes, we're also going to talk about the list of schools that will actually be included in out of district enrollment for bound because technically they don't have a boundary. They can go to any school, but we are not going to be providing transportation to as many schools going forward. And so I will be able to share on, um, we're working out some details for the next day or so. So we'll be ready by Thursday to share where our open enrollment schools, um, will be transported

045to both from Maricopa and from our baseline. Okay, good. Because I see several schools on this list that will be impacted either from a closure or from becoming a total boundary-free open enrollment school. Correct. And I will tell you, this is the number of eligible, not necessarily the number of actual riders is my understanding, because I've actually met with both Lagos and Norte, our two boundaryless schools. And these and just so you know, the number with Norte Ninos is actually combined. Some actually go to Ninos of that number. It is very small numbers that are being transported that are actually riding the buses to our two boundaryless schools. So that's why neither principal really had any concerns there. It's very small numbers. This is who's eligible. It doesn't mean they're riding. So it won't disrupt

046a significant amount of students, but it will free up potentially a CDL licensed driver. Go ahead, please. Just kind of talking through that, if these aren't the students who are writing, do we know what that utilization rate is for available? If 331 students are eligible for this transportation, do we know what the utilization rate is? I can get that for you. It's different from day to day. We do take attendance. I know there are times we come out of Maricopa with less than five students on a bus. Okay. I don't, I understand that it would vary day to day, but I think it would be interesting to see like over a quarter or a semester what that utilization average was. if that's possible. Thank you. And this is where opt-in will also help us too,

047right? Because we would also ask our out-of-district families to opt-in. And so we'll be able to know what is more likely the number that we're going to need to transport from. Maricopa or baseline. One of the other strategies, I don't know that we set it on there, but we are discussing is also depending on how many students actually come from those areas. This may be an area where we actually put K-8 students together on a bus where we can to help limit, especially with all that construction that's coming in Maricopa. It might be a better use to put more students on a single bus and get that bus up here than having multiple buses. going back and forth to Maricopa. So we're talking about what's going to be our best way to address some of

048those upcoming projects and trying to limit. students getting stuck on buses or bus drivers getting stuck that then they can't go drive other routes. But I will, for 100%, we are going to need to, obviously some of these schools that are already on this list are slated should the board vote for the plan as is to be closed. So that in and of itself changes it. There's also some boundary changes. So we're going to come back on Thursday and I will have a... solid recommendation for where our out-of-district students would go and where they would be provided transportation. They can go to any Kyrene school that they want to. They just may not be able to, that there's space, I should say, but they may not have transportation. I just would like to add one

049more kind of... point around your question, President Walsh, about the number, right, 10 different schools. If you remember back in the time where this transportation was started to be provided, early 2000s, that was just about three or four years off the peak of Kyrene's enrollment. So they wouldn't have all fit in a school or two, right? So you would have needed that many schools to go to because our population, our enrollment population was much different. Fast forward. you know, 20 years roughly, and it's a very different situation. So Kyrene has just honored that as far as the schools over time, but it was a very different situation as far as capacity at a school than what we face today. Yeah, I understand. And I just, as I mentioned at, I think, one of our prior

050meetings. I'm keen to hear how we're going to handle the increased demands for additional routes and drivers after the full implementation of the Long Range Planning Committee's recommendations. Whatever it looks like, whatever the final result is, we know we're going to have more drivers and more routes. And it's a hard job to fill. And you're doing a wonderful, wonderful job doing that. But it's just a challenge. So I'd like to hear before we have to make any decisions. After you've had a chance to sort of model everything out, what... that gap might be between where we're at now and where we think we need to be at the end of the two-year implementation, recognizing it's going to be a little bit of a hybrid in between, but at the end of that two years, what

051that would look like. And what'll be interesting is we can predict that, but we won't have the opt-in data yet. So what we'll be doing is predicting worst-case scenarios. Probably conservative models. Yeah, very conservative models, knowing that if the opt-in comes out significantly less, which... it will definitely come back less than what we are eligible writers are because we already know it does pretty much on most days. Then we can start to have a better feel for what that number really will be. And then some of these other things that we're getting ready to implement will also help determine what those numbers could look like. But that's exactly what we're looking at. You know, just changing the out-of-district routes will help create some additional drivers for the in-district routes. The other variable is with the

052boundary change, if we're re-boundarying a particular school, I don't think it's necessarily a safe assumption that 100% of the students that have been bound to that new school are in fact going to go to that new school. So we may have some students that say that's nice that you've rebounded B to school X. I'm going to open enroll my student in school Y, which we hope will be another Kyrene school, but it might not be. And that's another thing that is a variable we have to recognize because anytime there's change, we don't know if everybody is going to go along with that. So it's a hard job for you. I recognize predicting the future, but I would like to better understand. how many more drivers and routes you think we will need on a conservative

053level. Mr. Herman, I think you shared a number with me. What's the percent of our population that uses transportation? Was it about 30? Yeah, it's roughly about a third, right? Somewhere in that range. About a third of our total student population rides a bus. And again, that can fluctuate, but that's a pretty good estimate. And that's a third of our... Our enrolled students. Total enrolled students is about a third use transportation. Most of our families tend to transport. I'd like to also, I know, back to Board Member Satri about the question about communication. I know Erin Helm has some information she would like to share with the board. Yeah, I was just going to say we had previously looked at opt-in and my team got really excited. So we actually built a communications plan last

054year that we didn't implement. But we have something that we just need to update for this year and we could share that with the board so you can see what that would look like. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, thank you to our presenters. All right, item 1.3 is conclude study session. Our study session is concluded at 5.52. We'll take an eight-minute recess and reconvene a regular meeting at 6 p.m. All right. Good evening. Item 2.1 is reconvene our regular meeting. Our regular meeting is reconvened. It is 6 p.m. Today is Tuesday, October 14th, 2025. At this time, if you wish to speak to the board during the call to the public, please turn in your blue cards that were at the sign-in table. All of our board meetings are held live and open

055to the public for the public to view the work of the board. We stream our meetings live on the internet. If you can't watch the meetings live, a recording is made available on our YouTube channel. All of our board agendas can be obtained from our district website and our office at least 24 hours in advance of each board meeting. Our superintendent, Ms. Loris Tenius, as well as community members are here with us this evening. Item 2.2 is roll call. Will board members please state their name for the record? Cedric Collins. Bunny Davis. Amy Seytry. Trina Nelson. Kevin Walsh. Let the record show we have five board members present this evening. Item 2.3 is Pledge of Allegiance and Moment of Silence. Who do we have today? Ms. Delia Lighting. I saw you. The president of the

056Kyrene Education Association and a proud Kyrene teacher. Could you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence? Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lighting. Item 2.4 is our district land acknowledgement. The Kyrene School District acknowledges our community of schools as located on the ancestral lands of the O'odham and Peeposh peoples who have inhabited these lands since time immemorial. And with this land acknowledgement, the district formally recognizes the traditional care and keeping by Native peoples allows us to be here today. Item 2.5 is our Kyrene promise. We read this at each of our regular board meetings. We promise to provide welcoming, inclusive learning environments in which every student is honored, valued, and feels a strong sense of belonging and purpose. We promise to provide rigorous, responsive learning environments in which every

057student is given what they need to develop knowledge, skills, confidence, and a passion for learning. And we promise to provide vibrant, world-class learning environments in which every student believes they are empowered and prepared to make a meaningful impact on a rapidly changing world. Item 3.1, preview and approval of agenda. Board members, any changes to tonight's agenda? Seeing none, would someone like to make a motion to approve? Motion to approve. I have a motion by Vice President Nelson. Is there a second? Second. Second by Member Satri. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 5-0. Item 4.1 is our Superintendent Report. Superintendent Tenius. Thank you, President Walsh, governing board members, staff here either in person or online, and community members and families both here in person and online. I am excited to

058share some updates here in just a moment. Maybe. There we go. Get a little help. Sorry about that. So I am super excited to share that October is National Principals Month. I am so very grateful to each and every one of our leaders for leading our schools, staff, and students to success. They are the visionaries at their school and their dedication, compassion, and leadership. Do not go unnoticed. Principals, it is an honor to work alongside you to ensure that our Kyrene kids are ready for the future. So please join me in celebrating each and every one of our school leaders here in Kyrene this month. Also super excited to share that last school year, Kyrene introduced a new social emotional learning program for middle school students called Character Strong, an evidence-based approach that supports the

059whole child and strengthens belonging on campus. I am so excited to share that Kyrene Middle School has been named a Character Strong certified level one spotlight school. This recognition celebrates schools that are actively building strong systems of support for students' social, behavioral, and academic growth. Congratulations to Kyrene Middle School on this well-deserved honor. Also excited to share that and to congratulate Kyrene teachers Scott Harnish from Norte, Linda Sun from Ninos, and Kyrene Middle School teachers Julio Contreras and Aaron Pasamonic, Selena Ryan, and Chi Chu Ting for being selected to participate in the Tempe Community Arts and Schools Residency Program. These residencies bring artists, musicians, and theater artists into schools for 16 sessions with students. They give students meaningful opportunities to learn directly from working artists and musicians while supporting teachers in providing high-quality arts instruction.

060Kyrene is honored to partner with the City of Tempe to provide these opportunities to our students and our teachers. There we go. And the Kyrene Values Educators Awards are back for the 25-26 school year. Recognizing excellence in Kyrene is a longstanding tradition. Team Kyrene submitted peer nominations for the individuals who go above and beyond for our schools, students, and staff. In September, I visited eight of our campuses and our transportation team to recognize our first round of recipients. So thanks to our sponsors, CORE, Kyrene Values recipients receive a certificate and a $100 Amazon gift card as a token of appreciation to their dedication to Kyrene. And I also just want to share for our city, Tempe is a powerful collaboration of local leaders and volunteers who come together each year to strengthen the Tempe community.

061This year's For Our City Day will take place this weekend on October 18th from 8 a.m. to noon at Cecil Shamley Elementary, where volunteers will roll up their sleeves to support the Indian Bend neighborhood through projects like yard work, house painting, and alley cleanup. And as you know, the city of Tempe is such a great partner with us. And so anytime we can help provide support back to the city projects, we try to do so. And that concludes my superintendent's update. Thank you, Superintendent Tenius. Item 4.2 is board member statements. Do any board members have statements to make this evening? Lemme Davis. Thank you. I just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge. The help that our community has been giving us in guiding us to understand how they feel and what they think about

062this very difficult process that we're all facing and potentially. Which schools we don't know, but having to close schools. I've met with a lot of people, and I know that my fellow board members have as well. And I want to commend you all on your thoughtfulness and your willingness to work hard to give us suggestions and know that we all, I will take the privilege of saying we all, even though I'm the one making the statement, are listening. I don't know where it's going to end up, but I hope you know and remember that we are hearing you. So thank you for your work and thank us for our work. Thank you, Member Davis. Any other statements this evening? Just a quick shout out to all of our student performing artists. Right before fall break

063there were concerts for all of our middle school musicians on both our east side and west side and they actually perform with the high school symphonies as well and it's a beautiful performance and it really showcases not only the amazing work of our music teachers at our Kyrie Middle Schools. but also all of our students. So that was wonderful. I want to thank the folks at Murata for inviting us to the third grade play that me and another board member got a chance to see. It was fantastic. They do some very good theatrical productions there. All, I think, choreographed by one of their amazing music teachers. And also the Akimol families. I got invited out to be a guest judge at the culinary class. And the food was real. It was their sixth grade. And

064I was, I have a sixth grader. I've seen him cook. I was a little nervous going into it. And I was really impressed. I mean, it was done quick, it was done timely, and it was delicious. And it was like one of those shoes you see on food TV, and you're worried if they're all going to come in under the timer and what you're going to have to be eating. But they did fantastic. So I want to thank the Akamal community for inviting me to be participating as a judge. I will eat anything, anytime. Invite me back. Item 5.1 is our request to speak to the governing board. As for Board Policy 1302, the Kyrene Governing Board invites viewpoints of citizens throughout the district. In-person members of the audience can address the governing board by

065filling out a blue card that looks like so. Right when you sign in, you can also submit electronic public comments if you can't be here in person. Electronic public comments just need to be submitted on noon on the day of the meeting. You can fill those out through the link that comes out in our board meeting notifications. The board gets all of those electronic public comments in full. We read them all, and they're all read into the minutes just like an in-person public comment. State statute does prohibit us from commenting on anything here that's not on our agenda tonight, but we do listen and we can request follow-up. Because we do value transparency and public input, we set a time limit based on the number of in-person public speakers. If we have one to 15

066in-person public speakers, each person will be given three minutes to address the board. If we have 16 to 30 speakers, two minutes. And if we have 31 or more speakers, each person will be given one minute to address the board. Tonight, we have a total of 11 in-person public comments. That means each person will have three minutes to address the board. When I call your name, just come on up to the podium. Some of you are familiar with the routine, but if you're not, you're going to see a timer here on the right and on the left. It'll remind you when you're close to the end. I will start off with our first speaker, and that is Ms. Christy Wolford, who is a current Kyrene parent and community member. She will be followed by Kyrene

067Inouye. Hey, guys, I heard I'm the cheerleader. So let me just begin, first of all, by saying one other time that you guys had me up here. I said to you, if it isn't broken, please don't fix it. And I feel like I'm here again saying that same thing about Kyrene Akimel et al. So please let me be clear that the Kyrene School District cannot afford to close Aki Mall. The data that we have gathered over the years unequivocally supports this very assertion. It's true that Altadena mostly boasts the high test scores in the district on the west side, but we must confront an alarming reality there. Families are leaving by the dozens, which raises an essential question. Why are families departing from a school that is arguably at the top? And why is the

068district not... asking questions to understand why this is happening. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Centennial, where test scores are unfortunately declining, social-emotional wellness is suffering, and again, families are leaving by the droves. Why is Kyrie not intervening to improve this at Centennial? We want all schools to thrive. But if Centennial is going to be where a lot of Southern Albuquerque needs to go, how can... Parents trust that this school will improve when it hasn't improved over the last 15 years. So in stark contrast, Aki Mall is thriving. We see rising test scores. We see enrollment numbers that reflect the hard work and commitment of Aki Mall's dedicated staff. Parents are not just satisfied. They are thrilled about the current environment that Aki Mall has grown and provided for children over the

069last... five plus years. If closures are truly intended to enhance student experiences in the classroom, how can Akimal, the most overall successful and the most trusted Westside middle school, how can that go for closure? defies logic. It doesn't make sense. I've said that before, too. Please make it make sense. We've heard from Kyrene employees and some long-range committee members that these closures also pertain to building locations, suggesting that the positive culture from one building can be relocated or replicated elsewhere. I understand that perspective, but it is fundamentally flawed. You just can't take a positive culture and have it manifest itself somewhere else. Instead, it requires a large investment of time, resources, and commitment, all of which we know right now, unfortunately, the Kyrene School District just doesn't have. So numbers do not lie. Akimol is

070a massive success story. The evidence in Akimol's numbers is undeniable. We cannot, we must not disrupt or relocate the one middle school on the west side that has consistently demonstrated success over and over and over again. The future of our students, the future of our families, whether they be on the west side or the east side, the future of the Kyrene School District truly relies on success stories like Akimol. So please, it's our duty as residents of the community, as board members, as employees of Kyrene, we must protect what is successful. It's our duty to do so to save the Kyrene District. So please, let's save Akimol. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wolford. Our next speaker is Corrine Inouye, who is a current carrying parent. She'll be followed by Crystal Chow. All right. I haven't

071had a chance to change since this morning. I gave my kids football practice to be here because I was told it was important. So I'm here to start off by saying there's a lot of deep frustration many families are feeling right now. By highlighting the inconsistencies in how the data has been applied, especially concerning how the district missed the chance to apply the same data points around demography and displacement after the map change. When Norte came off the closure list, that should have been the moment to reapply logic consistently. To minimize disruption. and use the data fairly. Instead, two lower enrollment schools remain open right next to each other, almost holding hands, while Mariposa, which actually has the strongest data and the most students being moved, is still on the closure list. This is opposite

072of data-driven decisions. Why are we choosing to disrupt over 400 students, where when other schools have fewer students are untouched? And are all schools truly being judged by the same standards? Next, let's consider the landscape of choice schools. Families actively select where they send their children based on quality programs and outcomes. Diversity is also included in that. Mariposa is a school where families take it out because it delivers excellence. If we are closing a high-thriving, high-performing choice school, what does that do to families? What does that do to a family trust in the process? How does it affect all students that may be forced to move to a school that does not match their needs? Are we truly supporting choice when the school parents prefer are under threat? And we'll talk about this even bigger.

073This is bigger than us, right? Which I know we all know, especially in the state of Arizona. Mariposa is more than a school. It's an example of what public education can be. It sets a high standard academically, inspires students, it strengthens our community, and represents diversity at its best. It's a school where students from all backgrounds learn, grow, and thrive together. Closing it would not just disrupt families and teachers. It removes a model of excellence and inclusivity from our district. If we value innovation, strong performance, community engagement, and diversity, why would we eliminate one of our best examples? How do we justify closing a school that's already succeeding in every measurable way? I urge you to reflect on these questions and consider, are we truly honoring the data? Are we truly honoring our community? And

074most importantly, are we honoring the students of all backgrounds whose future depends on the decisions we make today? It's exhausting. I know you guys are too. But I don't think you guys understand how much work we're putting into this and how much sleep we're losing because it doesn't make sense. We're asking for consistency. That's all we're asking for. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Noy. Our next speaker is Crystal Chow, who is a current Caring parent. She will be followed by Angela Fountain-Ole. Hi, everybody. I'm going to keep it short and simple. Thank you so much for the ones that have met with us, and I'm hoping to get to meet with more of you in the next coming weeks. We want to bring a little bit of data to you. We surveyed our families at

075OccuMom. We asked them one simple question. Where are you going to go to school when they close these doors? 48% said, my student will leave the district. I won't tell you the number for the families that will go to Centennial because it's that little. Okay. 22% said they'll go to Altadena. And the other question was, if you don't go to Altadena or Akema or Centennial, you're going to flood the gates of Apprendi. It's already going to be overwhelmed. So please, as you do this, just keep these things in mind. My sixth grader was a COVID child. The incoming sixth graders next year are going to be COVID children also. And the year after that, 2021, wasn't much better. So please, as you are choosing to close the doors of these middle schools, keep that in

076mind. They already had a horrible beginning to elementary school. Yes, schools need to close, and it's awful. It is not just our district budget's fault. It is our government's fault. But please, keep those things in mind. I appreciate that you guys have been listening and making changes and all of that as you go into this. But I just really, really hope that you say yes to another committee. Yes, 60 people sat in that room for that committee, and I appreciate that. But that is just the starting point. You wanted stakeholders in this. That was the meeting in October. You wanted stakeholders. We're here. We're not sitting down. You'll never have to worry about having people on a committee ever. We're not going anywhere. And as a parent, PTA volunteer, I know how hard it is

077to get a volunteer. So please just keep that in mind as you go into these hearings, not just legal meetings. Keep listening. We're bringing all the data. We'll do your research. We're here. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Chow. Our next speaker is Angela Fautenolet. She'll be followed by Jason Barrett. Hello, everyone. My name is Angela Faudenalde, and I'm the parent of two twice-exceptional children, both of whom had experiences in the self-contained gifted program at Kyrene de la Mirada. One of those two twice-exceptional children is autistic with higher support needs and was unfortunately not able to finish his course at... his school, not because they didn't do everything, but because schools aren't built for autistic children. And there I come to you today saying that I feel a bit responsible to speak to the middle school

078environment because I have a fifth grader and a homeschooled ESE sixth grader who both want to go to Quepo next year. Kyrene del Pueblo is the only middle school option in this district that is small, and that matters deeply for inclusion. True inclusion means more than physical placement beside a neurotypical peer. Autistic kids cannot catch neurotypical by proximity. True inclusion means designing environments that actually work for neurodiverse learners. For autistic and twice-exceptional students, school size is not just a matter of preference. It determines whether they can have access to learning. For autistic and twice-exceptional students, mainstream schooling faces challenges. These are kids that are going through with neurotypical children. From the moment they walk through the door, the day becomes a sensory obstacle course. The noise, the movement, the unpredictability. They struggle to block out

079background noise. People bumping them in the halls, climbing the stairs. They need to prioritize sensory input just to hear directions. When every transition, every crowded hallway, every bell adds to the cognitive load. Navigating space, organizing materials, filing social cues. It is exhausting. So by the time they sit down in class, they've already spent half their mental energy just getting there. In a larger school, constant demands leave them drained and vulnerable to shutdowns or anxiety. In a smaller environment like Pueblo, the scale itself is supportive. Teachers know their students by sight in a smaller campus and vice versa as a touchpoint. Special needs mainstream students' energy can go toward learning rather than just surviving the day. If Kyrene is serious about equity, it must preserve small schools like Pueblo where inclusion can thrive for our mainstreamed

080and 2E students. With my 27 seconds left, I'd like to talk to you hopefully in a future meeting about how to get our autistic gifted kids who want to go to public school off of vouchers and back into public school. Gifted autistic kids cannot just take the gifted. typical presented learning model. There needs to be a 2E autistic-specific system that gets these students with five times the funding of their neurotypical peer back into your public schools. So I look forward to speaking to you more. Thank you so much for your continued conversation, and I look forward to talking to you all more. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mr. Jason Barrett, who's a current Kyrene parent. He'll be followed by Kellen Johnson. I thought I'd start out with a little story. Back in 2017, my

081wife in December walked up and told me that she was pregnant. And when she did, it was our first priority and our goal to find a great school district, a community. We found Warner Ranch, and I was on a business trip. And sight unseen just via Facebook, I said, get it. Let's get an offer in. because it's surrounded by two parks and a community school where I could walk my daughter to school every single day. And I even told my neighbors a lot about, you know, prior to my daughter being born, that it was my life's dream to be able to do that. And coming from a very dysfunctional family and upbringing where I didn't have any of that consistency, it was truly important to me to have that ability to be that close, to

082have my wife go and work at the book fair and do all the extracurricular activities and be part of the PTO. It was all part of the general experience. That being said... She loves her school. She loves her teachers. We ask that the board consider why Mariposa, a thriving school, remains on the closure list despite meeting standards while lower performing schools do not. Mariposa is complete and successful, aligning with the district's goals, and its closure would contradict the efforts to stabilize and grow Kyrene. The Warner Ranch area is experiencing growth. And the projections underestimate the closure, the closing of Mariposa would reduce the future flexibility, increase costs. The school is vital to the community, the assets provided stability and the sense of belonging, unlike charter schools. Keeping it open maintains trust and stability, whereas closing

083it risks financial loss, trust erosion. Mariposa amplifies the school's worth protecting for its performance, community, and growth. I have 41 seconds left, but I truly hope, and I also wanted to thank you all, because I know that some of you we've met in different places and different times, and I truly appreciate the fact that it seems that there's a willingness to consider what we do to ensure Kyrene retains Its ultimate goal of being one of the best districts and most sought out in this state. But also we build on what we have and how we want to continue to grow and go forward. So I appreciate all your efforts and hope we can continue those conversations. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Barrett. Our next speaker is Kellen Johnson, who is a current Caring Parent and

084community member. She'll be followed by Catherine Peters. Hello. Thank you all for the ways in which you've demonstrated your support and care for Kyrene in this process. I'm a Mariposa mom, and I'm a current first grader and a soon-to-be, hopefully, kindergartner. I'm confused why Maricopa has been considered for closure consistently as it meets or exceeds all of the criteria that's been deemed important through these conversations. Things such as building utilization, home boundary attendance, building status, and ultimately program success. It's a thriving school. We're at 75% capacity already. We have a strong computer science program. My first grader can definitely code better than I can. And it attracts and serves 74% of home-boundary students, which means students in our neighborhood make up 90% of our school community. This means the children not only spend their days

085together in school, but they regularly see each other at the park, walking their dogs, going to the grocery store. The school is the heartbeat of our community, and this culture helps our students to excel and retains families in our district and at our school. Mariposa is also one of only 10 schools stated to be designated an A-plus school in excellence five or more times consecutively. That designation has been deemed less valuable in these conversations I've been listening and watching, but I understand that rankings are politically fraught from this. However, enrollment trends are showing that families are selecting our current A-plus schools at a higher rate. I imagine this is why the ranking of A-plus is listed so prominently on the Kyrene Points of Pride page and also in all of our marketing materials. Mariposa is

086keeping families in Kyrene and building an impressively strong, engaged community in the process. Finally, given the proximity of most of our students to the school, our transportation costs are minimal, although I know we're just looking at that. And the building itself is one of Kyrene's newest, with recently renovated new roof and an HVAC, closing Mariposa not only to Spatel's thriving Kyrene schools, but adds unnecessary financial and operational burdens. I encourage you to consider Mariposa and the ways you can help to keep the Kyrene promise and support the goals of this process. Again, I thank all of you for your consideration. I know this isn't easy. I know this is difficult. But I encourage you, much as some of the parents have mentioned tonight, keep looking at the data, apply it consistently. Let us know how

087decisions are being made and how we can help in this process to keep Kyrene the district that we all chose it for, because it's exceptional. So thank you all. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. Our next speaker is Catherine Peters, who is a current Kyrene parent. She will be followed by Matthew Sparks. Good evening. My name is Catherine Peters. I'm here representing the Millennial Elementary School. First, I want to say thank you for your time and your effort that went into the retreat a couple of weeks ago. It shows that you're listening to our pleas, our stories, our feedback, our statistics, our data, and you're asking some of the same questions that we are. But with that being said, I'm still here to express my heartfelt emotions and distress for the closing and repurposing of the schools,

088especially the repurposing of Millennial to the Gifted Academy. I understand that the regional public hearings are upon us and we will have more personal time with you to ask questions and have discussions about the possible changes. But I wanted to show up and show my face and show that we're still fighting to save our schools. I don't believe that we have all the questions answered about the possible future of what would happen if we would have to close our schools. I also don't believe that Millennial will fill up as a gifted academy. Many parents who have gifted children have at least another child that may not be considered gifted and would choose a closer school that may not be gifted just to keep them at the same location. Traveling to two different locations is just

089not ideal. Millennial celebrates their 25th anniversary this year, and it would be devastating to have the school closed as an anniversary gift. Please don't do this to our community. To echo my other community members, we look forward to speaking to you more during the regional meetings and over the next couple of weeks. I can't wait to share more facts and data and even stories with you guys so you understand how we feel and where we're coming from. Again, I understand that this is needed and we need change, but... I think over the next couple of weeks, we'll be able to hopefully brainstorm together some other ideas that would keep us from closing schools or at least delaying it just a little while longer. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Peters. Our next speaker is Matthew Sparks,

090who's a current Caring Parent and community member, who will be followed by Jennifer Guzzi. Hey, I'm here tonight because I'm deeply frustrated and disappointed with the district's planned closure proposal specifically around Kyrene De La Colina. Colina is an A-plus school, and while the superintendent has suggested this distinction is irrelevant, families feel that it matters. Kalina shares a campus with Centennial Middle School. It sits in the heart of the community and serves as a beautifully diverse population of students. That diversity, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic is one of Kyrene's greatest strengths. It makes our children's learning richer and our community stronger. The newly proposed proposal undermines that strength. It concentrates students with similar socioeconomic backgrounds into one school while sending the most affluent students to another. That is not equity. That's segregation by income and opportunity. And

091it directly contradicts the values that the district claims to uphold. Research consistently shows that diverse schools help all students thrive. Kalina already proves that. Closing it and redrawing boundaries that divide families by class would be a step backward in Kyrene. Finally, the plan to demolish the property removes the district's ability to sell or lease the land. The only party that benefits from its shared location and assets with the junior high is the current school. Turning it into a vacant lot would diminish the surrounding home values and leave an empty scar in our community. I urge you to reconsider this plan and to show through action that equity and long-term planning truly matter to the district, not just accommodating to the loudest voices. Since I have plenty of time left over, I will also lend an

092invite out. We are doing our Harvest Festival on Friday, October 24th. Please come be a part of our community and see what we do as a group as far as that's concerned. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Sparks. Our next speaker is Jennifer Guzzi, who's a current Kyrene parent and community member. She'll be followed by Kira Lee. Tonight I'm going to be reading a letter from my friend Katie Garcia. She was not able to be here tonight. Thank you for taking the time to listen as we share about the wonderful school communities that have been built across Kyrene. Tonight, I would love to share a little about the safe haven that Pueblo has been for my two children. My kids are twice exceptional, gifted, and also special needs, and both have found Pueblo to be

093a safe refuge for learning and finding community. My son transitioned back to Pueblo after attending an autism school for two years and we found Pueblo to be the most nurturing environment possible as he made that challenging transition back. Because Pueblo was a smaller school, my son was known by teachers and staff across the campus. They didn't just know his challenges, they also took time to know him. One day I sat in the office and watched as Josh shared a nerdy relic he found in an old library book. Each adult he interacted with listened with joy on their face and reinforced that he mattered. Pueblo is a place of belonging for all different kinds of kids. Nowhere is that more true than the band program. Mrs. Duplessis has created a home for every kid that walks

094through her doors. She cultivates a love of music that unites different personalities, abilities, and interests. She expects excellence, but does it in a way that challenges kids to do their best rather than feel ashamed of their mistakes. The band program has been the anchor that has allowed Josh to thrive at Pueblo, and I know the same is true for many kids. Although our district is financially pressured, I would urge you to consider keeping a smaller middle school open. Middle school is a tumultuous time for kids and creating a space where kids are safe and known is essential to their success. Please consider allowing Pueblo to be that small middle school. Keep the loving community found on Pueblo's campus. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Guzzi. I'm very excited to welcome up our next speaker, a student

095here in Kyrene, Ms. Kira Lee. Thank you. My name is Kira Lee. I am a former Murata monarch and a current Pueblo Bulldog. I just want to say because of fall break and school today, I wrote this speech back 20 minutes ago, so bear with me. My home school would be Mariposa and then KMS, but my parents decided to enroll me in the Cuyahoga Murata Leadership Academy for its leadership program and so can take gifted class. For middle schools, I was originally planning to go to Apprendi. But one little thing changed my mind. Ms. Duplesse, our band director, visited each middle school on our set of the freeway and showed us all the musical instruments. And that's when I decided Pueblo is where I want to go. At Pueblo, there are so many different programs

096and different clubs that people can join. We even started a club to help protect our school. We also have an amazing band program along with math. We have two gate math classes for advanced students, three algebra one classes, and one geometry class with 25 students. And students have really learned how to use the now eight habits. And one of the habits we learned is habit eight. Use your voice and help others find theirs and at the beginning of the year We started a petition to change the minute bell and we got four full pages of signatures Unfortunately, it was not successful but um another problem we dealt with over Last quarter and last year was inconsistency with bus schedules and routes after being late several days to pick up kids, the bus was about 20

097minutes early and lots of kids missed the bus because of that. And then routes are often, from what my friend said, they're not super consistent and not super efficient. And if you condense schools, that would mean more stops. Sometimes our students are even late to school because of buses. Making more stops will make bus times longer. So with this, I know others have said it, but I urge you to pause the vote. Take some more time to consider it. Let us show you why. We should be allowed to keep our school open. More options would be amazing. And thank you so much for taking Norte and Murata off the list. I know that has been very happy to a lot of people. So thank you. Thank you, Kira. Well done. Our next speaker is Daniel

098Palayo, who is indicated he's a current carrying parent and community member. All right. Good evening, board. I really do appreciate all your time and effort that you guys have put into this, I guess, hard and difficult decisions that we all have to make. Again, my name is Daniel Playa. I'm a proud parent of a Mariposa student and two graduates as well. Right now, I think the school closure plan is not properly representing the Kyrene community, more specifically the Mariposa community. Mariposa is a high-performing school. Right now it's at 75% capacity and it's one of the schools with the highest home boundary enrollment of the district. And, you know, the question is, well, why are we closing this school? It's what the community wants, right? We're funding it from the home boundary. And the current plan

099seems to favor schools that have more outside district enrollment than in-district enrollment. I think we all welcome students from outside the district, but I feel the district is supposed to be serving the community first, and Mariposa is a great community school. Again, you know, it's attended by the home students. You know, it's a great neighborhood where kids can walk to school, and now with this new plan, we're going to bust this 360 Mariposa. kids to a new school. And again, why does this make sense? It doesn't make sense, I guess, to me. I guess just to close, you know, closing neighborhood school that's already at optimal performance and capacity, again, doesn't make sense to us. And I think the board in the past has expressed. their desire for those community schools, community public schools of

100what they were like years ago. And I feel like Mariposa does give us this, but it's still on the list for closure while we're, you know, trying to keep open or provide that. charter-like school open. I'm kind of frustrated with that process. You know, we have these great schools that are attended by our home students, and I think we should really focus on keeping those open. That's how we keep the district strong, is by supporting the community. And again, I really appreciate you guys' time. It's a difficult process and decision to make, so thank you. Thank you, Mr. Palau. That does conclude all of our in-person public comments for the evening. Board, as you know, we can't speak to anything that's not on the agenda. So long range is not on the agenda this evening,

101but we will be starting up our hearings this week. And we'll have lots of opportunities as a board to discuss the feedback we've heard tonight and at the hearings going forward. President Walsh, I do just want to clarify for anyone listening. A notice will go out again about the hearing, just as we do our board notices, with information about the location, the time. All of the public hearings will start at 6 p.m., and each speaker will have two minutes to speak. And so just so that that's clear, and then we'll put that in the update that's going out to everybody as well. And just like public comment, the board will not be able to interact, but there will just be two minutes of each speaker being allowed to share their. feedback with you. And it

102will be recorded, obviously, and put into the minutes. We'll also have the opportunity for electronic comments like we always do. We're also going to open it up for all the public hearings for people to submit electronic public comments that will be attached to the board minutes. And did you say they will be live streamed as well? And it will be live streamed as well. Thank you. Great. Thank you. All right. That does conclude item 5.1. Board members, are we good to proceed or do you want a quick recess? A recess? Okay. We'll take a five-minute recess and we'll come back at 6.49. All right. Item 6.1. We've reconvened at 6.54 p.m. Unless there's changes, would someone like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion to approve consent agenda. I have a motion

103by Vice President Nelson. Is there a second to her motion? A second by Member Davis. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 5-0. Item 7.1, this is the first of three presentations and action items, Board. This is the purchasing authorization for the approval to use Mojave Educational Services Cooperative, Contract 23D-CSBS-0905, for the purchase of 10 new student transportation buses. Board members, you heard about this earlier in our study session. The reason it's not on the consent agenda is because, as you know, we have a practice that if the total amount of expenditure exceeds $1 million, we just pull it off for transparency. So if there's any questions, Mr. Herman is here to answer them. If not, I'll take a motion to approve. I move to approve. I have a

104motion by Member Davis. Is there a second? I'll second. A second by Member Collins. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 5-0. I have 7.2 as our presentation from our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Chris Herman, on the annual bond and override expenditures. We'll turn it over to him. Thank you, President Walsh, board members, Superintendent Tenius, colleagues, and members in the audience. I wanted to just kind of give a little bit of background on what we're here tonight for. It's really to talk about our bond and override spending. We'll talk a little bit more about what requirements are. The focus, again, is that information about how we spend bond and override dollars, which definitely is an element of transparency and accountability that we provide every year to our community. However,

105at times there are misconceptions about how our district actually runs from a financial perspective. And so, you know, Kyrene takes a very fiscally responsible and transparent approach and is very proud of what we've done and accomplished in those areas. So before we get into the specifics of bond and override spending, I'd just like to take a few minutes to help our community to be more aware of the many things that we are doing every day and every year to ensure the highest level of transparency in our budget. and our spending and to show how we are accountable for every dollar that we spend across the district. So I want to start off by saying that all financial information about public school districts in Arizona is reported and made available to the public. It is also

106posted to our website and state statute makes sure that the public always has easy access to that information. Every single dollar that Kyrene has... reports and spent is available for the public to see. That is not something that's new. That's every year responsibility for public school districts. This list that you're looking at has a lot of things on there, but it shows several of the ways in which financial information is shared each year, again, publicly with our community, as well as other areas where hiring goes above and beyond the state minimum requirements. One of those areas involves our annual budget. And this past year, we had seven in-depth conversations and discussions and reviews in the spring before we ever brought forth a recommendation and a vote for the governing board. The next three highlighted areas

107represent what we are going to discuss tonight in more detail as school districts are required to publicly share information with our community on how any bond or override dollars is spent each year. The next item is annual audits, and they also provide an additional layer of accountability. And we have multiple financial audits that happen each year, and the results of those audits are always provided to our governing board during a public board meeting. And finally, the annual Auditor General's Classroom Spending Report is another important source of transparent financial information, as the Auditor General is an independent group from our district and provides information on how every school district spends their money and allows comparisons across the state with other public school district peer groups. In this area, Kyrene is consistently represented as one of the

108highest ratios in the state for putting the most money in the classroom. in support of student learning and typically we're in the top 10 in the state. Last year Kyrene was actually the 10th highest in the state and had the seventh highest amount of our budget percentages classroom spending the previous year. And in the interest of full transparency, the Auditor General's office only compiles that information for public school districts. meaning that charter schools and schools that take taxpayer-funded ESA vouchers do not show, are not required to show how their money is being spent. It's not tracked by the Auditor General, nor is there the ability to compare how that is comparable across the state. I'd also, just for the sake of transparency, like to highlight some of the areas where Kyrene has received awards and

109recognition for financial reporting. as our district has a long history of strong financial and fiscal management practices. For the past 30 years, Kyrene has received awards. I should say for the past 30 plus years, Kyrene has received awards for the information contained in our annual comprehensive financial report, which shows how every dollar of revenue, where that comes from, and also accounts for every dollar expended. And this award is the highest form of recognition given. in this area for governmental accounting and financial reporting. Kyrene has also been assigned with the highest credit rating in the state by both Moody's and Standard & Poor's, which according to one of the Moody's most recent credit ratings recognizes Kyrene's prudent management and its healthy, stable financial position. Kyrene has also been recognized for its budget and report, which we'll

110actually talk about in the next presentation, by receiving ASBO International's Meritorious Budget Award for the last three years. This award recognizes excellence in school budget policies, practices, and presentation of financial information to the public and community. To qualify for the award, districts must develop a budget report that is comprehensive and thorough. easy to read and understand for the general public and demonstrates sound fiscal management. Kyrene is now only one of two school districts in the state of Arizona that has received this award and is one of about 130 school districts that nationally received that award. So if you're wondering, there's about 10,000 roughly school districts in our country. I also want to point out that producing the information contained in our budget report is 100% voluntary and is in addition to the detailed budget reports

111that are already required by the state. So quickly, again, we'll talk about this in the next presentation. They just happened to coincide this year. I always want to encourage anyone in our community who really wants to know more information about our district or to understand Kyrene's financial information to scan this QR code as this report will take you to our budget report, I should say, and provides a tremendous amount of financials and district-wide information. This information is very important because it provides our community with an unmatched level of transparency to explain our budget practices and also show how all of our money is spent in great detail. I like to always say that anyone who truly wants to understand Kyrene's budget can find answers to the questions by starting here. Earlier I mentioned that Kyrene

112receives the highest credit rating from both Moody's and Standard & Poor's, and this slide shows our current rating. along with the history of previous Kyrene ratings. And you can see that Kyrene has worked very hard over the last 20-plus years to elevate that credit rating. We haven't always been at that level and have not had that same level of creditworthiness. And today, there are about only five other school districts in Arizona that currently share the distinction of receiving both Moody's and S&P's highest credit ratings. Credit ratings are important for our taxpayers because they reflect the financial performance of our district as measured and evaluated by independent agencies. Higher credit ratings result in lower tax rates for residents in our community whenever money is borrowed in the form of bond sales. Kyrene takes the responsibility of

113being good stewards of taxpayer money very seriously, and this rating helps to show that we are putting that belief into action. Another important piece of information for our community to understand about bonds and overrides is how they impact tax rates. So any voter-approved bond or voter-approved budget override, whether that be for maintenance and operations or for capital, are classified as secondary property taxes. Kyrene has received support from the community for bonds, maintenance and operations overrides, and capital or DAA overrides. And the tax rates are displayed in this graph. And typically, tax rates in our state are displayed as amounts per $100 of assessed value. The secondary tax rate that you see over time for the M&O override, which is the gray bar in this chart, so going back over the last five years, has actually

114decreased 7.4%. There has been an increase in the DAA or the capital override. That's the orange bar. And that's mostly because the annual amount was changed from $6.8 million to $8.5 million several years ago during the November 2023 election. When you look at the bond tax rate, that's the amount in blue, and that actually has decreased 12.3%. over this five-year time period. And again, that reflects Kyrene's strategy. It's not an accident. We're trying to stretch our bond dollars as far as possible and sell bonds more infrequently. And again, along with lower tax rates, the higher credit ratings also help to keep bond interest rates lower, which again will ultimately lead to lower tax rates for our community. So I'm going to switch gears now and talk a little bit more about what the statutory required.

115And Arizona statute requires that any public school district that has approved an override or bond that we must present an annual expenditure update at a public meeting between September 1st and October 31st. Because we have the support from our community in the approval of a bond, a maintenance and operations override, and a DAA, also known as a capital override, all three of these areas will be covered tonight in this presentation. And although state statute specifically requires an update for bond and override expenditures, it's also an opportunity to provide the board and community with an overview of capital spending from any and other sources beyond those areas. And Kyrene has done that for many years and will continue that approach in this presentation as well. This slide has lots of information. I like to point people

116to this slide when we talk about the differences between bonds and overrides because they are very different, and often they get lumped together. So we try to categorize things that are related to bonds, maintenance and operations override, or DAA, which is also known as district additional assistance, which is really capital areas. to keep those three separate. So first, let's talk about what bonds and overrides actually are. Bonds and overrides are simply opportunities for school districts to raise additional funding beyond the amounts that are provided by the state funding formulas. These areas must be approved by the local community because, as we mentioned earlier, they are funded through secondary property taxes. And thanks to the support from our community, Kyrie's Bond and DAA, or Capital Override, they were both approved in the November 2023 election, and

117the M&O Override was approved. during the November 2021 election. I also want to point out that we are going to have an election in November for a continuation of the M&O override. So if people are wondering about the dates, that would be the date that that would be on the ballot. The funds from bonds and overrides are designated by state statute to be used for very specific purposes. And there is a limited scope as to how the money can be spent. These funds cannot be mixed or used interchangeably with other expenditure categories or any funds outside of the designated parameters from the state. So, for instance, you could not use bond dollars or capital override dollars to fund teacher positions or pay for teacher salaries, as those dollars can only be used for capital expenditures

118and not any other personnel or day-to-day expenses. Similarly, on the M&O override, That has to be used for day-to-day operational areas. You're not allowed to take your override amounts for maintenance and operations and spend them on capital purposes or things of that nature. So I know that's very confusing often for our public. We don't operate or are not allowed to operate like a business would where you just have cash flow, and that cash flow can be used for whatever purposes you want. We have very specific regulations on what funds have to be spent on, especially when you have voter-approved bonds and overrides. So bond funds, let's start with that, don't necessarily have an expiration date or an expiration period like overrides do, but any bond funds must be used within a maximum of 10 years

119from the voter authorization. And that issuance of bonds occurs in the form of a bond sale. So we had one in the past spring, if the board remembers. So we don't do them every year. They're just done when it's required. And we'll talk a little bit more about how do we make that determination. So we've done that, and we'll continue to do that as our capital master plan lays out different projects that are coming for the year. Maintenance and operations overrides. They allow a school district to generate up to an additional 15% of what's called its revenue control limit, which is a base level support from the state, plus its transportation funding that we talked about during the study session. Maintenance and operations funding is the primary funding source for the day-to-day operations of a

120school district, and that would include areas such as general education, special education, transportation, and all the support activities needed to operate a school system. Although M&O overrides are valid for a period of up to seven years, per state statute, the full funding amount is only in place through the first five years. So if the M&O override is not renewed and approved by voters before the end of year five, the funding amount would drop by one-third in the sixth year, another one-third in the seventh year, and then finally drop to zero the following year. So if you were wondering, we are currently in year four of our M&O override. The DAA or capital overrides allow a district to receive a flat or constant amount of funding each year. So they're not a percentage based, but that

121amount can only be up to 10% of its revenue control limit and can be used only for capital purposes. And again, those are defined in your voter pamphlet. So you have to be very consistent with what you tell your voters you're going to spend your money on. For Kyrene, our capital override from the November authorization and back in 2023. was a flat annual amount of $8.5 million. And the 2024-25 year was year one. So we're in year two of our DAA or capital override. And again, we are not at that same 10% level. So if people think we're at the very maximum level for that, I know we did have an increase a few years ago to account for inflation, but we are still well below that 10% threshold for what's allowable to have voters

122approved. And I would say because both M&O and DAA or capital overrides expire after certain periods of time, it's very common for school districts to hold renewal elections a year in advance before that expiration date actually occurs because if a community does not pass a renewal, it allows a district to have a second year on the ballot before any funding reduction would actually take place. It's also important to understand that if a successful early renewal takes place, that the timeline or the clock for that override would reset at the beginning of the next fiscal year. So any funding from the remaining years under the previous override would be basically started over the following year. So I'm often asked about, well, why is that important? How would the district operate in the absence of bonds and

123overrides? And I think part of the conversation should start with, you know, where funding comes from, what would be our reality without that funding. So bonds and overrides are very important when it comes to funding the activities that take place across Kyrene. And last year... The total for those three areas was about $53 million of total expenditures that were funded. And we'll break those down on the next slides. But that's a significant amount. And, you know, it's important for everyone to know what that means and what would happen if we didn't have those things in place. So often I'm asked about what's at stake if your community does not support passing bonds and overrides. So I think it's really important to talk about what that impact could look like for Kyrene. And without bond and

124override funding, Kyrene would have to just rely on the funding provided by the state of Arizona, which has typically, as you can see on this chart, has been near the bottom of the list when it comes to public school funding versus the funding provided and invested by other states across the country. And this data is based on the U.S. Census Bureau for educational funding. I believe that's one of the best data sources for unbiased and non-manipulated. data. So this is purely what's consumed or reported for total state, local, and federal funding. And one thing that is important to know about the numbers you see there, I've mentioned the 2023 and 2022 years. Those have been impacted by federal grants for COVID. So I know we've moved up in the rankings. I'm very curious to see

125how we'll be once that COVID money expires, because Arizona proportionately received a little bit more as a state than other states did across the nation. So that will take a few more years for it to work its way through the system. The one bad thing about the U.S. census data is it's about 18 months old. So it just takes a little bit of time for that to get refreshed. But I think you're going to see, you know, you're seeing the movement because of COVID funding, I guess is my point on this slide. Again, we've been very fortunate to not have to rely on that funding being so low. And if we didn't have that funding, our district would look very different from what it is today. And often people in Arizona may not know that

126our state is actually very fiscally responsible in keeping administration costs low. You hear that sometimes mentioned as a way to put more money in the classroom. But although Arizona's funding levels are amongst the lowest in the country, Arizona... Arizona's administration costs are actually the lowest in the country, and they have been for many years. And what's important to understand is Kyrene's administrative costs are even lower than Arizona's state average, and also lower than our peer groups across the state. So again, that reflects our strong belief and commitment into putting as many dollars as possible into the classroom where they make the biggest impact for our students. On the capital side, for anyone wanting to know more tangibly how important and impactful bonds and DAA override is to Kyrene's overall capital spending, again, this is just

127capital areas, hopefully this slide provides a little bit more about that context. So this graph on this slide shows the total spending on capital projects over the last 10 years at Kyrene with those amounts being graphed in the blue bars. versus the amount of capital funding that we receive each year from the state, which is shown by the orange line. And so again, if we were ever in a situation where we had to rely only on state funding as the only way to pay for our capital projects, it would be impossible to provide the same levels of support for our Kyrene students facilities that we do today and have been able to do historically as Kyrene would. receive and have less than $7 million per year from the state to fund all of our capital

128projects. And so I'm going to talk a little bit more about what are those capital projects that we're able to fund across our district because we have the bonds and overrides in place. But before I do that, I'm going to talk about the maintenance and operations override and talk a little bit about how that money is used. I think it's very important for people to know where does the money go that they're approving in the form of an override election. So the additional funding for our M&O override allows Kyrene to provide staffing support and services beyond what would be possible if we had to solely rely on the funding amounts provided by the state. and Kyrene prioritizes its M&O override funding for three areas. The first is to attract and retain high-quality educators in the

129form of offering competitive pay for staff and teachers. We also use portions of this funding to hire more teachers, which allows us to offer lower class sizes for our students with an emphasis primarily on early grades. The second area that we use our M&O Override funding for is to offer robust and expanded special areas of instruction in both our elementary and middle school grade levels. Examples of those things would be additional opportunities in areas like art or music or foreign languages, electives and specials. And finally, M&O override dollars allow us to offer enhanced school-based support services for students in the areas such as occupational and physical therapy, behavioral and academic support, as well as other services in other areas, speech, hearing, vision, things in those areas, so we can keep those caseloads lower for our

130staff. This slide. provides an estimated breakdown of the M&O override expenditures for this past fiscal year, 2024-25 year, and show how those costs would break down into the three categories that I mentioned on the previous slide. These would be the areas and types of services, again, that we could not support without that M&O override funding. So to put that 2024-25 amount of $14.8 million into perspective, This amount is roughly equal to the salaries and benefit costs for 200 teaching positions, which is significant in a district our size and equates to almost 25% of our total teaching staff across the district. So we can put 25% more staff in the form of teachers in our classrooms because we do have this override funding for maintenance and operations. So shipping gears on bonds and how that money

131is spent. So bond funds are primarily used for capital projects that are needed to maintain our schools and district-wide facilities and grounds. They support technology purchases, provide safety and security systems, and address transportation areas. Bond funding is only allowed to be used in the areas that are specified in voter pamphlets. So again, we have to be inherent and accountable to what we tell our community where we're going to spend the money. And so as we discussed back in the spring, In the capital budget presentation, Kyrene has developed a detailed and comprehensive 10-year capital master plan that is used to manage capital spending, identify our capital needs, and prioritize all bond-eligible projects across the district. And Kyrene has been using that system of a capital master plan for the past eight years now. So I want

132to talk a little bit more about what is that plan and how does that work. So the development of Kyrene's capital master plan involves collaboration among our directors, our school leaders, and project managers across the district to ensure resources are allocated in an optimal way in order to support student achievement in our facilities that now are older than an average of 35 years. I won't go into too much detail on the slide because, again, we covered that back in the spring, but I think it's just important to highlight a few things. The first being that the frequency of bond sales are determined based on how much money is needed and when it is needed to support Kyrie's long-range capital master plan. So it's not an accident. It's not a one-year plan. We have a very

133long view as far as capital and facility needs. So projects are identified in the capital master plan. to encompass a variety of areas and are reviewed and prioritized multiple times throughout the year before anything ever comes to the board for approval and presented to the public and governing board, again, before that money is authorized to be spent. An ongoing analysis is also performed throughout the year for Kyrene's buildings, its grounds, its technology, its transportation, and overall facility condition to determine the urgency and frequency for how projects should be scheduled or completed. So this table, I think I skipped one. This table displays the bond spending, the total bond spending, I should say, for this past year, 24-25, according to the three main categories identified in the bond pamphlet. The total spending was $34 million or

134$31.4 million, and about two-thirds of that, 66% of that amount was spent in the maintained schools category. And because it represents such a large amount, the next slide, I'll provide some more detail and breakdown for specific things that are covered in that category. When you look at the transportation amount, we talked a little bit about this during the study session. Most of that relates to new buses and vans that are used to transport students, and Kyrene is looking to replenish that fleet of its vehicles over the next five to six years. On the administrative category side, that's a little bit higher than it normally is, but again, that's related mostly to the expenditures for Phase 3 of our capital, the Phase 3, I should say, of capital projects that are taking place across the district

135office campus. So this slide has more detail for what I just showed in the maintained schools category, which was about $20.6 million. So on the left, you can see that total amount that we had in maintained schools and how much relates to construction projects. That's displayed in dark blue, and that's about $16.5 million and makes up about 80% of that total maintained schools category for how we spend bond money. And you can see a detailed list and the wide variety of projects that were completed across all of our school locations in 2024-25. So that big list shows really specifically where the money was spent. You can see that roofing projects, landscaping, grounds. I mean, there's a lot of things at our 25 sites that need to be maintained each year. Classroom-related areas, which is shown.

136on the top right made up about 6% of these total expenditures in this maintain schools category. And that mainly, you can see the list there, but it mainly includes furniture replacement costs that took place at two of our schools last year. We have been replacing furniture now for the last eight years, and I believe those might be the last two schools. But again, we've been very intentional about trying to get new furniture in our students with our bond monies. Technology-related projects shown in the orange in the bottom right made up about 14% of total bond expenditures last year, about $2.8 million. And you can see again the breakdown of that, the largest amount being used to support network equipment, which would really be for things like monitoring performance of our network, programming support repair for

137our daily operations. On the DAA or capital override side, I want to talk a little bit about how important that area is as it provides capital funding, a lot of capital funding in the technology area for Kyrene. And so to determine and prioritize our DAA capital override spending, the district also completes and maintains a comprehensive 10-year plan to manage all of our projects using these funds. And you can see the list of areas on the slide that are supported from our DAA override funding. So if people are wondering, again, what would be impacted if Kyrene didn't have a DAA override in place, the things you see are the kind of areas that we would not be able to fund and support. And just like the Capital Master Plan, our DAA override planning process uses a

138lifecycle analysis to determine a useful life for technology-related areas that are listed on this slide. And just like the methodology in the Capital Master Plan, We also look to extend the useful life of equipment when possible as long as it can be done in a safe and responsible manner without negatively impacting the learning or safety learning environment or safety of our students and staff. On this slide shows a breakdown of our DAA or capital override expenditure amounts for last year by the different categories. So just for clarity, you can see the highest amount there is instructional technology, and that would include technology that's used in the classroom, such as computers, projectors, smart boards, as well as curriculum-related areas that might be related to licensing costs, software, or other curriculum materials. The software and licensing amount

139that you see listed includes non-curriculum areas and instructional software across the district. That might be things like Devils or iReady or Vision System or Microsoft Office user licenses. And then you see a little bit of amounts or smaller amounts for other technology, or I should say for other technology that would include building-related equipment for things like sound systems or intercom systems at schools. Network and infrastructure includes areas that would be things like servers, switches, and phone systems. And then the other capital line that you see mostly relates to vehicle replacements. for our IT and technology team because again we're trying to replace all of our vehicle fleet in the next five years. So I mentioned earlier that in addition to the required update on how we spend bond and overrides. This slide shows the expenditure

140amounts related to our state capital funding, which is called district additional assistance. And although it's not part of Kyrene's bond and override amount, I do think it's important to show our community the spending from all of our capital sources. So our state funding capital was spent primarily in two areas, or I should say, yeah, primarily two areas. The first being to support Kyrene's curriculum plan that we presented publicly to the board in the spring. And that would include both the instructional technology line that you see there and the software and licensing line. And the second main area that you see kind of at the bottom where it says other capital phase two and phase three, that really was to support the work taking place across the district office that was to address building safety and

141security, compliance areas, HVAC system repairs, roofing repairs, parking lots, the bulk of where that money was spent in 2024-25. And finally, just for completeness, this slide includes capital expenditures from any other remaining source. It's very small. It's $1,200. It's a small amount of money from a building renewal grant that was related to roof work that was done at Millennial. We apply for building renewal grants every year. We very rarely receive any money, but happy to share where we have other sources of capital funding and where we spend that as well. So with that, I know it's a lot of information. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. All right, board, if anybody has any questions, thank you for presentation, Mr. Herman. So I'll open it up to the board for questions. Yes,

142thank you. I had a question. I believe it was on slide 14 or 15. I'm not sure which one. Talking about student support. Let's see. Student support services, yes. Occupational and physical therapy, academic and behavior support, speech, vision, and hearing services. Am I to understand that those are not special ed services? They could be. We will provide the services that are required. So this is not to replace that obligation. This just means that we're able to do more for our students than what the state would allow us to spend in those areas. It also means that we can have more teachers in those different areas to perform those services and have a lower... I'll call it caseload, right? Number of students or students demanded. So we can do more than what the state provides. This

143is not replacing the state requirement. This just allows us to go above and beyond what we could do without that money. Okay, so let me make sure that I understand. These particular student services, some of them, let's say speech. might be available to kids who don't have an IEP? Are they ever available to kids who don't have an IEP? I'm going to ask Dr. Lane, and that's really a specific question. That's more in her area as far as how we evaluate services. The only time we would provide services to a child without an IEP is through the MTSS process, that multi-tiered systems of support. court. So when we might suspect that there is a need for that child to receive speech services, we would do that on a intervention type basis. This allows us to

144do that. So that's just one of those options. But the majority of these children, yes, are actually eligible for special education services. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Member Davis. Mr. Herman. I'll go ahead, Member Collins. Well, Mr. Herman, thank you for your presentation. This is just for clarification. There's still, and I know you mentioned it in the beginning, but let's just break it down one more time. Not a thorough breakdown. That this is not new. Taxes, correct? Correct. See, people, you know, because the misconception is people think that this is for new taxes, and I keep constantly having to explain to those who ask me about it, no, this is not new. This kind of shows it's not new, right? This has been in place for many years. In fact, I don't know the history

145of bonds and the DAA or the capital override as well, but I know we've had a maintenance and operations override in place since 1983. So that is absolutely... goes back, you know, decades. And so, again, none of the things that we talk about with tax rates would be new. That's correct. Thank you, sir. I have a question as well. Please. Thank you, Mr. Herman. I appreciate your time. And for your presentation, I'm going to be a bit of a doomsday here. So we know that we have the M&O funds. available in our district. Can you paint a picture of what would happen, what worst case scenario looks like if we were trying to operate on state funding only? I mean, I know we did discuss how it's used, how it benefits, but I just kind

146of want to look at the seriousness of what that would mean to our district. Yeah. And that's a great question. I think I'm asked a lot about what would you do? Right. How would that work? And I think the best way to have an action plan, actually, like, oh, boy, what do we do? The best the best way to think about it. is that funding equates to about 200 additional teaching positions that we can provide across the district. So in the absence of that funding, we would not be able to afford that. That's how that money is used. And so we don't have state funding to provide the same number of positions that keep our classes low, right? So class reduction or class sizes. Having our classes reduced in the size would not be possible

147because we would be having to. have fewer teaching positions. Teacher pay would be at risk as far as how much money could be invested in the future. The special areas would be all of the electives and specials that I talked about. Again, we offer a lot of additional opportunities for our students because of that. In the absence of that money, the state does not provide the funding for us to do the kinds of things that we do in those areas. And again, we would have to have less of support for our students. We couldn't go above and beyond what the state gives us funding for. And also, it might mean a different caseload level for our staff at the state. might provide the funding for. So it wouldn't affect our projects or repairs that are...

148Not capital, no. Maintenance and operations can only be used, I think I'll go back to this slide real quick, because again, I know for people that own a business, work in a business, even their personal finances. Your money is your money to spend however you want. And so that's not the way it works in Arizona with school finance. And so when you talk about maintenance and operations, which is the middle column, we can only use that funding for day-to-day operations. School districts have the flexibility to determine when they go out for a vote how they want to use that money. But you have to tell your community what you're going to do with it, and then you have to absolutely spend it in those areas. So we've committed our money to go into... basically teaching

149related positions. So we couldn't say, for instance, we're going to hire more bus drivers with that money because that was in violation of what we've asked our voters to approve, right? So for us, it's the day-to-day operational areas. You're absolutely not allowed to mix capital funding and day-to-day operational funding. So that's prohibited by statute. But these would affect the day-to-day operational areas, specifically for Kyrie in the classroom. And Board Member Satri, what I want to add to your question about do you have a plan. So as part of our budgeting process each year, what will happen is, you know, we go out, as Mr. Herman said, a year early so that if for some reason the override was not to pass, then that gives us one more year with full funding. But you would actually

150see a cut. So if the override was not to pass, you don't sit a year and wait to start making changes or it's too many all at once. So what has to happen is we have to prepare our budget as if there's a chance it might not pass again. So that means even in year six, do I have my years? Yes. In year six, we might start to see some of those things decreasing. If it doesn't pass, if it was to then pass again in year six, like let's say we went out year five this year and it doesn't pass, but it does pass next year, then yes, we might be able to reinstate some of those things. But if it didn't pass two years in a row, it would be a huge cliff to

151all of a sudden start dropping. So we would have to start to prepare for that as soon as it doesn't pass, if that makes sense. So we would see an impact in the 26-27 school year. Immediately. Yes. Yeah, correct. And just maybe to add some other context to that, you would lose your funding over three years, right? So the first year would be somewhere around $4.8, $4.9 million, right? A third of what our current override is. To put that into perspective, I believe when we looked at the preliminary five-year projections for enrollment decline. It's less than three million, right? So this would be a much bigger impact than what we're looking at just from enrollment decline. So as difficult as it is to balance a budget with year-to-year enrollment declines, this would be more than

152double that amount. Thank you, Mr. Herman. Can you go to slide 11, please? No question, but I just love emphasizing it every time. Arizona has the lowest school administrative cost for people in the nation, the lowest. And then Kyrene in the state of Arizona is among the top 10 for lowest in the state of Arizona. Am I right? Well, our top 10 that I referenced earlier is about classroom spending, but we are an administrative cost well below the state average and well below our peer average. I don't know exactly where we rank. I don't know that number, but it is extremely low. Got it. I just think that's helpful information when people talk about where the money goes. Thank you. No further questions. All right. Don't go far, Mr. Herman. Item 7.3 is our budget

153annual report. I'll turn it back to you. Thank you again, President Walsh and board members. I stole a little bit of my old thunder on this in the last presentation. The timing just happens to work where... This report is done at the same time that we talked about Bonin Override, but I am very excited tonight. This is something we've done for many years. We'll talk about to share and present Kyrene's sixth budget annual report. Each of our board members should have a copy of it. I'll give it in front of you. And we really want to start off by celebrating the artwork of the three students. One is a fourth grader at Mariposa, a sixth grader at Centennial, and a third grader at Cerritos. that's shown on the front cover. That's always a joy to

154look at the amazing stuff that our students, the work that they produce. on the not as exciting, fun, artistic things. There's a lot of information in here. I think it's all really good stuff for our communities, like I talked about earlier. But an electronic version of the report is posted on Kyrene's website and can be accessed by clicking on the QR code or taking a picture of the QR code, I should say. Or you can follow the navigation that we have on this slide. And so we don't typically print a lot of copies. This is very lengthy. There's a lot of stuff in here. You can navigate it by clicking on the topic, right? We have very, very easy ways to navigate the sections that people might want to have. We've printed a copy for

155the board. I take this with me almost everywhere that I go. It's a nice reference. It always, if you get a question, I can promise you the answer is probably in there somewhere. So sometimes it's nice to have a copy of it. And even to help show, if you don't even know the specifics of it. there's a section in there that talks about it, right? So I think that's always nice for our board to be able to have a printed copy. So when we talk about this report, you know, well, what is it? Why do we do it? Who's doing this? This really is a comprehensive summary, I should say, of our 2025-26 adopted budget. So that's for our current year, the year that we're in right now. And this is really a report that

156is considered best practices for budgeting and reporting as prescribed by ASBO International. And so, you know, that group really defines the best practices for budgeting. for reporting and communicating that budget information for all governmental entities. And so why do we do it? Well, school districts are not required to produce this document. And so I am often asked about why do we take the time and the effort to do it? But I feel very strongly about providing this level of information to our community because Kyrene has received so much financial support from our community for many years, like we talked about earlier, in the form of bonds and override support. And we take that support from our community very seriously. So I believe it's very important and our district believes it's very important for our community

157to see a transparent and very clear way all the sources of our revenue and how every dollar is spent in our budget. And so this report, besides the financials, also explains, like, how does our budget process work? How the laws of the budget impact what we do. What does our strategic plan look like? How is our budget geared to support that? How does enrollment impact our budget? How does performance of students look across all of our school sites? So there's a lot of information in there. It really is, to me, an example of the commitment that we have as a district to providing the highest level of fiscal responsibility and transparency to our community. So all of the work in this document was produced in-house by the district. We didn't have any group work to

158put it together for us. So I do want to thank our entire communications and engagement team. They play a big role in putting this together. And also Kyrene's print shop for making everything look great. They printed it, right? They do a great job with services that they provide. And I also want to thank and acknowledge a few others that directly contributed to the report. Mason Mead, our director of facilities, and Dr. Susie Ostmeyer, our executive director of accountability and performance management, for their work and contributions to the report. So I'm very fortunate to be supported by these very talented and amazing group of employees here at Kyrene. So I'll go into a little bit of a summary here. There's four major sections of the report. The first is the executive summary. It really provides a

159synopsis and highlights of the overall document, but really the condensed version. There's an organizational section that contains a variety of information about the district, things like the governance structure, our strategic plan. our mission, visions, goals, which we call the Kyrene Promise, district policies, explanations about our budget processes, and any other statutory requirements and legal areas that might impact our budget. In the financial section, if numbers are your thing, this is where you should start. It contains highlights from our budget, along with all the revenue, expenditure, and financial information for all fund categories. It also contains information about our capital master plan and our debt obligations, which relate to bond issuances. Also, some pension benefit information for eligible employees. Really, if anyone has questions about... or is interested in knowing how Kyrene really spends its budget,

160I really encourage them to take a look at this section as it presents our budget, along with historic spending information in a very detailed and easy to understand manner. There's eight years of financial history in here, three years of projections, five years of current budget, plus prior year actuals. So there's a lot in here that shows trends, history, and what's been done. Finally, the informational section you see there provides other data that impacts this budget, things like property taxes, student enrollments, bond and debt service levels, student performance measures, and classroom spending metrics. And, you know, for those who this might be their first version of this report that they've seen, just wanted to show and share that, you know, Kyrene has worked hard for many years on refining and improving our budget processes and practices

161in order to really be able to assemble this type of information. And we could not deliver this level of detailed information without work having taken place. Our budget processes that Kyrene align with and are consistent with the best practices that are defined by ASBO International, which allow us to produce the type of information that you see presented in this report. You can see on this slide that this has been a multi-year journey in producing this information. And Kyrene has received the Meritorious Budget Award from ASBO International, starting with the 2020-23 budget year. And that award, like I mentioned earlier, is very exclusive for school districts to receive. For many years, Kyrene was the only school district to receive that award in Arizona. But now there are two districts in the state. with that extension, and

162we're happy to have another colleague join us out of Yuma. And there are, again, only about 130 school districts nationally who received that award. And so, again, we'll be submitting this year's report to ASBO International, most likely tomorrow, to be considered for their MBA award again. So just a little bit more background on how we got to this point and how we want to continue doing that. So I'm happy to answer any questions or comments that the board might have. Board? We'll start with Vice President Nelson. All right. Thank you for the presentation as well as the last one. I think my comment, it's more a comment, not a question, especially as we are going through. looking at consolidation. A lot of individuals have had many questions about the budget, different choices we make. What

163does this bucket mean? What does this line mean? And I think the fact that there is a place available for us to even point people to, to be able to find that line by line information is really a credit to you and your team. And it's very helpful for our community as far as transparency goes. So I just want to thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I want to underscore that also. Fabulous presentation. I love the cover, too. It makes me want to actually. read a lot more than I might have wanted. But I can depend on you to present it in a way that is so understandable. And you and your team just do incredible work. I'm very thankful. And I wanted to tell you that. I also have

164one, I'm just a wondering question. You may not know the answer to it, but I was wondering, you say there's one other school district or in... In Arizona. Yeah. It's Crane Elementary. Oh, OK. So that's a public school. Correct. Yeah. OK. Just was curious. Thank you. I just have a comment. Thank you for putting this together as everyone is echoed. As you mentioned, not too many districts because they don't have to don't. And so I really appreciate the fact. that Kyrene is very transparent. So if people have questions, they can look it up online or reference the book. So thank you for doing that and making it accessible to people and giving them that information. Shows that you guys appreciate the community and what they do. So thank you for that. Because not a lot

165of districts extend that kind of courtesy and access. Thank you, Mr. Herman, to you and your team. Thank you. All right, item 8.1 is conference reports or committee updates. Anything for the board to share? Seeing none, item 9.1, items for future consideration. Do any board members wish to list an item for future consideration? Seeing none, item 10.1, meeting dates. Our next regular meeting is scheduled for October 28th, 2025, but we will see each other this Thursday for our first regional hearing at Cowery Middle School. I have 11.1 adjournment. I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Is there a second to the motion? Second. Second by Vice President Nelson. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 5-0. We're adjourned at 7.47 p.m. Have a good night.