08-05-2025 Kyrene Governing Board Study Session & Meeting

001Good evening, everyone. Item 1.1 is the call to order our study session. Our study session is called to order today is August 5th, 2025. It is 5 p.m. Our study session will happen now, and then our regular meeting will start at 6 p.m. per usual. Item 1.2 is our study session. This is a long-range facilities plan update on choice schools. I'll turn it over to our superintendent, Ms. Laura Tenius. Thank you, President Walsh and governing board members. Let me get our presentation up here. There we go. So before we really dive into the presentation, I just really, before we start to really talk about the choice opportunities in Kyrene, I want to briefly give you some context of the work of the Long Range Plan Committee to date. So you're going to hear a little

002bit, if you've been tuning in, you may hear some things you've already heard. It really is just a high-level summary of the committee's work over the last few months. So over these past few months, the committee has been reviewing district trends. They've been looking at facility usage. They've been looking at enrollment patterns. And they've been seeking community input from those on the committee to inform our sustainable forward-looking decisions. So tonight, our plan is to share an overview after we provide this update of existing choice models in Kyrene and the potential for some maybe new ideas. focusing on how they support our open enrollment, how we might consider avoiding some duplication across the district, how we ensure that our decisions align with our district priorities, and how we are positioning for Kyrene for long-term success. As

003you are aware, this is a study session, so no decisions will be made during this session, but rather it's really just a time to hear an update and really for us to hear some feedback from the board on where... our district administration is looking at for our choice schools in the future. So the governing board, if you recall, and some of you were on that board and some of you are new members since the original board, created the Long Range Planning Committee and voted for the committee. to proactively address key challenges and opportunities across our district. With fewer students in some buildings, we face some tough decisions that impact funding, programming, and our student experience. This committee was tasked with ensuring that we are using our space and our resources effectively, supporting financial stability, and

004developing sustainable, community-informed solutions. Most importantly, we're planning now to ensure our schools remain responsive to future needs and are able to continue to provide high-quality education for every student. As a reminder, the Long-Range Planning Committee was established with a two-fold purpose. First, to develop a recommendation for a comprehensive long-range plan that addresses the projected enrollment trends and ensures that we are maximizing the use of our schools and facilities. And second, the committee was charged with evaluating whether to recommend placing a continuation of the maintenance and operations override on the November 2025 ballot. As the board may recall, we had a committee presentation on that decision earlier this year, and our board did vote to place the M&O override on the ballot. The first recommendation or the first purpose of the committee, the recommendation of the

005long-range plan, is anticipated to be presented to the governing board on September 16th. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Herman to share some more updates on a few more slides that the committee has already seen. And then I will jump back in to take us a little bit further into some discussion about choice schools. So with that, Mr. Herman. Thank you, Superintendent Tenius. So, as she mentioned, we're going to talk about a few slides that were just highlighted during the committee work. And this slide provides a look at both our historical enrollment and projections for the next five years. And as you'll recall from previous presentations, under the long-term trend service rate scenario, we are anticipating a continued decline in enrollment, about 1,100 fewer students district-wide by the 2030-2031 school year.

006That would bring our total enrollment to just over 11,000 students, a significant shift that will have direct implications for how we utilize our facilities, how we allocate resources, and how we plan for the future. The projected decline reinforces the importance of having a thoughtful, strategic, and long-range plan in place for our district. And this slide shows the historical relationship between student enrollment and the number of school campuses in operation across our district. And at the height of Kyrene's enrollment, you can see that high point being about 20,000 students who were served across 25 campuses with six middle schools and 19 elementary schools. However, as enrollment has steadily declined, the number of schools has not changed. And for comparison, when the district previously had around 12,000 students, which is similar to where we are today, it

007operated just three middle schools and 11 elementary schools. This contrast highlights a key challenge that we face today, that our current school footprint is no longer aligned with the size of our student population. Maintaining more campuses with fewer students affects our ability to operate efficiently and deliver the best possible educational experience for our students. And as we just saw, the number of schools in operation has not adjusted alongside with the district's enrollment decline. And this mismatch between student population and facility footprint has growing consequences. And this problem statement that you see was considered by our committee. Kyrene was built to serve 20,000 students, yet over the next five years, enrollment is expected to fall to approximately 11,000 students. And this just isn't a demographic shift. It also translates to a projected $7 million funding loss

008for the district. In addition, the maintenance and operations override that our superintendent referenced earlier is currently providing about $14.6 million annually. And those funds provide essential programs and services such as special area instruction, reduced class sizes, competitive education salaries. and virtual support services. And without the continuation of that override, the district would face the challenge of identifying an additional $14.6 million in budget reductions on top of the $7 million loss that's tied and expected with our declining enrollment. You've seen this as board members before, this slide, but it's worth reminding ourselves of what it represents. And Kyrene has always been intentional about where our dollars go. About 75% of our operating budget goes directly to classroom spending. And so this graph really kind of shows what our targets are and our goals are as we

009put together a budget every year and maximizing dollars that go into our classroom. That 75% is well above the state and peer averages, and it places us in the top 10 districts in Arizona for putting the highest percentage of operational funds into instruction, and again, in the classroom to benefit our students. And that commitment doesn't change, regardless of what happens with our budget. And as we move through long-range planning and make decisions about our future, we will continue to prioritize student learning and maintain at least that 75% of our operating budget going into the classroom because that's where it makes the greatest impact for our students. These five principles on this slide show what has guided the committee's work, and the focus is on a two- to five-year window to maintain financial balance and strengthen

010our schools. The plan centers on facilities as a key to that sustainability, and multiple options have been evaluated to identify those that best advance district goals while also minimizing the overall impacts. Every decision is student-centered, with phased implementation anticipated to ensure thoughtful and well-supported transitions. Kyrene uses four levers to address the challenges that we face in declining enrollment and funding. Levers one and two that you see on this slide are adjustments to staffing and central budgets, and those are addressed annually through the regular budget process that we undertake every year, and those things are not the focus of tonight's session. Tonight's primary focus is on level 3, which is prioritizing programs and school supports to ensure that they are sustainable and aligned with our overall district goals. We'll also briefly touch on level 4, which

011involves school configuration and facility optimization, reflecting the committee's long-range planning work. Each of these levers is designed to lead us toward one unified outcome, which is to be better resourced in our schools that preserve the quality of education and the Kyrene experience. So we'll talk a little bit more about that strategic lever four and some of the things that go into school configuration and optimizing our facilities. And first, you know, I think it's important to talk a little bit about some of the overall dollars that are involved with some of the decisions and questions that the committee was asking. So this slide summarizes the financial savings the committee reviewed when analyzing the impact of what would be involved with closing an elementary or a middle school. And so the estimates that you see on this

012slide break down potential savings into three key areas. The first is personnel cost, the second being day-to-day operational expenses, and the third being future capital project needs. These estimated amounts represent the average cost per school, and they could change based on whether the district continues to own and operate the building into the future. This information was shared with the committee early in the process to help them frame the financial implications of school configuration decisions and inform the broader conversation about long-term financial sustainability. The committee also explored four different approaches on how to address the challenge of declining enrollment in underutilized facilities. The first is looking at options that would have minimal change. looking at capacity-driven decisions, program redesign, and then finally regional planning. And after thoughtful discussion and analysis, the committee reached consensus on prioritizing

013two of these approaches. The top choice was the regional approach, which focuses on closing schools and changing boundaries within existing regions. And the second approach that was chosen was redesign. So in our meetings, this visual was shared with the committee and illustrates how the district is divided into regions and highlights several geographic factors that add some complexity to our overall school planning. And one of those considerations is the major I-10 freeway that runs through the heart of Kyrene and our district boundaries. And historically, school boundaries have not crossed that freeway. And that pattern continues to influence how communities are organized and how students access each of their individual schools. This map also reflects how spread out the district is as we span over multiple cities and neighborhoods, which again adds to the complexity of redrawing

014boundaries in a way that is both practical and equitable. And in addition to serving families within our boundaries, about a quarter of our overall student population comes from open enrollment outside of the district boundaries. And this makes the positioning of schools especially important, not only for neighborhood access, but also for maintaining Kyrene's appeal to families choosing to attend from other areas. And after reviewing this data, the committee came to consensus on the number of regions it wanted the demographer to use for future model development. The top choice was a four-region model with five regions being the second preference. Those configurations will be brought back for further discussion and analysis at the next committee meeting. And as the committee explored the number of recommended regions, it also considered the importance of having consistent grade-level configurations across

015the district. And the committee came to a consensus that maintaining kindergarten through five elementary schools and sixth grade through eighth grade middle schools consistently throughout the district should be the preferred configuration moving forward. This recommendation supports the goal of delivering a more coherent and consistent experience for all of our students across the entire district. So on the next two slides, we presented some key data that the committee used to inform its consensus decisions around school configuration and also regional planning. Each slide shows projected enrollment, site capacity, and resulting occupancy rates over the next five years. First for middle schools, which are shown on this slide, and then for elementary schools, which we'll show on the next slide. Each scenario that you see listed shows the available capacity, with the orange amounts showing the projected enrollment

016along with the occupancy rate over those next five years, and the gray amounts showing the remaining seats that would be available over each time period. By comparing projected student enrollment with the number of schools currently operating, the committee was able to assess how fully our campuses might be utilized in different ways into the future. And this analysis helped highlight where there may be opportunities to improve both the occupancy rates and also ensure more efficient use of our district resources. So this is the same information as far as occupancy rates, future enrollments, and available seats, but it's just displayed for our grades kindergarten through fifth grade. And ultimately, this data supported the committee's recommendations regarding the number of regions in the preferred grade level structure, guiding the next phase of modeling our boundaries in our long-range

017planning. The committee's consensus on grade level configurations and the number of regions represents two critical parameters that will guide the next phase of work. And these decisions provide the foundation for the demographer to develop future boundary models and scenarios, which again will be brought back to the committee for review and possible refinement. And this ultimately would support a final consensus on long-range school configuration recommendations that would come back to the governing board. Next, I'm going to turn it back over to our superintendent to talk a little bit about the strategic lever number three. So the first part, obviously, was a recap from everything that we've been talking about up to now over the last few months from the long range plan. So this next part, strategic lever three, is really about mostly about our programs

018and our choice opportunities in Kyrene. And we'd just really like to get some feedback from the board this evening and really hear any questions, thoughts, anything that's weighing on you after we share this. So, you know, as we move into Level 3, our focus really shifts to choice opportunities. And you hear a lot of words in Kyrene. You'll hear choice schools. You'll hear choice programs. We really want to talk about what they look like today, how they're defined, and the challenges that come with them. Choice. has been a long part of our district's histories and offerings, giving families options that align with their educational priorities. And it's an important consideration in our long-range planning. So when we talk about a choice school, we really are talking about a school with a very specific curriculum, a

019whole school focus, dedicated staffing, and a program that's integrated into every part of the school day. Think of our dual language schools. There are other examples as well, but that's just a really good example. A choice program, on the other hand, is something that can be layered into the curriculum. It can range from a single class to a broader area of interest for the whole school, but it's not the sole focus. So an example might be we have arts integration schools, we have some STEM schools, we have AVID schools. There's a lot of programs at our campuses that could be happening at any campus. So in Kyrene, the lines between those two are not always clear. So it is a little bit muddy and we have not maybe done our best job to define those

020over the years. And so we're going to try to get more clear when I talk about what a choice school is here in a minute. And so. There's also some other things that, in addition to not always being clear, what we are learning is there's sometimes some implementation challenges as well that we have to consider as we're determining whether we can make something a whole school or a program. Sometimes it's things such as legislative changes that can impact curriculum. We just recently felt that at one of our schools where a curriculum that we had been using. is no longer allowed to be the core and is going to have to be the supplemental. And so sometimes that can impact some of the decisions that we're making in these choice models. There also can be, you

021know, sometimes our self-contained programs can limit our staffing and our enrollment flexibility. When you have a very small strand within a school, it gets really difficult when you're trying to staff efficiently. And if you... don't have the right enrollment or you have too much enrollment and it's such a small portion of the school. And then some choice opportunities in our district. It's been really an interesting, and I wasn't here when a lot of these decisions were made over time, but what I do know is we only have two. super boundary open enrollments, boundaries in our district. And both of them involve our dual language schools. So they're called super boundaries for those that may be a new term. And what that means is at some point, the district made a decision to create a boundary

022that... basically took two schools and put them in one big boundary. And the families are told, if you don't want to be in dual language, then the other school is your home school. So even if I live right next door, I'm just gonna use Lagos as an example. If I live right next door to Lagos, but I don't want a dual language program, then Estrella is my home school. That same super boundary exists for Ninos and Norte. Those are our only, that's the closest thing we have to what's a true open enrollment school. I'm going to talk a lot about what a true open enrollment school is here in a minute and many districts. And when I say true open enrollment, it's 100% open enrollment. There may not be transportation when you have an open

023enrollment school because you have no boundary. So we don't have any boundary list schools right now. And what we're going to talk about tonight is the idea of that might be something we want to consider. And so I just wanted to kind of share the landscape that we're working in today. And I think that's going to be an important context as we talk about these next few items. There we go. So as we consider the future of choice in Kyrene, it's also important, and I'm not going to read all these questions to you, but we have some guiding questions up there for you to sort of peek at. But as we consider the future of choice in Kyrene, it's really important that we approach the conversation with a clear framework. And so we've been thinking

024about, we need to be thinking carefully about how each option aligns to our Kyrene promise. We need to be thinking about the impact on enrollment. Obviously, that's a big part of this conversation. We need to be thinking about the resources that this requires and whether these programs can actually be sustained over time. So we've really, as a district administrative team, have started to really take a deep dive into all of our program offerings across the district and asking ourselves these questions. We also have been thinking a lot about needing to be really mindful of avoiding duplication and making sure that our investments are having the greatest possible impact that they can have. So it's important to note that many of the programs that we define as choice, as I said, could continue regardless of what

025school building they're in. That is not going to be an issue. However, we do believe that as a district, we believe that it's strategically important for Kyrene to identify one or two signature choice schools, meaning open enrollment, open enrollment drivers. We bring in a lot of kids to these schools. They are going to help the issue with some of our enrollment. And so these schools would be open enrollment only. which means that in all likelihood, we may not be able to provide transportation. We already don't for kids that are coming outside of the district. We could talk about there are options if we wanted to explore a hub type transportation because you wouldn't have a boundary on this choice school. And then again, as I stated, with the impact of, you know, in addition to

026having to look at downsizing and. and right-sizing in our buildings, we also can look at what strategies can we use to start to increase enrollment. And so that's what we're doing here is thinking about, you know, not just addressing it from how we... how we also build opportunity. So tonight we're going to focus on two such opportunities. Both we already offer in some form in Kyrene, either as a school or a program, and that would be our dual language and our gifted education. So we're going to take a deeper dive into each of those, and we're going to explore how they could serve as the flagship offerings for Kyrene's future. So before we dive, and you all board members have a copy of this data as well, before we dive deeper into the possibilities for

027dual language and gifted education as signature choice schools, I would think it's really important for us just to understand our current enrollment picture, specifically where are our students coming from? So this slide really breaks down our enrollment by our boundary status. So both as a percentage, you can see on the top. portion and then we did the raw numbers, the actual head counts at the bottom. So it gives us a clearer picture of how many of our students are attending their neighborhood schools, how many are coming from within Kyrene but outside the school's boundaries, so they're in the district's boundaries but not in their home school boundary, and how many are actually joining us through open enrollment from outside the district. So you can see the yellow is our open enrollment outside the district. Our

028blue is our open enrollment inside the district. And our orange is actually homeschools. Again, if you look at Lagos and Norte, our dual language schools, I explained that super boundary. That is why you don't see any homeschool kids. You don't see orange in that area because their homeschool is either Estrella or Ninos. So all kids that are registered at Norte. Lagos and Norte are registered as either an in-district or an out-of-district open enrollment student. You can kind of start to see the breakdown. We've tried to separate this by a couple of our program schools where we do offer some level of program of choice. And then, of course, by grade levels as well. So it's a really good picture just to get a feel of where kids are choosing and what our open enrollment looks

029like. There's a couple sites on there that I think are really interesting where you see about a third and a third of their population. being either open enrollment in district, out of district, or home schools. So we just think this understanding this breakdown is critical because the success of any choice school really will depend on its ability to attract and sustain enrollment and often from beyond the immediate neighborhood. All right, so let's dive a little bit deeper into dual language education first. As you are probably all aware, dual language is one of Kyrene's most distinctive and sought-after offerings. This program not only builds bilingualism and biliteracy, but also fosters a cultural understanding and academic achievement. Currently, Kyrene offers dual language in two K-5 elementary schools. And in middle school, we have two middle schools that

030are offering a strand, what we call a strand of dual language, because the entire school is not dual language. It's really a program within the school. So right now, we offer one on each side of the freeway, providing access to families across our district. As we think about the future of choice in Kyrene, dual language represents a strong opportunity to serve students in a unique way while also attracting families from across and beyond our boundaries. And so I'm going to share some data about what we know about where our dual language families are actually coming from and what the projections are looking like in the future for our dual language program. As I said, this is a signature Kyrene program. It is something that... We have a real opportunity here with our dual language. So

031we're excited about that. So diving into, let's look at Lagos first. So this slide, and I know those dots are a little bit small to see if you're not next to the screen, but this slide focuses on Lagos, one of our current dual language schools. This map shows where Lagos students are coming from. And it's clear to us that the vast majority are actually neighborhood students at Lagos. So when we look at the enrollment projections, where you see the you know, the concentration of the dots, that's Lagos right there. But when we look at the enrollment projections, if you look over to the left, you'll see in 26-27 for next year, Lagos is projected to be at about 363 students. In about five years, Lagos is projected to be at about 316 over the next

032five years, which is well below the capacity of Lagos. You know, I think we've shared this with the long range plan. Operating, when you begin to operate schools so far under capacity, it really starts to present challenges for the school. It can leave a school under-resourced. It makes it more difficult to provide the full range of programs, services, and staffing needed to support students. And, you know, we've really looked at, in order to continue to operate a school, really what is that range that you would need to keep a school full and operating at this level of capacity. as I said, just really create some challenges for us from a fiscal standpoint to afford to continue to keep that school. So when you look at Norte, it tells a little bit of a different story.

033So again, if you look at the map, this shows where students are coming from. And unlike Lagos, Norte is actually drawing from a broader area that includes both neighborhood and out-of-boundary students. And when you look at the enrollment projections over time, Norte is projected to remain stable at around 500 students over the next five years. There's a slight fluctuation in there in 27, 28, 28, 29, but then they bounce right back to where they are now. So Norte's enrollment, as we shared, is much more spread out. If you go back to, I guess I can't go backwards. Let me try this. There we go. If you go back here, you can see that Norte, about 59% of Norte's families are coming from outside the district. So when you think about where all those dots were

034on that map, it makes up about 59% of the population. Also important to note, this is a new data slide that we have not shared yet. You know, when we start to think... about the number of classrooms per grade level. I think we talked about this when we had a staffing conversation, you know, that really for effective planning and collaboration, the ideal is about four at a minimum. You know, four or five is a nice number, but four is a really nice number for planning. When you start to get below four, it becomes more difficult as a grade level, especially when you get to two teachers per grade level. And in some cases, you know, we're going to have some schools that could potentially be at one. But at Kyrene de los Logos, this trend

035is particularly pronounced as you see the number of projected classrooms per grade level over the next five years. If we were to play this out, we would have half the school at about two teachers per grade level and three in the rest of the grades. So, again, having so few sections just really puts some limitation on collaboration. It also creates challenges in delivering a robust dual language experience. And it can also create some challenges in grade level staffing and our class size. The smaller you get, the harder it is. when it comes to creating balanced class sizes. So we've taken this data and we also looked at it from the lens of, well, what if we had one dual language? There we go. And so if we looked at the projected enrollment, if we were

036to consolidate two dual language campuses and offer one dual language campus, one dual language K-5 site, over the next five years, this is what it would look like. We would expect enrollment of more than 800 students, 863 in 26-27, and about 816 in 30-31. We understand that not all families may choose to go, but we are looking at what current population is and basing those projections off that. We also understand that we may attract some new families to dual language. But, you know, really this would give us a school of about 800. a significant number of schools that have capacity up to eight or 900 elementary schools that we would be able to look at. This would create a strong, sustainable enrollment base that would support a robust staffing, balanced class sections, and the full

037instructional team needed for a high quality dual language program. At this stage, we're not even talking about the location other than if we were to. merge and or consolidate and have one dual language campus, we believe that we would want to be sure that it could hold anywhere from eight to 900 students. We think it's going to be an important number as we continue to try to grow this program and possibly even more, right? If we can, if a location presents itself, that makes sense. You don't just worry about the size. We also do need to worry about where the dots are coming from, and you need to make it accessible for people. And so those would be considerations. What we're really talking about is one of the things that we're going to have to

038do is give the demographer, yes, run models with one dual language or run with two. Again, if we run with two, there is a strong likelihood that one of them in future years would not be able to maintain at enrollments that low because the school would be too low. And we've really talked about it's not a such, you know, in other cases where we're looking at schools with 300 kids in a building. When we run these models and we're looking at potentially if we were to close some other schools, kids would get rebound read. We can't just read boundary other kids to logos. Right. So that's something that that's a challenge in this situation. So that's not an option because. unless we were to say half the school is dual language and half the school's

039not. That would be the only other alternative if we didn't merge the programs. So we've been really thoughtful about that. And we actually think from a resource standpoint, from a staffing and a collaboration standpoint, and having all the supports they need. So having a school of, you know, 800 kids, two schools of 800 kids that are partially dual language and partially not is not going to be near as effective as having one dual language campus. I also just want to share a little bit of data on the middle school because I think it's important. This is probably one of the areas we really struggle, especially at one of our locations right now, to hire dual language teachers in middle school. It's getting harder and harder for us to staff. So this slide just really shows

040our projections for our two middle school dual language programs. So just as we saw at the elementary level. You know, we believe that the data is suggesting we'd be better off combining and would strengthen enrollment and provide a more sustainable model. And so if we merge, if we consolidate into one. dual language K-5 campus, then we would identify one middle school to continue the dual language program. If we are to keep two, and we talked about, you know, having a dual language school that has some dual language kids and some not dual language, some students who are not, then we could consider still keeping two middle schools. In addition, you know, again, I do want to say, though, if we go to the two school model where you have some kids that are open enrollment,

041dual language, you would have to boundary the school then if you're going to have some neighborhood schools. So it gets very messy to do that. And we are not making that recommendation at all. But that would be the other way to get the school to capacity. Again, we really believe putting all the dual language students together is going to be the best. And so I also wanted to show if we were to merge our middle school programs, the other efficiency we see, even though this isn't a whole school like the data that Chris showed about closing schools, this is just looking at it by a program level. If we were to combine the programs based on putting the kids together, you can see there's some additional savings in reductions that you would need in dual

042language teachers. Those are small numbers. And so, yes, they don't have a significant financial impact. But I will tell you, because this is such a hard to fill position, they have a huge impact in making sure that we're having quality teachers in front of our kids for dual language. And so if we need less teachers, that really, really helps us a lot being able to fill the positions and not have to put in subs or not have to offer it through online learning. So in summary, I just want to say, you know, the district administration has really, really dug into this data. We've been looking at the stuff that the Long Range Plan Committee is doing along the way. We've been working with the demographer. And really, we believe that consolidating our dual language program

043into one open enrollment, I'm going to call it a signature open enrollment elementary school and having one middle school strand. So obviously, the middle school strand would have more kids would really help to strengthen our enrollment. potentially drive in new enrollment for the district, maximize our resources, and ensure that our staffing and program quality needed to make the dual language a flagship choice school offering for Kyrene. So I'm going to stop on dual language and jump over to gifted, and then you're going to have some time to give us some feedback. So our next focus area is gifted education, another program that is offered district-wide and plays an important role in serving the diverse needs of our students. So Kyrene provides gifted services at every school, built on the belief that a gifted student's potential

044requires differentiated instruction. We've developed a continuum of services across K-8. Every elementary school has a gifted certified teacher who provides resource services and works closely with classroom teachers. At the middle school level, we have gifted and talented education gate facilitators who teach gate courses, develop curriculum, and provide professional development for other gate teachers. In addition, we have two self-contained gifted programs at our K-5 schools, both Monta Vista and Murata. So for gifted, I just want to look at the enrollment of our students identified as gifted. So it gives you an idea of how many students we have in the district. So in grades K-5, you can see that enrollment has stayed fairly stable over the last five years. So if you see that first column right now, we have approximately 900 to 1,000 students that

045are identified each year as gifted across the district. row or column, it's our K-5 schools. When you look at the next column, it's our 6-8 schools. So you can see the breakdown of middle school versus elementary. And then from that, you can see how many of those students are choosing a self-contained model. And so at and that is combined both Murata and Monta Vista numbers. Those numbers are combined. So, again, as of last year, we had almost it looks like about 900 students just over identified as gifted. Five hundred and twenty three in the elementary and about one hundred and sixty three of the five hundred and twenty three are going to a self-contained school. So, you know, we believe that really we should look at what's happening with our competition. Where are we potentially

046losing students? And that's what brought our gifted conversation to the forefront here. And so when we looked at our competitive landscape, it is very clear to us that there is a strong demand for gifted programming. And other districts and charters are aggressively meeting that demand. Horizon and Basis both... in this area are marketing their curriculum as gifted to all students. Chandler has multiple gifted academies and then even self-contained gifted options on top of that that take you all the way from elementary school through high school now. Tempe Elementary just opened a new gifted academy this year. They are starting, I believe, in third. She just stepped out. Third to fifth grade, and then they're working their way backwards. They'll add kids. Just so you know, we confirmed today, not only did they have a wait

047list immediately, they ended up opening more sections, and they're back to a wait list. So it is obviously a very competitive and strong program. We were able to gather some numbers, not from every single, because I don't have every single one. individually, and I do not know at this point Tempe Elementary, but what I can tell you is over the past couple years, we've lost approximately a thousand students to these programs is what we've been able to verify. So it's a significant number of students we're losing because we clearly don't have that opportunity here in our district. So You know, and at the same time, interest in our gifted programming within Kyrene remains high, but our offerings are really spread out across multiple sites and often embedded within general education settings. We are limited. We

048don't get a whole lot of extra funding from the state for gifted education. This isn't something, you know, that the state's throwing a whole lot of money out for us. We do get a very small amount, but we are pretty limited. Most of our gifted teachers, if it's not at a self-contained. are all traveling teachers. They're running to different sites. They're doing some pullout. It's very limited what we're able to do with the resources that we have, where we believe if we could consolidate into a gifted academy, whatever we could change, you know, it doesn't have to be called that. That's the idea of it, though, that that would really serve our community really, really well. We also believe this should be an open enrollment. signature choice school that would allow us to build a

049real concentrated high quality program that could become very visible and marketable within the community, compete with our head-to-head with our other high demand options, and attract both in-district and out-of-district families. So again, our recommendation and what administration's been looking at here is that we really believe a K-5 gifted academy would allow Kyrene to step confidently into the competitive landscape, not just keeping pace, but leading. we would be the top out of all those I named there as soon as we had one. I have no doubt about that in Kyrene. We have high demand right here in our own community, and families are already traveling outside of Kyrene to access specialized gifted options. So by creating a single, highly visible gifted academy, we can concentrate our resources, build a program that rivals or exceeds our challengers,

050and brings families back into our district. So this isn't just about serving gifted students better. which I think it will also do that. It's about positioning Kyrene as the first choice for families who value academic challenge, creativity, and innovation. So I just want to share our immediate next steps, or our next steps, and some immediate next steps is the final meeting of the Long-Range Plan Committee on August 27th. At that meeting, the committee is going to address several important items. They're going to review some legal requirements around public hearings that will be scheduled, around... what regulations there are around the land use, whether you sell buildings, lease land, all of those things go into some details. Also provide an update on choice schools to the committee so that they can hear some feedback from this

051committee. The Long Range Plan Committee is not making any decisions on what we're presenting this evening. We're just sharing this information. Really, this evening is about I need some. feedback and administration needs to come together tomorrow and give Mr. Brammer, our demographer, some final information so he could run those models. So again, the goal of the August 27th meeting then will be we are going to have some actual models. That is where names of schools and what the committee will come to consensus on that will be proposed on September 16th to the governing board. And the tentative timeline that we have shared and we shared with the long-range plan is obviously our study session this evening, kicks off the rest of this season, if you will. August 27th is the long-range plan committee meeting. And

052then September 16th, we are anticipating a board presentation. No action for the board to take on that night unless the board wants to, to give us action. Yes, move forward with going forward with the public hearings. based on the recommendation or if the board says committee go back and bring a different recommendation before we do the public hearings that would be the board's determination at that time. We would like to host regional public hearings between October and November. And then the board would hear the final presentation from the committee on December 2nd. In that meeting, not to vote, just to hear the presentation, get any clarifying questions. And then on December 16th, the board would vote. So for our newer board members. I'm not going to say that much longer. You're going to be hitting

053a year for we typically have a practice in Kyrene that when it's something this big, especially we like to hear the presentation, go through all the details first with the board, give the board a chance to really sit on that, ask any additional questions and then bring it back for a final vote in two weeks later in the meeting. The reason the December date is important, though, is that if we want to meet the enrollment timelines of January when we start putting out enrollment for families, it's really important that we're able to tell families what their options are for the next school year. And so if we don't, for some reason, have a decision by December 16th, it just pushes out what we can share with families and makes enrollment time a little more complicated

054for them. So, you know, I just want to wrap up by saying an important step in this process will obviously be what decisions we make to inform the demographer about whether or not we think we should consolidate the dual language program into one K-5 and whether or not we should go ahead and move forward with a signature choice K-5 gifted academy. So these decisions will be critical for him to be able to build accurate enrollment models, which will... ultimately inform the recommendations that the Long-Range Plan Committee is looking at. So that really concludes everything we have tonight. We just wanted to start the conversation with the board and give you a chance to share any thoughts, questions, or feedback as we move forward with this work. Thank you, Superintendent Tenius. Thank you, Mr. Herman. Board

055members, this is an opportunity to ask comments, ask questions, provide feedback. So I'll open it up. I'll start. Hello. So first off, I've been a member of the Long Range Planning Committee. That committee has been in operation since, I can't believe, since February. So it's been a lot of work, but I really want to say thank you. I see him in the audience, Mr. Brammer. We mentioned the demographer. The work he does is truly tremendous, and his organization works with districts across the valley. very thoughtful and, and I can see your handiwork in some of the slides here, especially, which is actually getting to my question, um, around when we're projecting the dual language and the combining, and even in terms of the gifted Academy, the thing that sticks out to me is. The schools

056that are truly open enrollment, my main concern is transportation. One of the things we really prize here in Kyrene is, you know, equitable access. And I feel as though for some of our families who might live in boundaries, and you can kind of see them, see the little dots all over the map, you know, consolidating some of those schools might limit those choices for parents who aren't, they might value dual language, but they aren't able to transport their kid from point A to point B. I know as far as gifted identification, something we have moved to, which I'm extremely proud of is that universal identification, which is really important. But I wonder how important that actually becomes if my child is identified as gifted. However, I can't get to new site. So then what happens

057to you know, the differentiation that that child might need. And so I, and I, and I always know that transportation is a hurdle. So if anybody would like to become a bus driver for Kyrene, we have plenty of openings. But that's something that I'm really concerned about. I mean, our parents that were here at our last meeting, you know, spoke really eloquently about that with our athletics program. We came up with those solutions. So I was at least pleased to hear potential around, like, hub transportation or things like that. I understand the necessity to not just close, but to also find ways to bring in, but just not wanting to lose track of maybe some of our kids on the margins. So great question. We've had a lot of in-depth discussion about this. And Mr.

058Herman wins that he knew that would be the number one question. We've actually asked ourselves that same question quite a bit. So I want to explain a couple of things. And so I'll try to, it may bounce around a little bit just because there was a lot there. On the gifted, I do want to explain, it does not mean if we have a gifted academy that we would not still continue to offer some level of gifted services across every school. So that is what other districts do as well. So we will talk about exactly what that means. So there still would be the opportunity for a family that didn't want a gifted academy, because there are some families that will still choose to have their children in a... non-gifted academy and, but still want some

059services, those would still be offered. Um, but when it comes to transportation, so there's a couple things, one of the things, and I didn't share this when I shared the slide. And so I'm so glad you asked this question because we've had this conversation so much. When we created a super boundary, we unintentionally created a problem that nobody had foreseen. And what happens is when you just now say this whole group is the boundary and it makes up two schools. What we've done is we've unintentionally pushed families who cannot access dual language for whatever reason. Maybe they're on an IEP. Maybe they're on a 504. They are now all going. And so what has happened is our schools that aren't part of the super boundary have elevated IEP numbers. So what we don't want to

060do is do the same model where we created a super boundary again because that unintentionally creates some other issues. Um, and so we're trying really hard to be thoughtful about. If you are to do this, then what it really does is create no boundary. Now, when I say that, where I'm talking about the hub is that it actually would open more opportunities for families within the district because right now, and I'll use Lagos as the example, if you live in the super boundary, you're the only one getting transportation to Lagos. So it doesn't matter if you live in our district and you're coming to Lagos for dual language, if you don't live in the super boundary, you're not getting transportation from us. And so the same for Ninos and Norte. So, you know, if we're

061able to pull off a hub type idea, it actually opens the door for more kids to have transportation. The interesting thing, when you start to look at how many are already coming from outside of our district or traveling within our district, it's pretty clear our families travel. even within our own district right now, because most of our schools that are open, you know, most of our schools accept some level of open enrollment. And I know we're not getting into all schools tonight, but when you look at our data, almost all of our schools have a pretty good chunk. And I think if you go back to the slide that shows the percent of in-district, none of the students that are in or out are getting transportation in those, only the homeschool kids. So we do

062have a lot of kids already very mobile. And then for the gifted academy, I think the thing that we really talked about is if we have a thousand kids that live in our district, they're already choosing an alternative outside of our district. They're providing their own transportation to those alternatives. So do we think that having an alternative within our own district for those, you know, to try to attract those families back would be beneficial? So, again, it's the super boundary. Right now, Murata and Monta Vista do not have a super boundary for self-contained. But, again, they're just a small program within a school. And as these schools continue to get smaller, it's going to continue to get harder to staff them and harder to maintain. a self-contained model. And so we've really landed on at

063a minimum, we would probably need to merge the self-contained model similar to like what we're talking about dual language, but then you'd be identifying one campus to have a self-contained program, not two. Just because that's getting more and more complicated as we start to continue to decrease enrollment. So, yes, there are some transportation challenges as we consider this over the next few years. And again, whether we could pull off the hub model, that would be lovely, because I think that's something our families would appreciate across the district. Ask my next question. Thanks. So you talked about earlier the difference between, you know, we have these, the dual language, the gift academy as. actual choice schools, right? But then what we're saying, just making sure I'm following this correctly, once we hit middle school, those schools

064would then become programs or strands within a school. So still, that would not change. Okay. So we aren't thinking of replicating that at the six to eight model at all. Okay. No. And the only thing that would change is Sorry. The only thing that would change at the middle school is possibly the number of locations. So, right, if we could condense to one location instead of two middle schools where we're trying to run some of these. Currently at middle school, we run gifted what's called gate classes at every middle school. That would still continue. One of the things that we would be looking at, depending on what we landed on with gifted, is wherever that was positioned, is there a close middle school that then could be a feeder pattern for that? So the kids

065could stay in their cohort if they wanted to. It doesn't mean they would have to if I live in another part of our district and I want to go to my home middle school. I can always go back to my home middle school. And now I have gate classes as well. So I would still have gifted opportunities. It also, you brought up a question you didn't directly ask, but I think it ties into this. All those other. things that I talked about, STEM, arts, traditional, all those other things can continue no matter where they're at, right? It doesn't matter what building. It's not a, you don't have to be an open enrollment school. I will tell you, and I know I have Dr. Lesher here, her, and I had a lovely conversation about this the

066other day. When the district first... went to a traditional model at a school, they had a very in-depth conversation about whether they were going to make that an open enrollment school only or if it was just going to be a neighborhood school. where they're positioned, you know, we're pretty close to Chandler. Chandler has a whole lot of traditional academies and they landed on go ahead and keep it a neighborhood school. And I will tell you, when we look at the enrollment, it's mostly neighborhood kids. There's some open enrollment, but it's not near as much as what we thought it might drive in. And that's partly because our competitor has that and they have the space for them. And so, you know, we're not pulling as many kids from Chandler when you think about where KTA

067is located when they have it right there. So some of it's about being, you know, strategic about where you position schools if you're going to have an open enrollment choice program like gifted or dual language. Great. My final question, I'm curious, it's on slide 24, you talked about the class, the teachers per classroom. And I'm curious for schools that, I know we have our district model that determines staffing. Is there any consideration given to that for a dual language or a gifted program? Like, do they follow the same staffing model as our general education schools? Yes. However, and I may look to the team that's here. I have all of our principals are in the house and our enrollment team here. Yes, I'm looking for that slide here. One second. Just so I can. There

068we go. So we use the same staffing ratios for class size. at all of our schools. Our teaming models like Menedes are a little bit different just because that's such a completely different model. But for our traditional class rooms that are a single classroom teacher, yes, we use the same class size ratios. What is different in dual language is that they pair. So when they hire, they're looking for a English speaking, to teach the English speaking and somebody that can teach the Spanish speaking portion of the day. So they pair up. But it's still the same number of children in the classes. Thank you, Vice President Nelson. Other feedback? I have a quick question. Please, Member Seyfried. Building on what Member Nelson was asking about, I want to understand more about the capacity part of

069the model and how we determine what exactly the capacity is. When these numbers come across, obviously it's for the entire school, but does that reflect what the classroom sizes are going to be? Can you tell me which slide? I'm sorry. It's okay. I just want to make sure I'm looking at the... 15? 16? So the ones that we shared in the committee. Yeah. Let me get to those. So those don't necessarily, that's whole school. That doesn't impact class size. So class size ranges, we set every year the annual targets, which they've really been the same for the last couple of years. So that does not matter per se. What matters is this is whole school. So you're looking at this from a whole school level. So if we're thinking of putting those school, like. with

070the dual language. Do the classroom sizes pretty much stay the same across the board? Because what if you have more, you know, more students at this grade level? Yes. So what we do is we take the total. So let's just, I'm going to use some easy numbers here. Let's say we had 100 students at Lagos in grade five and 100 students at Norte in grade five. And we now merge them together and there's 200 students. We take our formula for our class size ranges. And I'm making this number up. I'm not, this is not our class size range, 25. I'm just using an easy number. If 25 is our class size range, you would have four teachers at Norte and four teachers at Lagos because they each had 100 kids. If we merge them, we

071now have 200 and we have eight teachers. So nothing changes. Your class size range is your class size range. We just apply it to the number of kids that are in that grade level. regardless if that number is really small or really high. I will say when you're really small, it gets a little, we run into the issue we've talked about. Sometimes you end up with a little bit, some kids that are way under for one or two years, and then all of a sudden you have a group that's way over. You have less of that problem when you have more classrooms to be able to fill. but it doesn't change your class size. Okay. Yeah. Cause I know our community appreciates those more manageable class sizes and just want to keep that as a

072focus of the model when we look at it. And to be honest, I mean, you know, to be really, really transparent and honest, what really causes us trouble is if we start to get, I don't remember, Chris, if you know the exact number off your top of your head for an elementary school, like there's that little bit of a tipping point. If we get too low, We will eventually, because we won't be able to afford to operate the school, we would have to start to raise class sizes to be able to continue to operate. So that's what scares us. That's one of the reasons why we keep saying better resource schools. If we don't do this, we're going to get to a point where we're going to have no option but to increase class sizes

073if we don't. Right. This helps alleviate that. That's good to hear. Great question. Thank you. Thank you, Member Setry. Member Davis. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank. Member Satri and Member Nelson for their service on this committee. I know it was above and beyond and lots of long meetings. And I also want to thank all the members of the community who gave so generously of their private time to help us figure out how to deal with this situation that we're faced with. So I know there's a great deal of love for this school district in this community. A long history of... community involvement and I think that this committee proved that and showed that. So I thank you guys very much. With that having been said, I feel like this is a

074lot of information to digest. Will we have another chance to ask questions about this at some point? We can talk about that. We may need to. I know our demographer, Mr. Brammer, needs this information to be able to run the models. So if we want to stay on the timeline that we're at to have a recommendation back to the board by September 16th, the committee wants to come to consensus on those models on August 27th. Without the timeline in front of me, I think it's the 27th. You know, we really need to get him that information. That's really important, what we're going to do with programs. we can either set up some more time or we can have a conversation. Yeah, we can always create more time. I think what our demographer needs is some

075direction, but the board is not going to be asked to take any action on this until at the earliest December of 2025. Yeah, I would appreciate that. So I can sort of gather my thoughts based on the outline that we've been given of what's gone on. So that would be helpful to me. I just have one clarification question. At one point, it was mentioned that if kids wanted to go to a gifted program from point A to point B, that One of the reasons they might not is, as I heard this, that's why I want clarification, why they may not is because they have an IEP. And I am aware of gifted... with disability kids. And I just want to just make sure that everybody understands what we're talking about here. Yes. So when we,

076when I gave that example, it wasn't our gifted, it's our dual language academies, the super boundaries that I was talking about. So it's not our gifted at all. And, and, and again, our, our dual language families can also have IEPs. That's not. But we do have families that live within the neighborhood that maybe don't choose that option. And then there's no other option for them unless they go open enrollment. And so what that has done is shifted our population. And we've been watching that over the years. And so we're just very mindful of you don't want to unintentionally create an inequitable environment. Yes. Okay. Thank you. That's my only question at this point. Thank you, Member Davis. First of all, I'd like to second what Member Davis mentioned about the long-range planning committee. Thank you

077guys who all served on that. We know it took a lot of time and things of that nature, so we really appreciate it. The question that I had, Board Member Nelson pretty much asked it about the transportation for the gifted and dual enrollment students. You got that answer thoroughly. But I do want to point out, thank you for clarifying. I mean, I know the difference, but a lot of people may not between the desert, the choice school and choice program. Thank you for laying that out for people. Hopefully they took a picture of that or that's available to them so they can understand the difference between the two, because people often confuse them and they think they're one of the same and they're not. Well, and we've really kind of used language that has led

078to that, maybe not intentionally or unintentionally, but just that, you know, we offer a lot of choice in Kyrene and we value that and always have as a community. That's very clear. Even before I ever came to the district, there was a lot of choice when I got here. So we're just trying to say we believe it's time to identify a couple signature choice options that sets us apart. from a marketing standpoint and really try to get this to be an enrollment driver for the district as we're also tackling the problem from the long-range facility side. I appreciate you thanking the committee. We will have committee members here in our next meeting on our, not our next meeting, in our September meeting that will actually provide, that will be here to provide the recommendation. So

079you'll have a chance to meet and talk to some of our committee members. Thank you, Member Collins. All right, Superintendent Tanyas, I have no questions because you've done a great job presenting the data. I do have some feedback, and I know this is, I think, part of what you and Mr. Brammer are looking for. First off, I appreciate you trying to prioritize students and not necessarily structures. And what I mean is making sure that we're putting the resources where they need to be to provide the best experience for our students. So that, I think, should be our North Star. With choice and choice programs, choice is a reality in Arizona. That's not going to change. Choice is a reality in Kyrene. That's not going to change either, nor should it, based on, I think, the

080reality that we live in. I think we also have to always prioritize having excellent neighborhood schools as well, because I don't want, we've heard before, your educational experience to be determined based on your zip code. So maybe not every choice program can be offered at every school. Certainly, I get that. But regardless of what zip code you were in and what your boundary school is, we have to be delivering an excellent experience. So I think making sure the resources are at the right places furthers that. I think the piece about choice I struggle with a little bit because of are you taking from one school to give to the other school and where does that leave? That being said. I think we have to compete with the gifted program. I think we've heard from our

081community that's something that's important to them. I think it's important that we continue to have gifted services throughout the district for those students who cannot or choose not to go to the gifted. But I think that our community is asked for a choice school that's gifted. So I support Mr. Brammer and you exploring that. On the dual language, I agree with you. It is a flagship. program and it's taken a long time to build it. Principal Jaime Soto, Principal Williams, I know AP Vasquez is all here. They've done hero's work making those schools fantastic and well-known. And that takes a long time because you can't, as you mentioned, you can't just drop kids into a dual language program. You really have to get them at the very beginning. because you can't just drop someone who's

082not fluent or at that level in Spanish into third, fourth, fifth grade. It takes a long time to build it. I am worried that it could very quickly be gutted if we're not purposeful in doing some of this work here. I look at the numbers, and I see 490 at Norte. I see 437 at Lagos. I'm not convinced that combining those programs results in 927, because I think you've got a lot of families who are... going to those schools based on their location. And if you're combining these sites into a location that is potentially dramatically less convenient for both of those communities, I worry you could lose a lot of those families. And it's going to be very hard to rebuild. You can't just rebound your way out of losing a dual language program. So

083I think dual language in particular, we have to be very sensitive to not doing anything that's going to inadvertently. undermine our enrollment. I understand the need to try to consolidate resources, but I also say that Lagos is clearly a huge success in its community, and Norte is probably the best location in the district for attracting out-of-boundary students, just given where it is on the edge of the district. So for my part, this is just me, I would be supportive of Mr. Brammer looking at models that keep two separate dual languages on each side of the 10. I understand that there's challenges there. I think there's going to be challenges if we move and try to consolidate. So, um, That's just the feedback that I wanted to give you. And if the committee comes back and

084says it's not workable, I will absolutely listen to all that feedback. But I just want to make sure you heard that from me. Yeah. What I think I shared is if we keep two, we are likely looking at one that will not be a full dual language. It would need to be dual language and. So it would not be just a dual language campus at some point. And if we're honest with ourselves, it's probably Lagos, given what the numbers are. Yeah. So that might be some conversations that we want to have with our Lagos community about, you know, if these are the options, is this something that you would be open to and receptive to? Because that school serves primarily its neighborhood. Yes, it does. But if we keep this as is, we basically would

085be I don't know exactly what the capacity is. off the top of my head what that would be, but it's a significant, it's about half, right? So you'd be operating at about 50% capacity. You would be initially, but I think we could also, because there's potentially not going to be 19 elementary schools when the dust settles, there might be opportunities to try to funnel more of our kinders and first graders into that program. And so, and I know that takes a long time to build back up, but I'd least like to see a model that preserves it as an option. Yeah. Yes, we would not be able to obviously take the upper grades. Like I said, if that is the direction we go with two, we're probably looking at... Lagos needing to be a regular

086school, if you will, and a dual language at the same time. And Kyrene has history doing that. There was a time when Ninos was actually part dual language and part not dual language. So we may be looking at similar to our self-contained models. It becomes much more complicated and it does make the dual language resources harder for the teachers. But, you know, I understand we looked at the same data that it really is a neighborhood. And it could happen that if you moved it to one, that not all your Lagos families would go. But the reality is and there's no guarantee it's going to stay at Lagos. I mean, I do not know what the recommendation will be once the numbers play out. So there's no guarantee it stays at Lagos if we keep one

087on each side of the freeway. But there is there's a strong likelihood if we keep it on that side, we're looking at a model that would be. a dual campus then that's part dual language and part regular. Yeah, I understand the limitations. We can't create kids. I can't create as much as I'd like to. So I can't create bus drivers and I can't create kids. Two things I try every day. So that's my feedback on these choice programs. I know the amount of work that's gone into this has been immense. So thank you to you, the whole team and the committee. Any other feedback on these items? Member Davis. I just wanted to second what you said. Thank you. All right. With that being said, item 1.3, conclude our study session. Our study session, it's

088concluded. It's 6.13 p.m. We've got a packed house, so I'm going to move us right into our regular meeting. Item 2.1 is convene regular meeting. Our regular meeting is called to order. It's 6.14 p.m. At this time, if you do wish to speak to the board during the public portion meeting, you've got to turn in your blue card. You might have it in your hands. Ms. Nancy Moser. Ms. Moser, could you please stand up, please? Thank you. Bring those blue cards on up. If you're writing it right now, I'll give you another minute or so, but bring them on up. Thank you so much. All right, so our school board meetings are always held in public to conduct the business of the district. The meetings are also streamed live on the internet for you to

089watch live. And if you cannot watch a meeting live on the internet, a recording is always made available. on our YouTube channel. Kyrene does have a YouTube channel. Almost right after the meeting, all of our board agendas are made available and posted both on our website and the district office at least 24 hours prior to the start of every meeting. Our superintendent, Ms. Laura Tenius, is here with us this evening, as well as many school leaders and families tonight. Item 2.2 is our roll call. Can board members please state their name for the record? Cedric Collins. Bunny Davis. Amy Seatry. Trina Nelson. And Kevin Walsh. Let the record show we have five board members present this evening. Item 2.3 is the Pledge of Allegiance and the Moment of Silence. This is where I usually invite

090a school leader to lead us in the Pledge and the Moment of Silence. I will ask Principal Jaime Soto from Carine Norte to please lead us. You don't have to come up to the podium. You can just stay right there, Mr. Soto. Thank you. Consider it public. Our wishes stand. Under God. Thank you, Principal Soto. Item 2.4 is our district land acknowledgement. Our district acknowledges our community of schools is located on the ancestral lands of the O'odham Peeposh peoples who inhabited these lands since time immemorial. And with this land acknowledgement, the district formally recognizes the traditional care and keeping of these lands by Native peoples allows us to be here today. Item 2.5 is our Kyrene Promise. We promise to provide welcoming, inclusive learning environments in which every student is honored, valued, and feels a

091strong sense of belonging and purpose. We promise to provide rigorous, responsive learning environments in which every student 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're empowered and prepared to make a meaningful impact on a rapidly changing world. Item 3.1 is our preview and approval of agenda. Do any board members have comments on the agenda? I'm actually going to volunteer a change if it's okay. I believe we have a good number of families that are here regarding the Kyrene de la Sierra matter, and that is on our agenda tonight, and there's a presentation that the district is going to make. Since we have so many family members here, I'd like to just move that

092up and basically be the first thing so that all of our community members that are here can see it. If they've got kids to go home to, they can go home after that. We will also have public comment after that. So if that's okay, I would like to move. Item 7.1, which is the Sierra presentation, right after item 4.2, which is board member statements. I second that. All right. I got a second. My member columns, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 5-0. All right. So item 4.1 is our superintendent report that will be followed by our board member statements, and then we will have the presentation regarding Kyrene de la Sierra. So, Superintendent, thanks. Thank you, President Walsh, governing board members, staff here this evening, and families here this evening

093joining us. I just have a quick little update this evening. So it is hard to believe that we are in our second full week of the 25-26 school year. On the first day of school, I had the pleasure of welcoming families and students back to Kyrene. or even new to Kyrene for the first time at Kyrene de las Brisas, Kyrene Aprende, and Kyrene de los Ninos. It was wonderful to see everyone's excited faces as we kicked off the school year, and I cannot wait to see what our students accomplish in the year ahead. Also, our Kyrene de la Paloma and Kyrene del Pueblo families might have seen a camera crew on their campus on the first day of school. Channels 3 and 5 joined Principals Schakowsky and Dr. Lake for a behind-the-scenes look at back-to-school

094excitement and also talked to district leaders about all things attendance, heat safety, safety and security, and driving for Kyrene. If you're interested in driving a bus, we have some positions. I am so, so proud to share that 21 Kyrene schools have been recognized for their hard work implementing and maintaining positive behavioral interventions and supports, otherwise known as PBIS, to improve academic and behavioral outcomes for students. These awards recognize a school's dedication and commitment to improving student outcomes using consistent PBIS initiatives on campus. This recognition highlights Kyrene's dedication to creating and sustaining school-wide systems of support that improve learning and ensure all students are successful socially, emotionally, and academically. And I'm also excited to share our first positive parenting event in partnership with the Tempe Coalition is scheduled for August 20th on Zoom. Presenter Geronda Montano

095will teach families about brain development and how to support their children in developing resiliency. And with the recommendation from the Long Range Planning Committee, the Governing Board, as you know, has called for a special election November 4, 2025, to consider the continuation of the maintenance and operations override, a voter-approved measure that provides 15% additional funding for school operations. This measure provides funding for special area instruction, educator pay, student support services, and helps keep class sizes smaller by funding the equivalent of 200 teaching positions. And that concludes my superintendent update this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent Tanyas. Item 4.2 is board member statements. The only board members have statements this evening. Member Davis. Thank you. I want to thank all of you for coming tonight. Looking forward to hearing your comments and welcome. It's nice

096to see faces out there. Thank you, Member Davis. Member Satri. Yes. Hello, everyone. I just want to thank, I just want to welcome everyone back to a new school year. I know we've been back for a couple of weeks now, but I'm just wishing everybody a wonderful school year. Thank you, Member Satri. Again, welcome back to everybody. I know it can be difficult to establish new routines for families, for teachers in their new classrooms. I know the beginning of this year has, there's been a lot of different activity. Some of it good, some of it not so great. But one of the things that I've been impressed by over the last few days is the way that the community pulls together. I've seen... different organizations volunteer to help some of our families who were unexpectedly

097in need and really offering to be a shoulder to people who need that in the time of need. And that's one thing that I've always really valued about this community is they feel strongly about caring for their kids. And when one of our communities is suffering, everybody tries to pitch in and see how they can ease that burden. And so something I'm just really grateful to have seen. Thank you, Vice President Nelson. Just echo the sentiment, wishing everyone well this year. I know my two kids went back to school earlier, and it's been a transition. Normally, our next item on the agenda would be our request to speak to the governing board. But per the updated agenda, we're going to switch directly to our Kyrene de la Sierra update. So I'll turn it over to

098Superintendent Tenius. Thank you, President Walsh. Governing board members, those here this evening, especially those here joining us to hear an update on Kyrene de la Sierra. As you are aware, we shared communication with the board last Friday that we had notified Sierra families about an air quality test results that had warranted further investigation. So on Sunday, based on additional testing, we made the decision to temporarily close the Sierra campus and relocate students and staff. Our team is going to spend some time tonight just talking about how we got here and where we're going. But before we get started, I do want to address the decision to keep the campus closed through fall break. This decision allows us to expedite the roofing process so that the portions of the project involving asphalt or off-gassing, sorry, could

099be complete before bringing staff and students back to campus. To be candid, once there has been a finding, like we had this initial finding, again, we're still waiting for the detailed results. of any concern, it is likely to cause a high degree of concern for both families and staff moving forward. So if we had brought everyone back to campus, while smells may still be strong, it would also likely cause undue anxiety. And we also didn't want to risk bringing everyone back and then potentially having to send them away again. So finally, we decided without having the actual, you know, the more in-depth results that we're going to talk about here in a little bit. We just didn't want to leave families hanging week to week. We thought this was a way less disruptive option while

100we potentially wait on the test results. So making the call to go through fall break removed that risk and also reduced the uncertainty for families by letting them know what the next two months will look like. We're also going to talk a little bit about why we weren't able to transition. immediately on Monday. We have plans for something like this that happened. We have contingency plans for this. We obviously learned a lot after when this happened a few years ago. But we have plans for everything, but we do have some limitations that we have to work within. We also, if you know, as you realize as a board, there's a lot of moving pieces. There's transportation, there's food services. We're going to talk about our sealing of our classrooms, I think, in a little bit.

101And so we don't just have access to classrooms like we used to. If the classrooms are just empty, they have been sealed, which means they are not accessible. They have no furniture. They have no technology. They have no. power or electricity because we have shut down portions of the building. So it takes us some time to get those things in place and ready to go. So I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Meade, who's going to present most of this information. And then I think I wrap up and then we're going to give the board a chance to ask any questions. Good evening, Superintendent Tenyes, Board President Walsh and distinguished board members. I would like to begin by outlining the standard health and safety protocols in place for all Kyrete roofing projects. These protocols

102include asbestos containing material, ACM testing, make safety data sheets available, sealing of rooftop air intake systems, completion of roof demolition during summer break, restricted work hours when school is in session. and air quality tested, wind warranty. You can see with the completion of the roof demo, there's an asterisk that's weather permitting. Roofing work was set to begin in late May, but due to weather delays, it began June 6th and continued through the summer. It was originally scheduled for completion in January, and that's not uncommon for schools. Roof projects that go as long as six months, depending on the size, material cure times, and weather. The first concern about smell was reported on Meet the Teacher night. but this is also very common during a roofing project. While odors can be a nuisance, they are not

103necessarily indicative of a health hazard on their own. On Thursday, July 31st, we received a written notification of concern, which escalated this issue to the district office. On Friday... August 1st, due to escalating concerns, we hired a third-party certified industrial hygienist to conduct a preliminary air quality test. During this testing, we also discovered that a key safety protocol was not in place. We require that air intakes be sealed off prior to project starting, and as previously mentioned, it's not clear why they were not in place, and we are looking into that. The preliminary air quality testing results showed elevated VOCs in the air, which stands for volatile organic compounds. These are fumes or vapors. Preliminary testing does not indicate specific compounds, and it was understood from the outset that further analysis would be required. At

104that time, we notified the emergency management team for next steps. On Sunday, August 3rd, A second test again showed elevated VOCs. The certified industrial hygienist recommended closure and mitigation, and the emergency management team convened to take action. Following the certified industrial hygienist readings conducted on August 3rd, we immediately implemented the recommended mitigation strategies. Air intakes have carbon filters installed and have been sealed to prevent fumes from entering the building. The district standard MERV 8 2-inch filters in all rooftop air intakes and HVAC systems have been replaced. Air scrubbers installed by a third-party remediation company with carbon filters have been placed around campus to remove VOCs from the air. Air quality will be tested before students and staff return to campus. When students return to campus, any remaining construction work will be conducted outside of the

105school and kids club hours. I believe I turn this over to Director of Communication and Engagement, Aaron Held. Thank you, Mr. Mead. Yeah, we just have one more slide here. I'm starting to call this the communications caboose slide because I feel like we do close with communications often. But we want you to have an overview of how we have communicated on Friday. Once this was escalated to the emergency management team and we learned of the first preliminary findings, that is when the first community message went out advising families and staff. of that preliminary testing and saying that an update would be provided on Sunday. And then, as you heard, based on Sunday's results, the decision was made to close. The first communication that went out was an all-staff text message. That was followed throughout the

106evening by several emails to staff from Principal Gibson. And then that afternoon, late afternoon, is when we sent the community-wide message advising of closure. the first mitigation steps and then the immediate next steps for learning. The next day yesterday, we did... some broader community outreach for our non-immediate stakeholders. We did that primarily by engaging with news media. We also established the Sierra Roof webpage, which anybody in the public can access. This will serve as centralized information going forward. It contains all of our community communications so far, the mitigation steps, and it will be where we place the timeline for expedited construction. once we have that information. It is also going to be the place where test results are posted. In fact, just this afternoon, we received the first report with the preliminary test results. Those

107are already up on the webpage and ongoing. We've made a commitment to do daily. updates for our community for as long as necessary. We sent one of those updates today. And we have a team in the communications department that is working to respond to all messages that we get through Let's Talk. We get those either submitted directly through our website, or if someone replies to our community messages, it goes into that system as well. I know as of, I think, 10 a.m., every... person who had engaged with us had gotten a response, but I think we've had a couple come in today that the team will catch up on tomorrow. So I think, you know, we wanted to open it up. I know there were some specific board member questions that we wanted to take

108an opportunity to spend some time and answer. Thank you, Superintendent Tenius. My first question is, I think, already answered, and that was... when the test results will be received and will they be made available. These look like the preliminary ones. When do we expect to receive the non-preliminary ones? I believe, Mr. Mason, correct me, Mr. Mason, Mr. Mead, correct me if I'm wrong. I believe they are trying to expedite them. We've been asking for them to be expedited. We are hopeful to have them at the latest by the end of this week, but maybe with even within the next couple of days. So the most recent update we got. And do you know when these results come in, are they going to be, when I say accessible to the community, I mean, if you put

109a test result in front of me and I don't know what I'm looking at, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to, that's going to be helpful to me. So how are we able to take these test results and make them a way that our community can understand? Dominion Environmental will do a summary of their full results, and it will be specific towards the chemicals that they consider to be the most harmful in the products. So it'll be spelled out. That'll be either detect, non-detect, and they will spell that out. Mr. Mead, is it correct to say, if I understand this correctly, because, again, I'm not an expert in the environmental piece, but what they did was took the safety data sheets, known as the SDS sheets, and tested. So when they did the

110more in-depth testing, they actually take those and actually test for those very specific. Yes, correct. Whereas just your preliminary result, it doesn't necessarily mean it's any of those chemicals that are on the SDS sheets. It could be, but it might not be. Understood. Member Davis. Yes, thank you. I just have one question about timing. From what I understand, July 21st was the first time. that there were some complaints about the aroma or is that right? And then there was period of time, you said till July 31st. So I just wondered. We didn't respond until August 1st. So I wonder if you could explain to us the sort of what appears to be a lag. Yeah. So it's not uncommon. We looked back at our records from previous times this has occurred. And it's not uncommon

111at the beginning of a project that it's going to smell. The projects smell. They smell every time we do them at a campus. And it's not uncommon for us to get a report of, hey, there's some smells. And so we followed our standard practice. And so, you know, I don't know the. We didn't, when you said some of people on July 21st, we had, I think, one, and it didn't even escalate to administration at that point. There was some talk of, oh, it kind of smells in the building. And so I have a little bit of a timeline, too, that I can share. So, again, when the teachers first came in right before school started, it was just starting. They were warned that, you know, there's going to be some smells. And so they said,

112oh, yeah, you can smell it a little bit. I mean, you can't walk by there and not smell it a little bit. On Friday, July 18th, they actually stopped roof production. And so because they were cleaning and getting everything ready and, you know, the roofing company was moving stuff out of the way for meet the teacher, making sure it looked great. So there were no complaints to administration or to the district office in July. So nobody here was aware that there was even a complaint of smell yet at this point. It's not uncommon, like I said, for us to get, hey, there's some smells going on and we've sent messages out to other. sites as well. I think it was in 18 and 19, if I'm not mistaken, was the last two roof projects that

113we had that situation. And so then the roof... production restarted, and I'm going to look to Mr. Mead to make sure I get this right, Wednesday, July 23rd, I believe. And then we did get, and so then on July 24th, 25th, one parent did say something at parent pickup to Principal Gibson that, hey, it kind of stinks outside, and they talked through that. And then the next time we heard up here, so again, we hadn't been made aware that there was any issue at this point. We weren't getting a ton of, hey, there's something going on here, was a parent, I believe, called facilities. And then around the 31st, I may have that date. I don't know if the written notice came in on the same day as the phone call. It may have been

114the day before. But we got the written notice July 31st, and the very next day did testing. So the district became very aware of this on. Thursday, July 31st, we reached out to the principal and said, hey, have you had any complaints? Is this widespread? And he said, I've had a few here and there. And that is what was shared. So again, typically we get one or two. We've sent messages to communities that, you know, let them know. Again, we share the SDS sheets. We've also done environmental testing, just similar to the air quality test that we did here at Sierra. We've done that at the other sites as well. We just didn't have the same results that we had here. So we didn't have to have the same reaction. And so really, you know,

115we responded within 24 hours. Once we were made aware up here, we immediately scheduled the testing. So I, you know. I do think we also confirmed that there had been no complaints to the health office, that there had been no complaints either from staff or families to the health office, nor to the administration. So we did ask that question. I actually even spoke with our legal counsel about that. I said, you know, I want to make sure I'm providing accurate information. And so we just confirmed because we do have we did have a request to share that information. I have to be careful, obviously, for. privacy reasons. So we did find out were there even any complaints to share and we would share the number. We were not made aware of any at the district

116office. So when we called to check that. So we were only going on that we had a couple days of, you know, it doesn't smell good. And again, that's common practice for it not to smell good. Thank you very much. I have a question, too, as well. So looking at this timeline, the construction was delayed to June 6th. So from June 6th through our first test on August 1st, is it standard practice to perform testing, ongoing testing or ongoing walkthroughs just to make sure that... It is not standard. You mean the air quality testing? Is that what you mean? Yeah, just to make sure that prior to school start. you know, everything's okay for the returning students or returning prior to that occurring. There was, you know, a month or two beforehand. No, the standard

117practice has not been to do air quality testing every time we do a project somewhere. And I think, yeah. And so, but... In many cases, if we get asked and anytime we've been asked, and I believe, Mr. Herman, I don't know how many, but over the years, we've done multiple air quality testing anytime. And it's not always related to a roofing project. It could be related to, I think I smell mold in the room. You know, we had some rain damage. You know, I'm getting headaches and I don't know what it is in my classroom or at the office. And so we will conduct air quality testing on demand frequently. That is not uncommon for us to do that. It is not part of our standard practice. However, you know, as with everything else in

118continuous improvement, we've actually made a recommendation, the emergency management team made a recommendation that going forward, this may become standard practice if that's, you know, really important. It is, you know, in Arizona's... rough because we have a lot of days where we have high particulates and high bad air quality. And so, you know, we're going to have to balance the preliminary test results and not overreact sometimes. But we also know like in a situation when you're in the middle of a project and it comes back elevated, you may take a different approach than if it's just a regular day that something comes back elevated. You may want to wait to the final results. But because, and again, when we pulled the emergency management team together Friday, As soon as we knew the preliminary results are

119high, without knowing what that is, we didn't want to take any chances and put students and families back in the building. The CIH, I believe is what he's called, the environmentalist that was there doing the testing said, I said, can we get him here on the weekend? Mr. Meade reached out to him Friday night. He said, yes, I will come back. I said, I want to be sure. Is this just a one-off fluke that they were high this day? Is it something that was in the air, you know, the dust, whatever it could be? Or is it? truly going to stay high, even though I know we have to wait five to seven for the detailed reports. So he agreed to come back on Sunday for us, which is why our message Friday said we,

120two families, you know, we'll be in touch on Sunday once we have more information. We also, he recommended, the environmentalist recommended that we take some mitigation steps even over the weekend while we were waiting to come back and check the air just to see. And so when it still came back high or actually even higher in some locations. On Sunday, we immediately made the call that it would not be safe until we have the full results to take the chance of putting families and or staff students back in the building. So, yes, it was a very short turnaround from Sunday to Monday. We know that. We understand how difficult that was. Again, we tried to front load the information Friday that this was a possibility by saying, you know, we have some elevated levels. We're

121going to test them again Sunday and we'll be in touch Sunday. You know, looking back, maybe we should have been a little more clear in Friday's communication to say if they're elevated again on Sunday, we are not going to be able to be on campus. And so, you know, again, communications, we always debrief at the end of these types of emergency management things. We've added a couple things where we said, oh, well, you know, next time if this was to happen, we would add this step. Maybe we'd be more clear in that communication. So but we really thought by sending Friday's communication, we were starting to say, hey, we maybe have a problem here. Get ready. And then Sunday follow up with we actually have a problem right now that we cannot attend the school.

122And as I shared, you know, the hardest part is, is. Like I said, we have plans in place for this. We were ready to go. We have a whole plan for moving kids. We know where we're moving them. We know all of that information. We just had to get the rooms unsealed. And we're still in the process of unsealing them. They weren't ready to take that many kids. We move classrooms when it's a one or two off. We've had situations where we've had to move a classroom here or there. We do that all the time, and we can do that in a pretty quick turnaround. But to move 21 classrooms plus your specials and things like that just wasn't feasible within that amount of time. So and we're using a very similar model to what

123we used. I believe two of you were maybe on the board when we had the Kalina damage. I was just a Kalina parent. You were just a parent, not on the board. I knew you had a connection. We used a very similar model. We had a situation at Kalina a couple years ago where part of the building had some damage that we had to move our fourth and fifth graders out of the building. And so, again, we used a joint campus. We had a very similar situation. We actually had to seal off part of that. building because it wasn't safe for families and kids and staff to be in there. And we did a very similar model. And so it still took a few days for us to get over there and unseal classrooms to

124get everybody moved. It just doesn't happen on the turn of a dime. Vice President Nelson. Thank you. I'm really happy to hear that the emergency management team is also starting to think about how to do work with this moving forward. I think one of the concerns that I've had is, you know. And I see the timeline that it was the written concern. And I would worry that because we operate on a modified year round schedule, I think as we take care of all these facilities, there will be overlap with construction and things like that. And so moving forward, making air testing part of our standard operating procedure just seems like a baseline to me. and not waiting for a written concern because there are those who might not know how to navigate those systems, even

125though we might, we think we have all that information available on the website or what have you, or people, people just don't know what they know. Um, and so making that the baseline I think is. Yeah, the absolute must for me. The other question I had was around, just for people who are aware, like, can you talk about the emergency management team? I know we talked a lot about that a little bit more in depth during COVID, but people say emergency management team. And it seems like Who makes up this group? How do they come to decisions when things like that happen on a dime? Because I think it's important for the community to understand how those decisions are made and determined. Thank you. Absolutely. And I am going to hand it over to our

126emergency management commander, if you will, Mr. Damien Nichols. Member Nelson, other members of the board, thanks for the question. So the emergency management team, as the name suggests, helps to manage emergencies or crisis situations in Kyrene. We follow a full NIMS protocol. So we have everybody from the incident commander. We have finance. We have facilities. We have everything that you would find in a full-blown NIMS situation. Everybody's trained. Everybody's certified, has gone through the training, and received their certifications to be on that team. And then there's also the support members of that team. So as you can imagine, we're not experts in everything. And we handle everything from what we're talking about today to school threats, to missing students, to car accidents, to you name it. It's literally anything you can possibly think of. We

127don't we're not usually involved in preventative stuff. We are more reactionary. However, as Superintendent Tenney has alluded to, a lot of what we end up dealing with, we will make recommendations to the district, which changes the way we operate. And so that's what she was explaining just a minute ago. Typically, when the emergency management team is on call 24-7, there's never a time that you can't get a hold of somebody. We have dispatchers and we have the command team that's on call all the time. So in this particular case, when the call came in. We immediately convened the command team. We met several times over the weekend, and we have probably met at least a dozen times since then as a team to help manage this process. So we're not necessarily experts in everything we're

128doing. We're experts in making sure that what we consider and getting through the process and making sure we don't overlook things. So this is still an active response for us. There's not a lot. I can't give you a summary yet. One of the things that we do at the end is we do summarize what happened and we make recommendations for our team or recommendations for the district on where we want to make changes. And I can tell you on almost every response we've had, large or small, there's always recommendations to improve. And that's one of the nice things about this team is that that immediately happens. So that's kind of what an emergency management team is in a nutshell. We do the same. Police departments have this. Fire departments have this. And government agencies have

129this, as well as a lot of large organizations. And we all follow the same protocols and speak the same language so that we're interacting it. We all know what we're talking about. Thank you. Just last follow-up question around the summary of the event. Again, this is still an active situation. I know we're providing our Sierra families with daily updates. I think it's really important that that summary also be available on that website just for the general community as well. Just, again, this is not... There have been many roofing or other construction things. I mean, I know when I was a cleaner during fire, we also had a roof being redone. So, I mean, these things have happened and they will. And I just think it's really important that, you know, we kind of summarize those

130and make those summaries available to the community. Any other feedback or comments from the board? Mr. Mason, just looking at the timeline here. in particular the construction duration, there was never going to be a period where we're going to get that roof completely redone during summer break. Is that just because Sierra is a big old school and it's got a big old roof? Or is it possible that we are going to try to be able to do roofing projects in a different way going forward just with timing? And I know you have to compete for the vendors' attention with other school districts as well. Yes, as Board Member Nelson mentioned, when we made the switch to the modified year-round, shrunk our summer extremely so we had to change from a hot product to a cold

131product which takes a little bit longer so we will evaluate I'm working with our roofing vendor and manufacturer of the product to try to come up with a plan to address our next roofs and see if we could fit those in, if we man them up with the appropriate crews to get them done over the summer. However, working through the monsoon season, it's very difficult because the weather delays us. We had multiple delays this summer due to rain. So once they see rain in the forecast over a certain percent, they do not tear off. for risk of property loss. So we are going to look at that moving forward and if it's a feasible option and we're able to manage that cost, that extra cost, then we will present that and move forward. Thank you.

132I was able, while we were here, to pull up the most recent test results, Mr. Mason, that you mentioned that I think are, Mr. Mead, that are on the website. So thank you for putting those up there. I think I saw Thursday, August 7th is when those final results are going to be available. That's what they're telling us right now, yes. Okay. And yeah, I'm just looking here again. It did not, and I think it says it's on his face. It can't tell what the particles are. It just says there's particles there right now. The preliminary test does not, cannot. test for direct VOCs that just test for VOCs in the air. Okay, thank you. I agree with you, Mr. Meade, about seeing if we can revisit our construction schedule to see if it's possible.

133I know we don't control the weather and we don't control the crews, but see if it's possible. I also want to echo Vice President Nelson's... position on the testing. I think just every time we do any project where there's, you know, use of these type of chemicals, just plan it out. We'll just know if it takes five to seven days to get these results back, we're going to do the testing at least a week before the first day of school, maybe even earlier. And that's just our standard practice. So we don't wait for the complaint. We just take initiative. We, like I said, if we add that protocol in place, one of the things that we're going to have to work with the vendors and the testing company is to understand how quickly they can

134get the full results back. Because what you don't want to do necessarily is, again, if the more detailed is always not an issue, we want to be careful that we're also not disrupting, you know, moving kids in and out every. every week at school. So we'll work with them to figure out how that testing works and what that actually means as far as how quickly can you get us some more detailed results. Because again, in this case... We still have some preliminary results that continuously stayed high. And we could even look at that like that. It's maybe a couple of days of being high before we decide what the next steps would be. Yeah, I understand you won't get actionable information in real time going forward. But if you plan it out and we know

135how long it'll take to get actual information, we can get those tests ordered in time. Correct. I think that would be something, Mr. Mead, that we should incorporate in all of those projects that could involve these type of chemicals. Any other questions? You said exactly what I was going to bring up, because when Board Member Nelson mentioned that baseline testing, you know, I'm a high school teacher. We're doing stuff on campus all the time. So we often ask for tests to be done because I'm on the action emergency planning committee on my school as well, among other things. So I'm always thinking like that. So, you know, I know it's an inconvenience, but I'd rather have that inconvenience to ensure our staff and students are safe. And we're not going through this situation. But I

136am grateful that I know it's an inconvenience to the community, the families, but I'm glad that the step was made because conversely, what if there's a kid with asthma or something and we had that situation? So, yes, but I see both sides and I definitely understand it. Thank you, Mr. Collins. So during the call to the public, which is where you guys can come and give comments to the board, we're not actually allowed to respond during it. So I just want to take a time to address the parents and community members who are here and who are watching online to apologize. You know, I think that. regardless of how these test results work and even if they come back and we all hope they come back totally fine, this week has been hugely disruptive for

137you and the rest of the quarter is going to be hugely disruptive for you. And I've had kids that went through remote learning. The majority of our board has had kids who went through remote learning. It was not fun. And it was not fun when we knew it was coming. You found out it was coming. basically right before it happened. And I'm in a household with two working parents. Both of us work out of the office. I can only begin to imagine how disruptive and how stressful this week has been and how the rest of the quarter is going to be hard for your kids. The teachers and staff are amazing. I know they're going to do the absolute best. but it's not going to be sierra for the rest of the first quarter and

138and that is a shame so i do apologize for for the challenges that you and your kids are going through and i appreciate you all being here to share your concerns with the board with the district All right, seeing no other comments on this, we're going to move up to our next item on the agenda. This is the public comment portion of the meeting. So as per our board policy, we do accept public comment. This is policy 1302 at every one of our public board meetings. In person, members of the community can address the board by filling out a blue card. Looks like this. That's on the sign-in table. You can also fill out what we call an electric public comment. There's a link that's in each one of those board emails that goes out

139before the meeting. You can submit that public comment. The board receives all those comments in full, and then they're actually read into the minutes and publicly available as well. Those electronic comments just need to be submitted by noon on the day of the meeting. For folks who are here in person, we do set a time limit based on the number of speakers just so there's opportunity for everyone to speak. If there's one to 15 speakers, each person will have three minutes to address the board. If we've got 16 to 30 speakers. Each person will have two minutes to address the board. And if we have 31 or more, each person will have one minute to address the board. We have four in-person public comments this evening. That means each person is going to have three

140minutes to address the board. There's going to be a timer on these screens. It'll pop up in a minute, and it's going to start at three minutes, and it'll just wind on down. I think it turns red around the 30-second mark. As I mentioned earlier, state statute does prohibit us from responding directly during a public, but we will follow up with any questions or matters that are needed. So this time I'm going to welcome our first speaker up to the podium. She's Miss Allison Hopeman, who is a current Kyrene parent. Miss Hopeman will be followed by Jennifer Dustin. I bet you guys didn't think you were going to see me for this topic. So thank you for having us and thank you for your heartfelt questions and trying to understand what was going on. To

141the board and to Superintendent Tenes, it would be helpful, I think, to understand what your lessons learned were from this situation. I don't have kids at Sierra. I have kids at Cerritos, and I know there's a roofing project slated for there as well. And so to understand how this will be prevented from happening in the future, it'd be nice if we could get some published lessons learned. And then, I won't take my full time, but I just wanted to say I know there's a number of Cerritos parents and Sierra parents who are watching. I've spoken with you or texted with you, and I just wanted to say to all of you that Cerritos... like our heart goes out to you and that I have been in touch with the Sierra PTO president and we are

142like, I have been contacted by numerous parents at Cerritos and how we can help, how we can step up, how we can welcome your kids and make this an easy time. So I just want you to know. This situation sucks, but if you can find some encouragement, we are ready and waiting to get to know you and welcome you in. And to everyone here as well. Anyways, thank you. That's it. Thank you, Ms. Holtman. Our next speaker is Jennifer Dustin, who is a current Kyrene parent. She will be followed by Courtney Maxidon. Hi. I'm not only a current Kyrene parent, I am the closest neighbor to Sierra. And I wanted to address a few things such as the concerns brought up by you, Ms. Nelson, and Mr. Collins. There is no clear way for us

143as parents when we see safety concerns on a construction site such as this one that we can escalate those beyond talking to our principal or talking to members of the staff. That timeline does not reflect my experience as a parent. My asthmatic son. goes to Kids Club. And one Friday, I walked in the doors. There were only about 10 children left, and my eyes teared up from the fumes. They were not aromas. It was clearly fumes that my asthmatic son had been breathing in for I don't know how long. I said to the Kids Club staff, oh my God, how can you guys be in here like this? They couldn't smell it. It had been building up while they were there. So that was a verbal complaint, a concern that I addressed with the director

144of the kids club at that location and it didn't go anywhere. So is there a number that we can call? Even today, I called the facilities office to report a concern with the volatile materials that are still being stored on site that have a flashpoint of 109 degrees. in a heat wave next to a propane tank in a residential neighborhood. I did not receive a response. What I did see is members of Kyrene's safety department and other people working on the construction site put a white tarp over those materials, literally covering them up. So this needs to be addressed in a way that we can be empowered and people on the site can be empowered to raise those concerns beyond their immediate vicinity. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Dustin. Our next speaker is Ms. Courtney

145Maxidon. She'll be followed by Ryan Futzenruder. Good evening. My name is Courtney. I'm the mother of a student at Sierra. I'm here tonight because I've been made aware of information that is alarming, disturbing, and frankly, infuriating. Our children and your staff have been exposed to high particulate matter, potentially hazardous VRCs inside the school building. They were told it was safe, even with quotation marks. But to this date, no documentation has been provided to support that safety claim. And based on what has come to light, I believe that the documentation probably tells a very different story. And I hope it doesn't. I hope I'm wrong. I hope all of these chemicals are safe because I'm concerned about the health of my daughter. For those here tonight and watching online who are not aware, fresh air intakes

146on the roof were actively pulling in contaminated air from roofing work while children were in the building. This is not theoretical. This is not hypothetical. This is real exposure. There has been no medical guidance for families and no transparency. And Laura, you said that there haven't been any complaints made aware to the board. Has there been any to the health office in Seattle? No, there has not. Okay. Because I know of several teachers and also students that have experienced issues. Parents have not been informed, teachers have not been informed, and this board has yet to acknowledge the seriousness of this exposure. How would you feel if it were your child sitting in that building for eight hours a day? Your child that is susceptible to chemicals because their bodies are still developing. I can tell

147you from experience, it wouldn't feel good. Meanwhile, the Sierra community remains completely in the dark. The investigation that uncovered what seems to be serious failures in safety protocol, and yet mitigation efforts continue without families knowing what their children were exposed to and what symptoms to watch out for. That is not protecting children. Let me be clear. I deeply value the teachers at Sierra and all of the support staff. But I need to say this as a mother. This is the second time in two years that Brian Gibson has failed to protect my daughter's safety. And I don't take that lightly. And this is the second time I've had to escalate my concerns to this board in order to be heard. With full conviction, I will say I no longer trust his leadership. We trusted him

148to bring our children back to school safely. And from what I have seen, he failed and he was negligent. Now to act with integrity. We are not here to create chaos. We are here to ask for truth, accountability, and protection. The Sierra community and our children deserve better. Thank you, Max. Our final in-person public comment is from Mr. Ryan Fletcher-Ruder, who is a current Kyrene parent. I'd like to start by just saying that timeline is completely inaccurate. I don't know if any of you guys have heard my name before, but I emailed all of you guys. And I haven't heard anything. I was the one who last Tuesday called Jeff Belding and the district four times in order to tell them that I didn't think that it was safe. I got a call the next

149day on Wednesday and they assured me that it was. And from that point forward, it was a mess. I'm going to read what I had written here. We are writing this not out of panic. But out of urgency after discovering that our children have been exposed daily to toxic industrial chemicals inside their classrooms at Kyrene de la Sierra. What's happening is not normal. This is not just an unpleasant smell. It's dangerous and we were never warned. This isn't just construction smells. These are industrial grade chemicals. Over the summer and continuing today, well I guess this was a few days ago. The school has allowed roofers to apply heavy-duty industrial chemicals to the roof, including asphalt primers, rubberized flashing cements, cold adhesives with petroleum distillates and solvents, all of which were kept off of the chemical

150binders website on purpose for up to 16 years. While these products were being used at every single school, they got a roof. They weren't at campus. And no one had the ability to provide them to us until I asked. These are not safe household products. These are chemicals with serious health warnings, including neurological damage, respiratory distress, organ toxicity, dizziness, nausea, eye irritation, nosebleeds, and more. Some of which were reported and kids went home for. Even their own safety data sheets say they must not be used in occupied buildings. Yet, every night, They continued to do work and then sucked all of those fumes through vents just like that and poisoned our kids for up to 11 hours a day with no recess, no fresh air. God, it makes me sick. HVAC systems are pulling the

151fumes inside. The school's HVAC vents suck air from rooftop intakes, which I found out after asking tough questions from me. Vapors from those chemicals are being pulled inside the building into classrooms, hallways, and the NPR. The chemicals continue to release fumes for weeks after being applied, a process made worse by our extreme heat. I can't finish yet, but I can tell you right now that I don't understand why this man is allowed to cover up what he did. This is negligent, and you all know, I emailed every single one of you. I told you what needed to be done, and now it's going to be a much bigger problem. That concludes our public comment for this evening. Again, board members, we can't respond directly in this moment, but superintendent or her team is able to

152follow up as needed. The next item on our agenda is the consent agenda, which is item 6.1. Are there any changes to the consent agenda? Seeing none, would someone like to make a motion to approve? I so move. A motion by Member Davis. All those in favor. Oh, is there a second? Oh, we have a motion by Member Collins. Second by Member Davis. Second. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. All right. At this time, item 7.2 is our next item on the agenda. This is teacher performance pay plan. I'll invite Dr. Osmeyer up to the podium. Do you want to join me, Delegate Joe? Thank you, Mr. President, members of the board, superintendent, 10 yes and community at large. I appreciate the opportunity. To present information about the teacher's performance pay plan

153with you this evening, Dr. Sherman, Director, Delia Lighting, Teacher Ombudsman, and I facilitate the plan's administration throughout the year and its development each spring with the support of colleagues across several departments and teachers across several schools. This evening, we bring forward a plan that was recommended by a committee of teachers who meet in late spring to review statutory requirements, financials, and plan components. Members of this team represent a variety of subject areas and schools across the district. I would like to personally thank each of the members of this team as they volunteered time to support our shared work in creating a plan that is meaningful for teachers. Their engagement and thoughtful participation in the discussions that we shared along with some spirited contributions to our annual video that supports communications with colleagues is appreciated. Thank

154you. I sometimes get asked who's actually eligible for this compensation, and I just want to remind the team in front of me and those at home tonight that this is a results-based plan for teachers who provide instruction to our students in the classroom setting. Eligibility is formally defined as being a Kyrene teacher who is employed by Kyrene School District, is compensated on a teacher's salary schedule, and holds a valid teacher certificate from the Arizona Department of Education. The employee has to have a start date on or before December 19th, so they're working for more than half of the school year, and they must work through the end of the contract in May. And finally, they do provide instruction to students relating to the classroom's educational mission for at least 50% of their job. We know

155these individuals as our classroom teachers. As we launch a new school year, the proposed plan is then shared with all eligible teachers who are offered opportunity to vote on the plan. Information was both emailed and made available on our district website, and I would also include commentary that our principals set aside time each fall as we launch a new school year to remind and encourage our teachers to participate in being informed and then casting their vote. At this time, I'd like to invite Dr. Sherman to the podium, who will also share an overview of the plan. This year's plan is similar to last year's, and that includes a teacher's final performance classification and professional development. Excuse me. As a reminder, their final performance classification includes both a teacher's individual performance in the classroom as well

156as student performance on state assessments. We then included two types of professional development, courses required for all-teacher or all-teacher PD, and a set of course options for individual teacher PD. All courses are aligned to district initiatives with a goal of supporting teacher growth in meaningful and impactful manner. Differentiation is designed in both sets of coursework. All teacher PD is differentiated based on grade level. Our kindergarten through second grade teachers will engage in science PD, and our three through five teachers will deepen their understanding of literacy instruction. Six through eight will be content specific with a focus on rigor and using the standards in the classroom. Individual teacher PD, teachers may choose courses of interest to them. However, for most teachers, these hours will be achieved through attending PD offered in school sites on the week

157that teachers return on staff development day or on Wednesday site day based PD. For a small handful of teachers who have very unique roles, they have an independent study to acquire their PDE offers. Payout for the plan occurs in June after state assessment results are available, which impacts the academic progress, a component of the teacher's evaluation rating. Each year, the team has discussed the amount recommended for the plan's expectation, and this year, the team looked at what was being asked as well as peer district comparisons and agreed that $1,000 was in alignment with these variables. With board approval, teachers meeting plan requirements will receive their pay in June after the calculation of the academic progress is calculated. I guess I'm supposed to see you, Jeff, aren't I? That's okay, Joe. Thank you. How do I

158move to the next? There we go. I always get the fun slide. As we close, I would like to personally thank the team of teachers who came together in the spring of last school year to put this plan together. Thank you to Jennifer Banks, Kelly Bowen, Lainey Burns, Randy Dolan, Abby Knight, Mariah Monson, Courtney Nelson, Jessica Van Oostrom, and Portia Workshop. I would also like to thank Susie Ostmeyer and Joe Sherman for their facilitating during this process. We look forward to hearing from Lisa Gibson, who's presenting the Teaching and Learning Stipend presentation next. This evening, I share with the governing board that a few years ago, we shifted the timeline for the plans construction so that we were able to vote in July and then bring forward an approved plan for the action at the

159start of the year so that our teachers could plan for their professional development for the year so that by the end of the year, they would know their compensation for 301. We've been extremely pleased with this change and appreciate the board's consideration this evening in alignment with this goal. With nearly 100% of our eligible teachers voting and 99% of them voting to approve this plan, we more than meet the requirements to recommend action from you this evening. Thank you very much. Board members, any comments or questions on this item? I'll tell Mike Myrick that we were so close. I echo your thanks to the team. And it's fantastic that we get something that is prepared and supported so overwhelmingly by our amazing staff. And I wish that, and you certainly deserve more, but I'm glad

160that we're able to give you this. With that being said, I will make a motion to approve. the teacher performance pay plan for the 25-26 school year. Is there a second to the motion? Second. Second by Vice President Nelson. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Thank you. Item 7.3 is our teaching and learning stipend for fiscal year 26. I'll invite our Assistant Superintendent, Ms. Lisa Gibson, up to the podium. Good evening, President Walsh, Superintendent Tenyes, members of the Governing Board, and community members. Tonight, I have the pleasure of bringing forward the Teaching and Learning Stipend for classroom and non-classroom teachers for your approval. Tonight, Dr. Ostmeyer and members of the team presented an update on teacher performance pay and the changes in teacher performance pay for

161the 25-26 school year. The chart displayed illustrates the total compensation a teacher may receive through leadership stipends, teaching and learning stipends, and performance pay. The breakdown applies to both classroom teachers and non-classroom teachers. Non-classroom teachers in this context include academic and behavior specialists, behavior intervention teachers, certified coordinators and facilitators, teacher specialists, and instructional coaches. These educators hold district-level leadership roles that differ from administrative positions. For non-classroom teachers, the leadership stipend has remained the same as in previous years, which is at $3,000, but the teaching and learning stipend had a $500 increase from $1,700 last year to $2,200 this year. This adjustment brings their total to $5,200. which matches the combined teaching and learning stipend and performance pay received by classroom teachers. The goal of this adjustment is to equalize total compensation for all teachers, regardless

162of their specific role, by aligning stipend amounts. This slide outlines the timelines and eligibility criteria for the proposed teaching and learning stipend for both classroom and non-classroom teachers. Eligibility details are highlighted in the blue box. The first half of the stipend will be paid on December 19th. For full-time teachers or those employees working more than a .5 FTE, they will receive $2,100, and that's, again, just for this semester. And non-classroom teachers who work more than a .5 FTE will receive $1,100 as the full amount and $550 per semester. Teachers working a 0.5 or less will receive $1,050 per semester, and non-classroom teachers who work less than 0.5 will receive $550 per semester. To be eligible, teachers and non-classroom teachers must have started employment in Kyrene by September 5th and remain employed through December 19th. The

163second half of the stipend is scheduled for June 5th. To qualify for this payout, employees must have started hiring by February 27th and be employed through May 29th. With that, are there any questions? Thank you, Ms. Gibson. Any questions? Seeing none, would someone like to make a motion to approve the teaching and learning stipend in the amount of $2,100 or $1,100 for employees with less than a .5 FTE for certified teachers who meet eligibility requirements? Motion to approve. A motion by Member Satri. Is there a second to her motion? Second. Second by Member Davis. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes 5-0. Thank you, Ms. Gibson. Thank you. Board, I know we started at 5. We've got a presentation on MTSS coming up. Would you like to take a quick

164recess? All right. Let's take about a five-minute recess, and then we'll reconvene for the next item. All right. We are back. Item 7.4, this is multi-tiered systems of supports, or MTSS for the jargon, presentation. I'll invite our Executive Director of Academic Equity and Excellence, Dr. Sandra Lane, up to the podium. Thank you very much, President Walsh, members of the board. I, as well as Directors Mrs. Jengel and Dr. Collins, are happy to present to you this evening on this topic. So I'm going to start with something you started with earlier today is our Kyrene Promise. This is something we... repeat and speak to at the starting of every meeting we attend. This is really our mission and why we are here. We believe that it is our job to provide those welcoming, inclusive learning environments

165for children, to provide the rigorous, responsive learning environments in which every student is given what they need. and those vibrant world-class learning environments. And those are the hallmarks of why we believe in an MTSS, in a multi-tiered systems of support model in Guy Rien. Oops, there we go. This is Kyrene's logo. We designed this a few years ago. And I want you to see right in the middle, which is really, again, part of our hallmark and our why. This is how we ensure equity and inclusion to make sure that all of our children are receiving what they need to be successful in the classroom and in social situations, out in the community, et cetera. Okay, so we do that through a team-driven approach. Those teams look very different in different contexts. It might be a

166PLC, which is a professional learning community where teachers at a grade level come together to plan for instruction, talk about the children that they have in front of them and how do they support that group of children. It's the school leadership team or a tier one team that is looking at data across grade levels, across their campus, and making decisions about what type of supports they need, if a particular grade level needs more support than another, et cetera, et cetera. And then family, school, and community partnering. We don't do this alone. We know that our families are in partnership with us in educating the children in our community. So there are structures that we have in place to notify families and include families in these processes. And then we offer a layered continuum of supports,

167which is what I'm going to... Amy and Sarah are going to explain to you what that layered system of supports looks like. But there are multiple systems. We are looking at academic systems, behavior systems, and social-emotional systems. And then that data-based problem solving. As you are all aware, we are... We have a lot of data here in Kyrene, and you see that in the data dives that we go through with you. Our schools are going through those data dives. Our PLCs at our school campuses are reviewing that data and making instructional decisions about that data. But these are the hallmarks, really, around our MTSS system. So now, digging into a little more of the nitty-gritty here, it is a three-tiered system. The supports are three-tiered. If you look at tier... Did I do that? No?

168Okay. Thank you. So we start really with Tier 1. And you'll notice along the bottom, again, academic, behavior, and social, emotional are those areas in which we provide those tiered supports. Okay? And universal is really where all of our children are educated. That's the general education classroom. The great majority of our children receive their instruction in the classroom. Tier 2 is that targeted approach. Students that maybe weren't successful in that general education instruction would go on to Tier 2. This is a much smaller group of children, about 10 to 15 percent of our 100 percent receiving Tier 1. And then an even smaller group of those children would go on to that most intensive tier of Tier 3. I'm going to give you a little analogy, something that maybe is more approachable and something I

169think that's maybe a more common way to explain it. So I'm going to use attendance as our example here. everyone is provided with policies and expectations around attendance. It's pretty universal. We all know we come to school, right? And it's pretty common understanding that, you know, you can miss a certain number of days, about 10%, but the expectation is that kids come to school. So that's our tier one. Okay, we've made that very clear across the board. Everyone, we come to school. So about 80 to 85% of our students come to school with that expectation. Now... We might have a few others that need a little reminder. So we have a system of providing and sending letters to families that might need a reminder of how many absences their child has and a reminder that,

170you know, we're here and we're ready to educate your child. And so that's about 10 to 15% of our kids. There might still be a smaller group of those children whose families are not responding to that. So we might pull those families in. This is our Tier 3 intervention and meet with those families individually and develop a plan. How can we help support you with attendance and having your child come to school? Okay, so that's a Tier 3 system of support. with attendance. We look at that in a very similar way around academics, behavior, and social-emotional. And we're going to get into more details with you coming up. So I'm going to pass this on to Mrs. Gingell, who's going to talk to you about our universal supports, our Tier 1 curriculum. Good evening. I

171have the pleasure of sharing with you some information related to our Tier 1 instruction. Tier 1 instruction is our core curriculum that we teach for all students within the district. So on the slide you see here, you see our core curriculum in English language arts, mathematics, science. We also have for our behavior expectations is our positive behavior intervention and supports. And then we also have our social-emotional learning curriculum. So all of these, this example on the slide here is our elementary version of that. These are all considered Tier 1 instructional materials, Tier 1. process for all students that attend. So similar to the example that Dr. Lane presented on attendance, we have the expectation that all students are eligible for a guaranteed and viable curriculum, and this is what we have for offerings in all

172of those areas in core curriculum. When we look here, this is an example of our middle school core curriculum, which again follows a very similar suit to what we see in elementary. We have mathematics, science, social studies, ELA. and social emotional learning. We just went through the adoption for that a year ago. We just adopted a brand new ELA curriculum last year. So when we go through those processes, we are working to determine a tier one support for all students. So the curriculum that they see in every classroom is part of that tier one support. We have a document in Kyrene that we share with our teachers and our staff that is a tiered definitions document. This is a snippet of that document from the tiered one section. And in that section, we define tier

173one as effective instruction that supports grade level standards, positive behavior supports, and social emotional needs for all students by certified teachers and trained staff. So in our Tier 1, the main focus is implementing our adopted grade-level curriculum materials using formative assessments to inform instruction and intervention and using evidence-based strategies for instruction for all students. In addition to those resources for teachers, we also have a robust system of assessments in Kyrene. This is where our data comes from that Dr. Lane was speaking about earlier. So in our system of assessment, we have different levels of assessment depending on the age of the child. and the content that they are receiving. We have beginning of the year assessments, which our students are currently undergoing right now. We have DIBELS, which is our reading strategies, foundational reading assessment.

174We also have NWA, which is third through eighth grade. That's in reading and mathematics. It's a diagnostic to evaluate where they are at that present moment. We also have iReady, which is a math elementary. K-5 assessment diagnostic for us to look at the progress students are making and all of that. Finally, we have an Azela test, which is for our ELD students, our English language development students, to see if they have reached a level of proficiency to remain in that program or to be moved on to general education classroom settings. We also do the same set of assessments in the middle of the year. And then we have the end of the year assessments. We add a couple extra at the end of the year, and those are related to both our state assessments as

175well as a couple of entrance exams for students who might be eighth graders who might be moving on to the high school and need to have those assessments to receive credit. The key for these assessment systems is related to what Dr. Lane said. We do three things, main three things with this data set. We look at data dives, which are school-wide reviews of district and school-level data to help develop school data literacy for teachers and administrators so they can evaluate data and formulate support plans for teachers' needs. Sorry, for student needs, excuse me. We also have professional learning communities where teachers are provided time for ongoing data review and planning for instruction. Teachers review identified skills and areas of growth and plan for small group or one-on-one instruction that would support the needs of specific

176learners. Lastly, our schools have developed leadership teams or Tier 1 teams. We've worked extensively on elementary literacy Tier 1 teams to help with the progress in K and 1 that we've been seeing in the early literacy initiative and the strategic plan. As we know that data indicates things for students, and so we use this data to help us determine when it's time to turn from the Tier 1 core curriculum into something more specific in that triangle as we move into the second tier. We use that data to help identify students that would have needs that would need to be met in another tier. So I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Collins to go through Tier 2 with you. Good evening. So now that we've covered the foundation, the Tier 1 instruction for all

177students in our schools, we're going to look at what happens when that core support, that Tier 1 instruction, just isn't quite enough. So you see that same tiered triangle that Dr. Lane showed us at the beginning of the presentation. Through the use of the Kyrene assessments and the tools that Mrs. Jengel just spoke of, we're able to determine when students are not making that expected progress. So even with a strong Tier 1 instruction, their data might show that there are skills and gaps or behavior needs that might require not the level of a one-on-one support, but just a more targeted support for students. That takes us to the tier two small group interventions, which are usually three to five students. We still use evidence-based strategies that directly target these students' needs. And this happens alongside

178of tier one. So this isn't in place of. This is the students already received that universal tier one. And then there are a group of students who we've determined need an extra level and layer of support. It is more, so again, it's more support than the Tier 1, but it's not yet as intensive as that top Tier 3, and that will be looked at a little bit further by Dr. Lane in a couple of minutes. But let's take a look at the resources that we use for targeted instruction in Tier 2. So this might look very similar to the slide that you saw that differentiated the elementary and middle school. This slide shows it all in one. Most of the resources you see on this slide are all part of our Tier 1 curriculum. We

179are fortunate that each one of our Tier 1 curriculum materials do include Tier 2 supports. They're built into them. They're designed to help us differentiate, accelerate, and intervene with students. So while the core program stays consistent, we adjust or the teachers adjust the level of support. They can use small group tools, reteaching activities, or targeted interventions, but we're not switching to a completely different system for students. And you can see on this slide that we have core content materials as well as behavioral behavior and social-emotional supports. So Tier 2 is not about starting from scratch. Again, it builds directly on the foundations of Tier 1, but what changes is the intensity. Students receive more instruction, more chances to practice, alongside getting more positive reinforcement, more pre-corrections to maybe prevent missteps, and just greater access to

180that academic support. Really, it's about turning up the volume of what's already working. It's not about creating something entirely new. As Amy shared, the Tier 1 definition, there is a lot of information on this slide that this is really the part of the documentation of our Tier definitions document that really targets the Tier 2 targeted instruction intervention. So Tier 2 support is supplemental to that Tier 1, targeting both academic and behavior. It's important to remember that it is all data-driven. It's based on assessment results, the professional observations of teachers for what their students need, and it is delivered by our highly trained staff. Most often it's provided and delivered in the general ed classroom, but sometimes it can also be available with intervention support as well. We do have behavioral supports in Tier 2, like

181check-in, check-out, and incentives as part of the system. And teachers always work closely with specialists and with their PLCs to track progress and align those interventions. And this is a critical piece to all of this, is that if more than 20% of students need Tier 2, it does tell us and it tells teachers that we should go back and look at where Tier 1 needs to be strengthened or what needs to be retaught because a larger group of students is needing more targeted support. So from here, Dr. Ling is going to take a closer look at how students are then identified for that top tier, that Tier 3 support. Okay, so now we really are, we've continued to get to the top of that pyramid, and this is a much smaller group of children now.

182Typically about 5% of our population need this level of support. Okay. And it is, so it's that portion of that, of tier two, of that 10 to 15% that may need tier three. And that's our aspiration. You've seen some of our early literacy data. We're not there in every academic area or grade level, but this is when our multi-tiered systems of support is fully operational and we have hit that point point where, you know, we're no longer tweaking, we're no longer doing those things, which really, in reality, is not a thing. It is always going to be an ongoing process of improvement. So our Tier 3 interventions, these are just some examples because these are more individualized or very small groups of children. So we are providing Tier 3 academic intervention, for example, to our

183K-2 students this year in order to achieve our early literacy goal of 85% of students. hitting benchmark in doubles. And why do we do that? Because that also makes our intervention system more manageable. When we are intervening with 30, 40, 50 percent of kids, as Dr. Collins says, that tells us that we have to provide some additional support in Tier 1, that maybe our Tier 1 curriculum is not working the way we would expect. which is why we've done a lot of focus on Tier 1, but I'll come back to that at the end. So special education is another example of Tier 3. A very small portion of children might then be identified as a child with a disability as a result of not progressing further with Tier 3 intervention. We have some students that

184might need an individualized behavior plan. The Tier 2 curriculum in either of our social-emotional learning programs may not. They may not be responding to that. The check-in, check-out system that we might use with a child for Tier 2 may not be working, so we would go to that more intensive individualized plan. Our counselors may be pulling a small group or an individual skill-focused group to provide support to students. One of the other hallmarks of both Tier 2 and Tier 3 is that ongoing progress monitoring. So we're collecting data in some way. One of the common ones that we talk about is progress monitoring students. on using a measure in doubles to see whether they are responding to our instruction in the classroom and learning to read. But our counselors are monitoring their notes to see

185how a child is responding. They might do an observation of a child on the playground if they're working on social skills, those types of things. So there's a variety of ways in which we collect data. This is just another one of the tools that we provide to teachers. And I just wanted to give you that example. Like we're looking at things on a regular basis, performing, and we make some decisions around yes. We might, if a child is responding to the curriculum that we're providing, we would say, that's fantastic. Do we? put them back into a Tier 2 program? Do we make or do they go back into a Tier 1 program? If we're uncertain, we might really look at is the intervention being delivered the way we would expect it to be? And if

186the answer is no, then we discuss is it time to change the intervention or is it possibly a time that we might need to seek some more information? And then we have our Tier 3 model as well. And just wanted to highlight a few of those things. Obviously, this is intensive. This is individual or small group. And again, it's behavior, it's academics, and it is social-emotional. And let's see. But the other thing I wanted to come back to is our Tier 1. So as you know, in our strategic plan, we do have our 85% goal for early literacy. So one of our strategies is to really support Tier 1 because we know we were not getting to the place where we were getting to 85% with all of our groups of children. And that's really

187necessary for our MTSS to be able to support that additional. group of children. So as I said earlier, our MTSS, it really is kind of this ongoing work in progress. We continue to grow and support our teachers, our leaders in these models, and we continue to learn ourselves. That's really our MTSS in a nutshell. So we are all welcome or available for questions. Thank you, Dr. Lane, Dr. Collins, Mr. Angel. Board members, comments or questions? Member Sadri. Yes, thank you. Very, very nice presentation. As a parent who I think I went through this with my daughter, it was nice to see that. That's what was happening behind the scenes. So now a lot of things are starting to click. But I do have just one quick question. I'm not sure who mentioned it, but our

188goal is to move students out of these tiers as they succeed. So if they're tier two, the ultimate goal is to move them to tier one. Yes. And that's based on testing. It's based on data of some sort. It may be. It may be an academic test. It may be an observation. It may be some other checklist of data. Now, for those students that are deemed okay to move back down into a tier, not have those interventions anymore, are we seeing success in that area? You know, based on my experience, if someone's moved out of that tier, they, you know, maybe that's where they needed to stay. And then are things, is that noticed right away? Is there still monitoring of that student to make sure that, oh, it looks good. We're going to move

189them back down. But then. That's it. No more support. So that is the one good thing about our assessment system is we have regular check-ins with student progress. So children don't go very long without us noticing that there might be another need. But when I also, it's also very rare that a child would just be where we would just say. No. Back to chair one, without any support. That is a very rare thing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to make sure that, you know, if they still needed that support that, you know. Maybe there's sometimes those decisions that, even though they're succeeding in their current tier, the best option might not be to move them and let them just keep succeeding in that tier because that's what they need to be successful. Yes. And

190that is an accurate statement. There are a number of kids that, yes, they are responding in Tier 1, but also because they're getting that extra dose of intervention, possibly through Tier 2 or Tier 3. And to take that away does not always make sense. Okay. Just wanted to make sure that that's a part of the considerations. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Vice President Nelson? Yes. Two quick questions. So first... I understand how this all looks in elementary school. Kids kind of stay in one spot, things like that. When we get to middle school, we have a few different options. We do. Here we go. It gets a little more challenging for sure. I would really love to understand if I'm reading this correctly, like a co-taught classroom is more in that tier two category. Or

191would we also or what could it be read three? And how does that differentiate between? I go to math intervention for a separate class because I think parents could be confused about what the difference is there. Well, the part of this is that, remember, everyone is receiving tier one at some. some location, some part of their day. So depending on the student and the student level of need, we might have a student who is in a resource class, a pull-out type class situation, but they are still accessing our general tier one core curriculum. But they are also receiving... tier two supports, potentially tier three supports, depending on their level. When you talk about a co-talk class, which we typically have in math and ELA, those can be different levels within the same classroom. So everyone

192is in the class learning tier one core curriculum. And then there is oftentimes a second. second teacher in the room who can do different things. They can walk and have a small group come as a pullout, which might be a tier two intervention. As we mentioned in elementary school, it's a little more clear cut because they leave the room and they go to a special room and they have those interventions. So in the middle school, a lot of this is happening within the same classroom or very close by. You might pull them out to another room next door. And so that could be tier two. It could also be tier three in that same classroom because an individual student who needs an extra layer of support might be sitting with the resource teacher in the

193same classroom, but might be getting an additional layer of support sitting next to them, going kind of hand over hand to help them with a concept. So in middle school, it's a little more. It's a little unclear in terms of we don't pull them out necessarily, but then we do have some environments where we do take them out. They can have a math or reading intervention class. Some schools have those. Some have chosen to push more of that into the general education classroom. So these tiers are working together at all times within the different classrooms, depending on how the setup of the classroom is. My next question is, how do we loop parents in for awareness about where their child is falling within these tiers? You know, if my child doesn't have maybe a traditional

194504, an IEP, there aren't those team meetings that are happening regularly. So how are we communicating that movement to parents? So that happens through very regular sharing of data. So all of our assessment reports go directly to families in ParentVUE, so they're able to see those. And then through parent-teacher conferences and teachers making contact with families if children are not responding. I do want to go back to the special ed piece, though. Actually, the middle school co-teaching is actually kind of our aspirational model. Having children... all receive the supports that they need within our general education classroom. We would love to be there and our goal through the opportunity review that we experienced this last year and we're continuing through this year is to include our children. to a greater degree in general education and

195have those supports within the classroom, whether we're accommodating or modifying some of the curriculum, but we do want our children with disabilities learning in there. And what happens at the middle school, we are challenged by those six periods in the day. And when you decide that a child does not or is maybe not ready to perform in the core curriculum and you say, I'm going to provide resource math or resource ELA, they're typically not getting grade level content as the same degree as their peers. And we know that that... in the long run, is challenging for kids. So our goal is to keep as many kids as we can in the core curriculum so they continue to learn those Tier 1 skills and expectations, those standards that we expect for all children. Member Davis. Thank

196you. Yes, I had a similar question to Member Nelson's question. I love this. I mean, let me say that up front. It's a great way to integrate kids with the least, especially at the middle school level, in my opinion, you know, with the least social stigma that may come with a somewhat late special ed evaluation. And so how do you make the distinction between a kid who is having difficulty accessing the curriculum, performing? that they're not special needs kids as opposed to kids who should stay in the main population. How is that? So our process is, I don't think ours is unique necessarily to what any other district does as well. But there are ongoing conversations around data and how children are performing or responding to the instruction or the intervention we provide. And those

197conversations continue. And for some kids. They do, you know, we continue now to have like a conversation just about one student that might not be responding. And when that student has gone through a number of interventions, we continue to see little response to those interventions. The team comes together with the family. So we call that our multidisciplinary education team. And they may make the decision to seek additional data, which brings our school psychologist into that process, which may result in an evaluation and ultimately an eligibility for special education. But those are really, that's that 5% of kids. It's really that small group, and it's an individualized process. It takes place over time where we continue to monitor and collect data. So that's the entry point for parents would be that. meeting, that sort of meeting

198where you're considering special ed, but the parent hasn't asked for it necessarily. And sometimes they have and sometimes they haven't. And parents would typically have been involved before that, knowing that their child was receiving intervention. They would have seen data reports that show that their child is not responding and is performing. differently than their same age peers in the grade level. So there are multiple opportunities throughout the year that a teacher would provide that information. And that would be true for K-5 also? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Member Davis. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, thank you to our presenters. Thank you. That's the last of our presentations for the evening. Item 8.1 is board committee or conference reports. Do any board members have an update on this? Yes.

199Please. Episode 5 of the Long Range Planning Committee. We reviewed this during the study session, so I will make it fast. For those who are watching online, you should go back and watch the study session. Really... A lot of discussion with our friend, Mr. Rick Brammer, the demographer was there kind of working through the committee coming to consensus around what could become technically feasible options that they would be presented with in August and grade level configurations. It was really interesting. He took us through an exercise where they reviewed a case study using the Paradise Valley School District and the work that they did around their long-term facility instruction. I thought that was really insightful to see how another district who's encountered these challenges and some of the approaches they took. When the committee went to...

200come to consensus. One thing I really want to stress for the community, this is a group of, I mean, we have, I mean, it's been going since February. We haven't had that much attrition, but. People take the work very, very seriously when they were trying to come up with recommendations for grade level configurations. You know, as a board member, I step away so that I'm able to participate fully when they bring the recommendation. You had tables that had calculators out just really like digging in to the data they were given and they just take this. They take this so seriously. They're so, the responsibility very, very seriously for the recommendation that they'll eventually bring forward. And it's just something I just appreciate their time, the time of. our facilitators that kind of work people through

201the exercise. It's a very interactive process where it's not as though this group of, you know, 40 to 60 people are being led to a conclusion, but really they, they do come to consensus. And sometimes the things they've come to surprise me where I thought, I thought they were going to zig and they zag. So, I mean, it's a very, uh, thoughtful group of individuals. So. Thank you for the update. Member St. Jude, anything you wanted to add on that? Great. And I do appreciate that all those meetings are archived and YouTubed on the website because I went back and I watched that study session and that committee meeting and that was really insightful. So thank you for your work on that. Any other updates for committee reports? All right. Item 9.1, items for future

202consideration. Would any board member wish to list an item for future consideration? Seeing none. On 10.1, meeting dates. Our next regular meeting, two weeks from today, same time, same place, August 19th, 2025. On 11.1, convene into executive session. I'll make a motion to convene into executive session. Is there a second to the motion? Second. Second by Vice President Nelson. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 5-0. The board will now convene into executive session. Item 11.3 is conclude executive session. I'll make a motion to conclude executive session. Is there a second to the motion? Second. I have a second by Vice President Nelson. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes 3-0. Item 12.1, adjournment. I'll make a motion to adjourn the evening's meeting. Is

203there a second to the motion? Second. Second by Member Collins. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 3-0. Meeting is adjourned at 8.45 p.m.