PUSD Governing Board Meeting - March 3, 2026

001presentation. I'm sure I'll be sneaking out here. >> How you doing? >> Good. >> Hi. >> Hey. How are you? >> Good. How are you? >> Good. Good. Hi, Mr. Michael. >> I'm doing well. >> You're good. >> I am >> good. >> He's good with you. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Today at 5:15 it's all good. [laughter] >> That's a really good answer. Just stay in 5:15. It's good. >> 5:15 it's all good. >> Stay in the pocket. >> Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Um, so is this just normal? The is the five o'clock thing now just the way >> No, they're doing this like they're moving over all of those policies. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> and so they keep doing these like 30 minute >> study voting sessions where they do

002some look at a pile of policies that are coming over from the trust or whatever. >> Okay, that makes sense. a change in how they're going to do it or when they're >> back on track. >> Actually, you know what? Yeah, I left my water. >> There's probably going to be six or people watching me at home. >> There's going to be Yeah. All kinds. Five, six, seven. Thank you for coming tonight. I know many of us are missing a pretty exciting game for at least the beginning of it. Hopefully, we'll catch some of it at Prescuit High School tonight. Um, but thank you for being here. Jean Robertson, our board president, is out of town, but she's here on the phone right next to me. So, you guys can't see Jenn, but she's there.

003So I will be >> everyone >> I will be reading the meeting in her place. So if you can all please stand and Jax would you mind leading us in the pledge. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Jack. >> So, our first item of business is item 3A, approval of our agenda. I will take a motion to approve the agenda as pres as presented. >> So, move. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> I speak up every now and again. >> Item 4 A um is the approval of our governing board minutes from the study session and regular study session study voting session that we held on

004February 3rd, 2026. I'll take a motion to approve those minutes. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? I >> Okay, this next item, item 5A, we are all used to this item being part of our consent agenda. And those of you who watch or attend our board meetings regularly know that we pull this item month after month. So, we made the decision this month to make it its own separate item so that we don't have to pull it from the consent agenda. So, yeah, you know, after how many times [laughter] four weeks, two years of that. But um we always want to recognize our donors that give so generously to us. So item 5A is a uh a recommendation for to consider approving the donations as presented. So I'll read those donations. a donation from

005city of Prescuit in the amount of $30,000 for PUSD CNC outdoor partnership um from the PZ family for a value amount of $1,024 soccer supplies for PHS. Ivonne Gibbs donated $400 for golf clubs for Prescuit High School. She also donated $200 for two javelins for Prescuit High School. Front stream donated $26 for food and banquet for Lincoln Elementary School. A donation from Esmeralda ator in the amount of $200 for the health office at Lincoln School. Hicks family trust in the amount of $100 for the can do award for Prescuit High School. And Dennis and Susie McDonald donated $1,000 for the Can Do award at Prescuit High School. So, we're always grateful for our amazing community that donates so much to our schools. Can I add something, Jen? >> You sure can. >> Um, so I

006don't know if anybody saw the paper on Sunday, but we lost another member of our community, Clara Smith. Um, Clara is Kelly Cortis's mother. Um, >> oh, >> yeah. You know, she attended um many, many basketball, football games in the front row there with her husband Jim of 52 years. and um and so she passed away, but I just want to make note of this that uh all she's not having services, but all of her donations on um they've asked the family has asked um to make any donations on behalf on her behalf to be made to the PHS athletics. So, it's pretty amazing thing and that's not the first um community member that we've lost that done this that has done this and we really see this through the donations. So, pretty tremendously. >>

007Thank you for sharing. Awesome. That is very great. All right. So, we'll move on to our presentations. >> Yes. >> Oh, thank you. We have to approve that. So, I will take a motion to approve those donations. >> So, move. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> Okay. Now, we'll move on to presentations. Is there keeps us on our on our toes around here? Um, which is so good because I would totally mess up with that. Uh item 6A is first and we have Cameron Pena and Eastston Canon Carmen joining us from Granite Mountain Upper Elementary School. >> Hi, I'm Mrs. Hughes, princip school at Granite Mountain. Um when we sent out the email that said, "Hey, I need a couple kiddos and sixth grade." Oh, thank you. Thank you. Um sent email to

008teachers. We want to present at the board and would like to just hear like what it's like to a day to be what it's like during a school day being a granite grizzly. And so I had a couple teachers respond and I'm going to let them introduce themselves but um their names came right to the top and I'm like awesome. Um and just so proud of these two and what you see here I was out of town yesterday um when they finished it today they practiced. So really what you see here is either Mrs. Solomon helping them or they did it all. So I'm like, you know what? I'm just kidding. >> Hello, this is >> a little bit out of the way. And there you go. You can both stand up there. >> And

009we're going to be showing you the day in the life as a grant and as a grant >> electives uh each quarter is a different elective and it's like a rotation in each quarter and we also do fun projects in art and steam and we run the mile. Um we also have projects giving more responsibility to students including clay and power tools. Um we also have band, orchestra and choir as options. >> Next is G. Um on on Fridays, all fifth and sixth grade are doing it um at different stations together and classes are paired with the other team teacher. Uh we do a rotation each week doing something different that uh than work and done in regular elective classes. Um the fifth and sixth grade projects for fifth grade we do a living history

010museum and we do quarterly book reports. We also do plays and poster uh projects. For sixth grade we do um ancient Egypt project, the Greek tablet um science special effects project and the Roman project. Next is Accelerated Math. Um it's a group of sixth graders getting seventh and sixth and seventh grade math content and Miss Cl is an amazing teacher because she students really um in our seventh grade math class we do more of a challenge and it sets you up for seventh grade math. our fifth grade water shed field trips in camp. Um we help the community and build out in nature. We also journal and create songs while on the field trips. Um and it was very fun. It was a fun way to learn. Also, we also m the groups uh which

011was also fun. Um for the camp we go um we do a campfire and we do archery. We start [clears throat] having with our friends. We do fun plays and activities that the rangers and teachers put on. And it's away from technology. >> Next is grizzly deck. Um it's a reward for working hard or going above and beyond. And you can take any friends you want. Uh there's lots of fun stuff in Grizzly Zone or Grizzly Den uh like ping pong, movies, foosball and board games and kids from uh every team teacher go uh sports with my eye. We have great coaches and we um are being included in uh middle school sports with other schools. We get a great feel for what school sports is like. Um sports with mile high include track and

012field, cross country, wrestling, basketball, soccer flag football, and bike team. Um next is clubs. There's a variety of clubs and students can pick what they like and there's different clubs each semester. Um you can do clubs with other students if not in the same class. Student council. In student council, you put in spirit week, fall festival, fundraisers, and a 2025 to 2026 project in putting a water fountain down at the field. Next is our fun memories. Um, we do a sponge fight after state testing and Halloween parade. and we go to the Goldwater Lake um at the end of the year. Uh we also added this year volleyball courts and recess equipment/game. And we also have a day of awesomeness awesomeness uh which is like um something I think we do it uh like where

013there's like bouncy houses and you kind of like run around and laughs and we do we also do words and games. We um do the spelling be and the pacer test in PE. And then we also have this like marble jar in Miss's class. Um where like if you fill it all the way up, then we have a good card. Uh we also have jobs in our class. Um it's like uh in Miss Welman's class, we have welding bus for doing your job. And in Miss Olsen's class, you have uh Olsson ovals. And um when you when you get enough money, you can like pay for things in your class like a a Jolly Rancher or like class or lunch in your class and you get paid for it. >> Thank you. Thank you. [applause]

014Thank you so much. You guys did an amazing job. >> Do you guys have any questions? >> Did you make the presentation? >> Um, well, we like said the stuff in it, but like Miss >> spoke very well. >> You really did. >> Where does the fifth grade camp go? >> So, we go up to Mountain. >> Oh yeah, >> and we stay uh three nights and we just do some like fun activities there like archery like we said. I think we also do fishing. We do uh we build forts there and some other cool stuff. >> Very great. I love it. like we've had a lot of kids go through fifth grade at different schools like VA back in the day and I love how you pulled together so many things from all of

015our elementary schools as we joined fifth grade up at M at Granite and I think it's just awesome. Great job, Mrs. Thank you. Love it. Love it. Love it. >> [applause] >> Maybe the only thing better than hearing your presentation was watching your parents. >> So from two former Granite Mountain Grizzlies to two current Mountain Grizzlies. Grizzlies. Okay, another bigger name. [laughter] We just want to present you with a governing board point. Uh this is a coin for excellence and you've shown that you've obviously shown that throughout your time at PUSD and I can remember you running around with teachers and your cheerleading outfit cheering on your brothers and whatnot. So it's really great to see um how far you come and and just doing great things with PUSD. And did your parents both go

016to you go to PJ or did you guys go to >> [applause] >> Thank you guys so much. All right, our next item, item six, is reaching independence through structured education, our rise curriculum presentation by Maya Bazoo. Hello Maya. That was This is a tough act to follow. Um, thank you so much for having me here today. I am Maya, the exceptional student services director. Um, and I'm here to really represent the committee work that we've been undergoing since the start of the school year really with piloting this materials. Um today we're going to focus in on RISE curriculum adoption which is one of the program names that we have on our continuum. RISE stands for reaching independence through structured education and we currently have three programs housed across the district. Uh so one is

017at Aaya Jud for our K through four students. Um we have another program at Granite Mountain for 5 through 8 and then the high school um services students 9 through 12. So why are we adopting a new curriculum with RISE? So kind of just brief background information. I'm relatively new in my role. We started last school year and one of the first things that leadership asked me to do and tasked me with was to kind of look at all of our programs and start to create alignment across the district um and make sure that our continuum was meaningful and inclusive of all the different needs that are presented in our special education programs. So with in doing that we we spent a lot of additional time looking at rise programs knowing that we have many

018students um impacted by autism and this program is really centered on creating intentional teaching practices to meet the needs of those students. So that's where the idea was born and um I'll kind of go through the different steps. So Kelsey cautioned me against too many words on the screen and she's always right. But I am just going to use I [laughter] I am doing it for two slides only because I didn't want to modify the language that was collectively created in DT. So this slide and the next one I'm going to read it um really describe the rise program in its entirety. And the reason it's important that we read it the way it's written is our um committee continued to like we had to go back and revisit and reread it and make sure

019that when we were going through this process that we were staying true to what we have collectively decided upon as a district. So I'm going to read our RISE program is designed for students with autism or similar needs who require a highly structured and supportive environment. The program delivers individualized instruction tailored to each students unique needs with strong focus on communication, social interaction, sensory integration, behavior support, and academic growth. Using evidence-based practices such as visual supports, predictable routines, and targeted behavior interventions, the classroom fosters engagement, reduces anxiety, and builds essential skills. A low studenttoteer ratio ensures intensive personalized support empowering students to develop independence, emotional regulation, functional academics, and life skills in a setting designed for their success. Another reason that it's important for us to have a good curriculum for this program is the

020federal laws. So, it's a lot of what I look look at in my role. Um, IDA states that we need to offer free and appropriate education um to all students with special needs at no cost to them. It must be tailored to their individual needs. And our world is centered on individualized education plans that we call IEPs and specially designed instruction. So, our students have goals that they um are working on that are aligned to their ability level and aligned to data. And so it's important that we find curriculum that supports those overarching compliance pieces as well. Another in other things that kind of came about in talking with um the RISE teachers and and folks that are working in those classrooms is that there's just been sort of an ongoing struggle um in this

021program to uh find materials that are readily available. there's a lot of um adaptation to materials that continually have to be made. So teachers um on this continuum, it's one of our more restrictive settings. So the challenges are can be greater. There are uh it's a smaller class with more support. Um so it's it's challenging. All the different students have different needs that need to be addressed and then we have our teachers on top of taking care of our students making a lot of additional materials. And so we're always looking at ways to kind of help them balance the the load and we wanted to find curriculum that didn't need so much customization. Um so there's so much time spent on creating handmade materials and again we just wanted to find ways to to reduce

022workload and and that fatigue that can ensue from that. Um, we also noticed that we wanted to hone in on um the implementation kind of like what I discussed at the beginning. It's just we didn't have clear alignment and we wanted to make sure that there was more consistent implementation um from one school to the next so that the students are are um able to transition well to the next school and program um to reduce that variability. So our our team came together. We developed some some goals um very much centered on looking at evidence-based practices, identifying evidence-based curriculum [cough] [clears throat] that promotes independence. We want our students to be independent. We want them to develop confidence. Uh we wanted to make sure that the curriculum emphasizes the development of essential skills and remains

023focused on academic achievement and progress. So, we've got a dream team together, uh, consisting of a parent, a pair of professional, a board member, you might know, Andy Freyer. Thank you. Two coaches, two general education teachers, three special education teachers, and two administrators. And the names are listed here. And we just felt I felt really good about this group because we really had representation from all the different sites and we had um everyone was really invested in helping us find an appropriate uh new curriculum. So our timeline um so back in July we have two main programs we're going to talk about. One is STAR and one is unique learning. um STAR reached out to us last summer and kind of offered some free training for teams to go over and we're like we love

024free things. So we sent um a team out to kind of start getting some training so we could start figuring out how to pilot the materials um in the classroom. So as early as July um we were planning getting materials to practice um in July when the school year began. And we also got materials from unique learning systems so that we could see what we liked and gather some really crucial data that helped guide the decisions um and our recommendations today. Then we had um three formal meetings in February that were open to the public um February 13th, 17th and 24th. And I know it seems sort of condensed, but there was tons of um frontloading at the beginning of the year, data collection, and then lots of self-paced work that was done by the

025team to ensure that all these rubrics were filled out. Um on the 17th, we met with the publishers, and then we did our final review on the 24th. You all have a copy of the extensive rubric with you. Um so, I wanted to make sure you had that. I'm going to go through kind of the key points from the rubric that we went through, but if you wanted to the whole thing. You um have what we use to sort of grade the material. We put the materials out on display um yesterday for the public and we're going to keep it out on public display for 64 days until May 4th. And then I'll be back to see you again um in May to talk through kind of any feedback we get from the public and

026hopefully finalize our decision together at that time. Um so again you have that rubric but when we were all coming together as a collective and going through the data the the biggest um the common uh trends the thing that the team really focused on the most was ensuring that the instruction was aligned to grade level standards. We wanted to make sure that we were that's what we do at USD and so we want to make sure that our students are like building on those essential skills and then we adapt our materials um according to the individualized needs of students. Um functional and adaptive skill integration is really important for our students with autism. We needed to ensure there was differentiation because we can ranges in our special education classrooms. So we wanted to make sure

027we were meeting kids where they were at. Um data collection and progress monitoring is really big in our world. We do progress reports every quarter and um we really have to ensure that students are making progress on their goals uh so that we are honoring they uh communication support is big. So we have many students in the RISE programs that also receive speech supports. They may have AAC devices and different ways to communicate. and we were thinking is there a way that we can find a curriculum that will support those communication goals as well. So in looking at STAR um we found that STAR was really really great for our K4 students. We found that in activities of daily living, behavior and self-regulation, self-awareness and interpersonal skills were all enhanced through the STAR curriculum. It

028had really nice structured incremental lessons that one they would build off of the next one. They the kids would earn like stars and be, you know, continually reinforced to go on to the next assignment. Um, and so we really liked all the positive praise involved in that. Um, it was centered more on one-on-one instruction. So if you have diverse needs in one class, they could all be working on um, the materials at their level. There is lots of built-in classroom management strategies in the program that the team really focused in on. Um, online data tracking, which we love in the special education world. It helps guide our practices and it helps us to write compant IEPs and ensuring that it was you know it is engaging and um clearly sequenced but the team did feel

029like one one consideration is that there's a lot of teacher preparation in that the one thing we were trying to we're here we want to do what's best for kids but it's just a factor it was something we wanted to talk through to make sure do we have capacity to create the materials um and so they felt like it was pretty time inensive we talked with publishers about that to see if there were any shortcuts, but um we didn't get good feedback. It sounds like it's a lot of our responsibility, but um we did like the systematic focus on building those core foundational skills and it was we found that it was really helpful for our students that are more impacted by their autism in school. Um but very good for the younger like it

030it's just more age appropriate for younger. When we looked at unique learning systems, um we found that it it helped with like we could the tiers in the program were able to be adapted to more advanced um learning opportunities. And so we found that there were some real positives with that. It's comprehensive. It's evidence-based. Um it supports learning beyond foundational skill levels. The more academic uh more advanced academic content was there. There's lots of incorporation of communication with this one um which the team really liked the um you know using the AAC devices in the program and having supports through the curriculum to integrate was really helpful. Um they there this one has more whole class um engagement opportunities at differentiated levels where whereas the other one might be more uh individualized. So they liked

031that that was an opportunity with this one. Um leveled instructional materials, lots of scaffolding is available and they just uh enjoyed that this one could promote a great deal of independence. It is technologyheavy. A lot of it was online. Um there's a lot of benefits to that. Kids like technology. So there were some components there that the team really liked. It was very structured but more flexible than STAR which is like a build from one lesson to the next. Um what makes unique learning unique is um the combination of age appropriate materials being able to sort of advance uh with differentiation. It had really cool data driven supports and like graphs and stuff, cool visuals that you could make with the data. um and and the team really liked they they notated that it bridged

032um it bridged the students from functional skills to broader academic achievement. So I came to you I'm coming with a recommendation and when we were talking I'm like what's the winner? Which one is it? Um the team really liked both. So, I know that might seem kind of unusual, but ESS is a unique world. And um we did find the benefits of having um having both because we felt like what STAR didn't have unique had and vice versa and that they really kind of cover the whole gamut of the students needs. We also felt that the um the STAR curriculum was it's probably going to be better for the younger and then with Granite having the five through eight program they're probably going to do more of a combo of both and then the upper

033grades are probably going to focus more on unique if you all go with this recommendation. I know no decisions have been made but just sharing that is what the um team was leaning towards. So, our next steps are to post for the next 64 days. Um, so come and check out the fun materials out here and then um I will be back on the 5th for the final board recommendation, but I know it's my first time really coming in formally presenting to you all and I'm sure I've heard that there's different questions about special ed programming and I really do want to share all the exciting things that we're doing. Um, so I'll be back next month. This is a three-part series. I'll be back next month and [clears throat] then I'll be back on

034the 5th again. Um, so just wanted to make sure you all knew that if you do have, you know, bigger overarching questions about special ed, I will be happy to answer them and I'll be here spending intentional time on that um, next month. So that's what I have for where we're at with curriculum adoption and I wanted to see if you all have any questions. >> In your experience, do people in the RISE program learn better on technology or on paper? >> That's a tough question and a good question. It really depends on the student. Like everything in special education is about their individualized needs. So I could have, you know, six kids in the program and like three of them are just really thrive in that that mode and others that like need hands-on

035and others that need like it visual in a different way. And so it's kinesesthetic learners like we've got all different kinds of learning styles. But I will say I'm noticing like more and more kids are exposed to more and more technologies and I see a lot of benefits with it. Um, and I see a lot of students that like it, but it's just it's not a one-sizefits-all in our world. Yeah, thank you for the question. Did that answer it? >> Yes, it did. Thank you. >> That was a great presentation. I just want to know, did Miss Almond put your slides together for you? [laughter] >> I wish she had, but I [laughter] just was hoping that I was going to get a coin at the end, but >> Maya, thank you for the presentation.

036It was very informative. One of the things when we first became board members, Brett and I did a little speaking or listening tour, we called it, not speaking. We were trying to be quiet and um we heard most from your staff. I would say um you have a staff that is very passionate about what they do and we really enjoyed getting to have a lot of really great conversations with them and I think this they will be very excited. I think a lot felt like there just wasn't a d a materials to the students and it was a lot of effort just to figure out even where they were going next sometimes and and the continuity from campus to campus as they grew was a concern. So it feels like you're addressing all of those.

037So um you have a great group of teachers and staff. >> I I agree with you. Thank you for that comment. Yes, we're very fortunate with teachers that we have. >> Yeah, >> I would certainly endorse everything you said there. My team have done some great things. I I have a question if that's all right. So when we um look at adopting some other curricula ELA for K through six or whatnot, we can we can be looking at tens or even in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars for something. Um often times that that will impact hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of students though. We're looking at a relatively small number of students here and we're we're used to investing more resources per child of course with kids with higher needs. No problem

038there. That's that's part of the deal. You you said you were looking at potentially option of two different resources. Do you have a ballpark figure on what you might be looking at for cost? >> So depending on what everyone decides, I mean it ranges from 1,200 to,300 per student for each one. >> And we've got upward and we don't have it's about maybe 25 students districtwide. >> Okay. >> Very good. >> And I want to echo what Jen me if you're finished. >> Yep. I sure am. You know, I think you have a great staff and and thank you for saying I was included in the committee. I attended one meeting. So, [laughter] but just seeing the way they work >> helping along the way. He gave me a lot of guidance for this presentation

039today. >> Just seeing the way they work together and knowing what you've been through and maybe kind of addressing that concern that they brought to Jen and Brett's attention as new board members. How do you see this moving you forward because you haven't had an opportunity to really work with a curriculum in my understanding up to this point? This is new for your teachers. So, what is that doing morale-wise? What's it doing teaching wise? How do you see this really benefiting you years down the road? Well, I think something that I'm hearing is relatively new since I started up is just we're doing a lot of um vertical articulation more than we ever have. And that's us coming together and saying hey that you know I mentioned there's three programs. There's one at AJ, one

040at Granite, one at the high school. I don't know that NE the feedback I've received is that prior to my time those programs weren't necessarily talking to each other. Um now we're encouraging we have monthly where we have teams come together and look at programs across the continuum. So, I think it builds morale. It it helps with continuity like we talked about, but we're trying to make sure that we're building skills so that when they transition because transitioning to a new school is hard, we want to make sure they're transitioning with support and then the next team knows the student and we're kind of, you know, working we're just working um more optimally that way. Kind of sharing that stuff instead of just receiving the not really knowing the background, just reading an IEP, which

041is just one version of a student, right? You're reading it on paper, not knowing them yet. Now, those communication practices are in place. Um, and we have coaches. We've got Rachel Hie here who's amazing. Um, and we're just so fortunate that we have like and she helps lead a lot of those conversations. Um, but just in looking at the adoption, you know, specific to that, it is about that communication, that cohesion and being really They have to be so thoughtful about each individual student as they as they grow and transition from each study. >> And that's such a key because it is so individualized. You know, when we approve a curriculum for math or social studies, we're impacting thousands of students. This has to be focused on what that student needs by federal law for

042an individual. So, you know, this is it's it's super critical that we get this right. And I just want to uh commend you for all the work that you've done in getting going work on this together. >> And my committee, it's a whole collective effort. >> Yeah. >> Any other questions for Maya? >> Thank you, Maya. >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> Okay, so we'll move on to item 7 A, summary of current events. Clark. >> Okay, great. Couple of things. Sarah gets these already for me. There's a there's a timely photo right there. Dr. M, if you've seen that photo before. >> Oh, wow. I received that on my phone a few hours ago from our board members and Shay who were down at the legislature today for um Arizona School Boards Association advocacy

043day. Heard a brief report from a couple of you about the uh activities you were involved in and the way that you represented us there. We appreciate that. So there's a this is the reason they look a lot like that is because that was just hours ago, right? >> We're still wearing the same thing. >> Very great. They didn't give us lunch on time and I was starving. >> Yeah, Brett was on the struggle bus for a little bit. In that exact photo, he was on the struggle bus. [laughter] >> Never mind. >> Well, we really appreciate you interfacing with our our legislators in down in the capital because, as we've talked about on a number of issues, can make a huge impact on what we do here. We can talk all day long and

044and and work all year long for things and and one or two things going a positive way for kids or a negative way for kids can make a lot of difference. So, appreciate you building those relationships. Um, couple of things that I was privy to earlier in the month. I was walking around by a Jud couple of months ago or a couple of months ago, excuse me, a couple weeks ago. Here come all these high school kids wearing. What is going on here? So, I followed them in. They went to one of our our music class there, Miss Timman's music class. And these are third graders, I think. And yeah, they are third graders now that I recognize some of them. and our French students uh in our French two class have been learning different

045French children's songs went and interfaced with the third graders and taught them songs and it was kind of fun. So couple of photos there the photo on the right is just one of the billboard or billboards bulletin boards excuse me that is in the hallway at mile high outside their math classes and I I loved it. I loved we get a version of that question pretty regularly. What what are we doing this for? When we were going to use this etc. And there were there were multiple there's 32 answers something like that to that question depending on what the kids are learning. I thought that's just really neat. It was it's a good example of the inspiring messaging that we see in the hallways of of all of our schools really from preschool all the

046way up to the high school. You see great things like that. Every once in a while I stop and think I got to get a picture of that. That's too good. Um just the other evening our some of our granite students and uh parents were involved but it was mostly fourth grade uh student current fourth grade students who went and they did a greet granite grizzlies uh night and this was actually during an assembly with all of the fourth graders during the um in the school district excuse me during the school day going and learning about I think we've got our orchestra up on stage there in the the cafetorium I think we call it sounds a little bit like crematorium so it's kind of creepy um the cafeterian there at Granite Mountain learning about

047the great programs that they've got available. I I you were talking about the two of you went to Grant I went to Granite as well. We moved to Prescuit and that was the first school that I attended and I thought this is spectacular. It's like a junior college campus. [laughter] It was pretty neat. Back then it was only about 12 years old instead of 50 years old. But but uh it's it's a pretty neat place. So we've got a lot of kids who are enthusiastic about moving on up there. And it's neat to see the uh enrollment at Granite Grow over the last few years. Just last Friday, I guess it was, we had a representative from the um the federal level with the United States Air Force over uh Air Force Junior ROC programs

048come and inspect our our unit there. And I I want to say this is the 18th year in a row they've they've had an inspection and once again they received a distinguished unit award. This time it was distinguished unit with merit. So essentially the highest honor they can get. I want to talk actually Mr. Nei with you and with um Major Dulio and with Senior Master Sergeant Apple Dornne. There's a mouthful right there about some kind of signage we can get outside of Prescuit High School saying welcome to Prescat High School, home of the best JROTC unit in the United States of America because that's the the data I've had shared with me before is that there's no other unit that they are aware of that has earned a distinguished unit award. Last time I

049checked with them 17 years in a row and this will now be the 18th. So by that measure, it literally is the best ROC unit in the United States of America and something we should be pretty proud of and it was a neat experience for me to to be briefly involved in that. Adam, I'm going to put you on the spot, but isn't along with that distinguished unit, isn't there eligibility for assignment to service academy or eligibility to service academy by that? >> I believe so. I don't know if it's the same as it always changes even opportunities. >> Yeah, I mean it just opens door more doors even just from what they accomplish for others seeking assignment. >> It is and great question as we've talked about before that's one of the the opportun

050options that becomes available to kids. It's actually a career and technical education program for us as well. We get some funding through that and some support that way. Um, and so it does it leads some kids directly into a career there. But for other kids, they're just learning about citizenship and leadership and being a good community member regardless of what they take from it. It's always positive. And you can see just I mean from looking at the photos, you can see it's really inclusive. I love it. It's just it's just it's a special thing. We're really proud. And then speaking of really proud, here's some of Mr. Neie's principal advisory committee students. He's got what, a couple of freshmen, couple of sophomores, couple juniors, couple seniors. Yes. Yeah. And there there were a few of

051them that were involved in a baseball game that day, so they had to be away. Uh but five were available and came to Granite Mountain uh this last last week, I guess it was, and presented to all of our fifth graders some great things about what they call their their president. There you go. Words work wonders. Um some things about anything from um uh avoiding bullying behavior, being not just being a bystander, but being somebody who intervenes appropriately if you see that, limiting gossip and rumors, uh using kind words with each other, encouraging others, encouraging yourself, just spectacular, spectacular. And I I sat there wondering which, you know, professional with decades of experience in dealing with young kids and and what's important in schools wrote this. He said it was these it was these eight

052kids that wrote that. It was it it was pretty neat. It was pretty honestly I was blown away. I see great things in our schools every day. This is one of the best things I've seen in a long time. I was I was moved by Mr. Anything you want to add there. >> These kids said what are some challenges at high school came up with this and then instead of attacking it right at that age they went it started for me when I was in fifth grade. So I think that's where I want to go. And I just couldn't be more proud. It was so so special and it's completely driven and they have the impact high school down the line and to me that's such a special way of looking at making change. So

053it was pretty pretty amazing. >> It was awesome. Right at the end they opened it up for questions. There were a couple questions about the presentation but then we couldn't stop them. I mean 20 minutes worth of questions about the high school. Want to get Wait a minute. Tell me more about that. if you do this, what electives are there? And are there honors classes? I mean, it's just so great to see the fifth graders and then their peers who are four to six years older than them is all interacting with each other. Pretty neat. >> Loved it. Okay. Um Ashley Tetro and I, you can see her right in the center of the picture there are members of the Yavapai County Future Readiness Council. And I think I've re reported to you before, it's

054a it's a group of business leaders, education leaders, and other community leaders who um have been meeting about every other month uh during this school year. It's led by Danny Brown, who many of you know um with funding from the Arizona Business Education Coalition. at any rate to talk about how to push some of the skills and programs for career and technical education down into the middle school level and start that that u pipeline for lack of a better word for kids um uh moving toward career and really thinking about careers at an earlier age and bringing some resources in it. Pretty pretty neat to be a part of that. And this is actually just picture of I think oh we got side of one face. Hopefully no FUPA violations here. But Humble bust in

055about 15 of their middle school kids and we sat down with them and said, "Okay, well, we've been talking about soft skills today as opposed to, you know, we don't get a lot of employers say your kids can't do math or they can't spell or whatever." For the most part, if there's a skill that somebody needs to have, a hard skill that a kid needs to have, we'll have old people in town say, "I went to Arby's and the kid couldn't count nickels back." Nobody uses nickels anymore. So, I'm not too concerned about that. But we do hear a lot of kids are not responsible. Kids can't show up on time. Kids have a hard time interfacing with other people in positive ways, etc. And so we talked about those skills with those kids. And

056it was it was a pretty neat conversation. And then here we go. Uh this is this is super cute. Um Abai does assemblies regularly as our other uh elementary schools do. All of our schools do actually in one way or another. But this was the kindergarten and preschool assembly last Friday morning. And man, talk about cute. It was super fun. There's Mr. Kid down on the ground leading them in the school song, I think, if I'm not mistaken. It was fun. And this month is youth art month. So, you know, our art teachers uh K through 12 are just they're excellent. And this is something that they help pull together every year for kids to put on um represented pieces of our students artwork on display mostly in the R Street Theater lobby, but then

057they end up in other places around town. We've got some businesses that say, "Yeah, we'd love some." You can see some examples of that. I don't know this is tied to youth art month last year or not. >> Great. Change these out. Okay. These are probably probably some I know they're artwork from last year or earlier this year. These social change out with youth artwork month. Anyhow, there's reception as you can see uh this Thursday in the R Street Theater lobby from 4:30 to 6:30. If you have time and like to stop by, it's pretty neat. Cool. Proud parents and kids there and and great artwork. I mean, you'll be some of it you'll say, "Hey, look what a third grader can do, but some of it you'll say, "Holy smokes, that was a school

058child that did that." Is pretty impressive. And last, I believe, nope, second to last. Yeah. Um, we'll talk Brian, I think, is going to do a presentation on this in full next month for you, but you're you're aware and we want our community to be aware that the auditor general does a report every year on uh school district spending and whatnot. And there's some school districts that are they're being flagged for, you know, not being as cautious with their spending as they could be. We couldn't have gotten a better report of we we've talked before how they group us. We don't choose on our own. The auditor general says, "Here's similar school districts to you." And they group us with 13, I think, other school districts. Humboldt and about 12 others throughout the state. They

059say, "Okay, these districts are like you. How do you compare highest spending of our not in terms of strict dollars but highest percentage our budget going into the classroom of any similar district in the state of Arizona. Super proud of that. And at the same time, and it's a correlary to that, the lowest administrative spending of any school district in the entire state of Arizona. Now, I've had people ask me before as we've talked about, is that a good thing to spend less on administration than anybody else? Well, most people in town think it is. So, we're going to tell that all day long. Uh, for sure. We're pretty efficient with it and and our teachers regularly report to us. They still feel um positive support from our administrators in spite of the fact that

060we're there is no one who's more efficient that way. So, we're pretty happy about that. And then our last slide here, there's some words there. I'll let you read uh from Mrs. Russo about their A+ award and we're we're super excited for them. Lincoln I don't think has ever applied for that in the past. the first time they apply, they at a school visit and uh were selected as one of fewer than 50 schools out of over,200 schools uh statewide to be awarded an A+ award. And once again for our public this is different than the A through F letter grades that are assigned by the state board of education. This is the Arizona Education Foundation which has been doing this program for four decades. We're really really proud of them. >> Okay. And I

061think that's all I have. Well, that's all. Okay, >> that's all. Only 10 things. Sorry. >> All right, governing board members. Brett, >> um I I had probably my busiest month. Um and I'll try to run through it quickly, but I attended a number of PHS girls basketball games and saw multiple members of the governing board each time I went. I love the fact that our governing board supports our students in in all their pursuits, but especially their athletic pursuits. Um, I also went to a Prescuit Unified School District and Prescuit City Council partnership meeting that um, Superintendent Tenny did, presented a great presentation and we had two members of the city council, Lois Furworth and >> Patrick Grady. Patrick Grady and then [clears throat] Mike Morris is also there as deputy city manager. >>

062He is. Yeah. And just FYI, I'm meeting with two other city council members to tomorrow. Thursday. >> Thursday. >> It was fantastic presentation. We just wish more city leaders were would have attended. It sounds sounds like you're meeting with them. So that's fantastic. Uh attended a a budgeting meeting as as we all did. I watched Prescuit High School tennis uh play Tempee and they did quite well. I think we beat them 18 to zero. Every member of our boys and girls varsity team beat their Temper counter counter. Anyway, the the person they burst >> the person they burst >> their opponent [laughter] like that's not even a word. Where'd you learn that? >> Not from us, just so you know. >> Um, that was that was great. Um, and last night I attended some schoolboard

063training that the county put on and thought that was excellent. And then advocacy day, we've already had a report on that. Uh my my takeaway from the the schoolboard training last night was when we have complaints, refer people back to policies rather than rather than try to dig into the complaint for a number of a number of reasons. And uh the takeaway today from advocacy day for me was building relationships with our elected officials to if we have those relationships then we can have we can go on and have uh conversations with any communication. Selena Bliss met with all of us and she gave us a special shout out um during the legislative session and she was uh she was listening. She was uh she's very busy down there and took time out and I

064appreciated her for that. >> We've we've got two representatives in the House that really know us and our school district and and reach out periodically to ask questions about things. So, thanks for strengthening those relationships. >> I think it would be just one more thing. I think it'd be great um if we could I don't know if we can do it as a as a governing board or just an individual. But when the legislative session is over and they have a little more free time building those relationships, maybe get together with them, have a have conversation about some of the some of the things that we're seeing in in school and things that they have control over that we don't. >> Give them an award. >> That was one of the suggestions. if you want

065to build a relationship with uh your legisl legislative members, give them an award. He said, he said it could be made up award, but just give them an award. They'll put it on their wall and they'll and they'll show up and they'll be your best friend. So, we might want to challenge >> challenge points. >> Yeah. >> All right, Stan. >> Yes. Um, so not much. Uh but I did attend the uh Valentine's dance uh at uh Lincoln school and their PTA auction. So it was very well attended and they did very well fundraising. Um and then we will be part of the uh the community event March 12th for celebration of the A+ uh excellence school excellence award. So big big deal. I do want to say that and this is just um more

066collaboration that we see among the schools and how our students are really inspiring the younger um generation if you will. Um so even just in in our own household uh TJ who is um who is a four third grader right now was he took a field trip and walked down to mile high school >> and he was so pumped because he was meeting with the older kids and it gives the older kids uh Killian O'Neal for one um who really just he looks up to. Kill has the opportunity to inspire as well, you know, and they shot off rockets and they did STEM and it was just it's just tremendous. And I think we see that in the high school, we see that at at Granite Mountain, we're seeing that at Mile High. It's a

067feeder program of all sorts, not just sports, but obviously academics and character more than anything. So, uh just tremendous to see that and uh probably one of the best days he's had school all year long and he loves school. So, um and then I and I do have to apologize uh here to the community, but I I am going to cut out because we have a big YMCA basketball game. Um so, the Chimmy Chongas are taking on I don't know the Mambas or something like that uh in the YMCA basketball tournament. n 10year-old boys and I have an obligation to them as their coach uh to be there. So I will be cutting out in three minutes if that's okay. >> Okay. >> Make that work. >> Thank you for coming >> Andy. >> Okay.

068Um a lot of the same types of things. So, um, you know, I was able to, uh, have a meeting with with Maya and then also attend the the RISE curriculum meeting, um, which was really great. It was great to see them working together and, um, you know, just it just really brings home how different special education services are for our students and how much we need to really focus on the individual needs that they have here. It was fun to go to the girls basketball game on Saturday I think was the last one and to watch them win and I know they're playing tonight so I'll try to be quick. I want to give a shout out even though I didn't attend the donuts at Daybreak program at at Bio PTO. I hope it

069went well. Um sorry I wasn't able to go but that's really awesome what you do with them out there. Um advocacy day was uh is fun the right word? I don't know if fun was right but it was really good and for PUSD we had the only student representative in attendance [applause] >> that was really really good. So also attended the council on the YCSA and training but I think those were the key highlights [snorts] for me. >> Jane do you have anything? >> Um a couple things. I'm having a hard time with the volume, but I'm just heard obviously Andy just said the girls won on Saturday, which was awesome because I've been going to their basketball games and missed it. Um, went to the city council plus the Clark meeting to see how

070we collaborate with each other. That was good. And the only other thing I could say, I've had a couple conversations with people before I left about why we were starting a four day school week next year. >> So, a few discussions on how that's not actually happening yet and won't be happening for a while, but other than that, um, mostly positive things. It's good. Um, I missed the basketball games, but good luck to Badgers. >> We'll text you and let you know how it comes out. >> Okay. Um, I also have a lot of the same things. And I would say one of the things about advocacy day that I found most impactful was uh getting to hear the his much more about the history at least from my perspective. I didn't know all of

071this history behind our funding for our facilities and our capital projects and or lack of funding I suppose is probably the better way to put that. But um it was very interesting and getting to hear from the attorneys that won the case recently for for um more capital funding that isn't yet being put into place, but it's it's encouraging to see so many people fighting for it. And so that was encouraging to go today. Um and we also I think were the most board members for any particular school district, but every legislative >> every rural legislative district was represented. So rural schools showed up in a very big way. 23 of our 30 legislative districts were there and every rural district was represented. So I think that's important to note that our rural schools are

072kind of banding together, standing up and saying we need this funding and we need to help in lots of different ways. But it was very good. Um, communitywise, I actually been attending a couple of different economic things within our community from both a uh, school perspective and a real estate perspective, but um, it was fun to be at an economic summit hosted by both Prescuit and Prescuit Valley Chambers and our realtor board and have our Prescat High School ROC come and do our flag ceremony and a lovely student from Prescuit High School come and sing the national anthem. So, it was great for PHS to be so well represented. They did an amazing job. So, Jax and Shay, what do you guys have? You want to go first? >> All right. >> So, I went

073to advocacy today, which was really awesome. I really liked just the amount of people that showed up was really impactful to me, especially the legislators that showed up. We had a repres We had two representatives talking to us and senator talking to us and I found that to be really beneficial. Um, also for S Club, which is a women's organization, it's like a service project club. Um, on a couple Saturdays ago, we did a fundraiser for Arizona Phil Harmonics where we sold concessions for them. And then on the Wednesday after that, we had a meeting where we made an affirmation poster and it said, it's just this big poster that says, "I am." and then a couple affirmations on the side and we put post-it notes on it so students can take it as they

074pass by whatever they need throughout the day. And then recently for NHS and Interact, which is a service project club, we did the but creek restoration and that was really awesome. I was shoveling wood chips and bringing them over and helping the seeds out. It was great, very beneficial. And then and then last night I went to the boys volleyball game and they did great. They did not win unfortunately, but they put up a really good fight. Yeah. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> That's the kind of fighting we like. >> Uh uh so both boys and girls basketball, as I'm sure most of you guys, you know, made runs in the state playoffs. Boys and girls soccer did as well. We're starting all of our spring sports seasons at PHS. Then on top of

075that, Map Force at PHS, which goes to all of the other schools in the district, all the elementary schools in Granite Mountain and does presentations on how to keep your body safe and uh avoid drugs and stuff. Recently did a vaping and fentanyl training and we're starting presentations going to the schools and teaching all of the younger kids how to avoid those things and stay safe with them out in the world. And it's I mean, it really make an impact on these kids. I've had random kids who I don't recognize come up to me in Target and be like, "Do you remember me? You were in my class." And so, it really does make an impact on them. So, that's good. >> Makes such a bigger impact that it's you and not us telling them

076that. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> So much more. >> Okay. Item 7B. Does any board member have any community comments to share from our community? I have just a couple. I had one community member >> um talk to me about uh school finance and they just said they had a hard time going on the website and figuring out where that data is and I might need to sit down with Clark or um Brian learn how to do that. So I I didn't know where to tell them to go or how to how to find that information. >> Depends on what data they need. But yeah, some of it would be readily available right on the website in a place you could say, "Oh yeah, it's column 17 and lines 43 through 48." And some of it,

077you know, we'd need to present in a different way, but we're super happy to get with anybody. So, yeah, please follow share that with me. It wasn't it wasn't a negative situation. They just wanted to >> absolutely and that's that's Brian's area of expertise, although I you know, I could probably point you in the right direction. >> You want me to contact Brian? >> Great idea. Yeah. >> And then I had opposite of Madam President, I had the teachers ask me why we're not going to four day uh I went to pick up my son for an orthodontic appointment and I was surrounded by by teachers and staff wanted to know why we weren't going to four days. And I tried to explain I wish I was more prepared and could have been a little

078bit more articulate but their message to me was students want it, teachers want it. Why are you messing around? Why don't you just get it done? And um I was hope I'll be a little more articulate to to maybe help them understand it's not what the students want or the teachers want, it's what the community wants. And if they and if they uh exactly if they don't vote for a bond or an override, we're going to be in big trouble. And if they perceive that we're going to four days and we're going to have extra money, then that's not going to help anybody. >> Anything for you, Andy? >> Nothing for me. >> How about you, Jane? You kind of already So, I think you're probably good. I do not have anything either. >> Well,

079how about that? >> Look at that. We're ready to move on. Item 8A, the consent agenda. Is there any are there any items within the consent agenda that you would like to see pulled from the agenda? >> Okay. Then I will take a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? Hi. >> Hi. >> Okay. Well, >> we will go to on to item 8B, study and voting session. Do we have anyone wanting to speak? >> Okay, so we have several voting items tonight. Item 8B1, consider approving an outofcountry travel request for Mr. Robert Ernst, German and English teacher at PHS for the Prescuit Zites Sister City foreign exchange to Zites, Germany from May 30th to June 14th, 2026. I was so tempted to use

080the stool. >> You really should. >> Yes. Perfect. >> Yeah, that's a little much. So, I don't I don't think we need that, but yeah. Love that Clark knew I was about to do that. Um, nonetheless, I'm really excited to come present to you guys about a program that we are super proud of. Um, this is the uh sister city exchange with Zites Germany. Um, and we are looking to have our eighth exchange um this summer where we actually will have students heading as long as you guys approve over to Zites to experience the culture, present about um Prescuit and experience their schools and all that goes along with that. Um we have uh actually this year um our our um chaperon attending will be Emily Kleinman who's a parent and also a substitute in

081the district. Jax might know uh his aunt. Um so uh we'll be traveling over there. We have four students um and uh we are very hopeful that they get that same great experience and then in the fall uh the exchange would happen where the five German students will be coming or six maybe if I'm looking at it correctly would be coming over and experiencing Prescuit High School or Bradshaw Mountain depending on who they're visiting. So are there any questions that I can answer for you guys? I'm trying to think of key other pieces here. This is uh mostly uh all fundraising. So there's very little pieces there that would be of cost um to the kids. And we would have four of our students attending along with Mrs. Klein. >> Any questions? >> I don't

082have any either. So I'll take a motion to approve an out of country travel request by Mr. Robert Erns to Germany >> this summer. >> Second. So, all in favor, sorry, I forgot my part. All in favor? [laughter] >> I thank you, Mr. Ney. >> Are you next again? No, I don't think you're next. >> I think Mr. Tenny's presenting the next one. I am gonna go root for the Badgers. So, go Badgers. >> Go Badgers. >> And go Chibi Chongas. >> Yeah, >> Mr. Happy birthday to your daughter, too. >> Wow, that's crazy. Th things are about to change there, Mr. >> Ne. >> Item 8B2, consider approving the following overnight travel request from Prescuit High School girls softball. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Our softball team is going to be attending a two-day tournament

083uh coming up here in Wow. in a few days. Okay. And so they're really hopeful you say yes because otherwise they'll be they'll be changing their plans. It's not very far away. It's just down to Wikcinberg, but they will be uh spending the the evening there. And I should have gotten details about their accommodations. I know that we give them parameters around what that looks like. It's often an Airbnb. Sometimes it's hotels, but >> Super Motel. >> There you go. Thank you. I'm glad that you were aware. >> I think it's on here. Yeah. >> Oh, well, how about that? >> It's in the packet. So, there you go. Do you have other questions that I could read from the packet for you? [laughter] >> No cost for students. There's a there's an X there.

084That's my understanding. Yes. >> They're taking private vehicles. >> I'm not sure on the transportation. I know we got Is that what it says? >> So that's that's fine. That's covered. >> Our students are insured. >> If we if we're if it's part of a a trip that's approved by the board and they're following policies as far as, you know, who's with who and and permission slips and whatnot, we're pretty good about that. Okay. >> It is covered by insurance. All right. If there's no more questions, I'll take a motion to approve the overnight travel request for softball. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I still here with us. Item 8B3, consider approving the 2026 2027 budget package based on enrollment projections, increases, decreases, and salary increase options as outlined in

085the attachment. Brian Moore, >> that would be me. >> All right. Well, I appreciate governing board members uh sitting down with the district admin team to go over this in pairs of two or or one in one case. And I apologize for my absence because I was not feeling well for two of the meetings. Um, so for all of our plethora of uh, you know, viewers online and and our audience members, I'm going to kind of go through this as we did in our meetings so that um, the public can can watch and understand what we deal with. And so really, when it comes to our budget package, this is not a necessary or mandated thing from a the state of Arizona auditor general standpoint. This is something that we do in this format so

086that contracts can be given. They're coming for you, Brett. >> So, uh, so that cont contracts can be given in the outlines when they can, for example, March 15th, blah blah blah for teachers and as early as tomorrow for some of our employee groups. And so, we have increased cost uh due to increased costs and that and also some increased revenue that is outlined on the left hand side. And so, when we look at it, the biggest increased cost we have every year is our health insurance. And we received an extremely wonderful surprise last late last week that um our health insurance will be going up only 4% uh this upcoming year. And I think it was such a blessing that we switched our health insurance companies because this was lower than I was hoping

087or hoping for and it just helped this budget package so significantly. So that's a just under under $200,000 cost increase for 4% uh minimum wage. We will have this cost increase every year. Uh specifically, this has to do with our contracted custodial services due to minimum wage going up and cost of living increase. Um it's a $40,000 approximate cost for next year. Um we do have a high call a high cost child reimbursement. Last year in our bud budget package, we estimated that we could save or get reimbursed for about 85,000 of u what's called a high cost child. It's a federal program. There's a state that was a little bit of an overshot and uh this year we're probably going to bring in about 35 and that's probably the bar that we can expect.

088So we have to pull back the money that we used in last month's raise and so it is an increased cost for us. Um, so with that, we have $258,000 of increased costs for next year right out the shoot. Luckily, uh, right around 2015, the state was mandated to increase what a child was worth by 2% or inflation, whichever is lowest. I'll let that just pause for a second and whichever is lowest. And that estimated will bring in a little over 500,000 for next year. And we also have something in uh in the state of Arizona called the TEI, the teacher experience index. Essentially, they take the state of Arizona's average teacher 10 uh experiences. Experience is counted as the number of years a teacher is within the district plus the number of years you

089gave upon placing them on the salary schedule. Add those two together, you have their years of experience. If we're higher than the state average, we get money. and our average went up a little bit, meaning we will have $63,000 more. We get a little over a million dollar, half a million dollars in that TEI. So, our teachers like working here, they stay around and we actually um get funded and that helps with our raises. Arizona State Retirement Systems going down for the second time in the last decade, which is amazing. And we will benefit like $700 next year. So, but it's better than an increase. And then the big one that couples with um health insurance is we were down almost 70 ADM or annual daily membership. A 18 ADM is a child who's enrolled

090from the first to the 100th day consecutively or two kiddos enrolled the first 50 days and then the second 50 days. Whatever combination they have to be enrolled 100 days. and we're down 69 of those ADMs, which is $360,000. So before we even get out, before we can talk about raises, you you'll you'll notice that really that's almost an even wash on the end. But then we need to give raises in which we are recommending to the board a two and a half% raise based on those things that we have on the lefth hand side and then some of the revenue increases that we are recommending to offset the raise. So two and a half% across the board 641,000. Uh how we're going to make and bridge that net to be zero. Our some we

091have no reoccurring position or we have no positions. We used one-time money that now we have to budget. Um and we do that as part of our proactive budgeting process. And we have no positions that we deem necessary for next year that are new. Otherwise they go in the middle column in the middle of the middle colum. But we have some efficiencies and analyzing uh funds to help us offset what we need a bridge for the two and a half raise. Um I'm going to have Mr. Tenny kind of talk about what's called the classroom site fund and then I'll go through the rest of them. Okay. Super. Classroom site funds a term you've probably heard before. Proposition 301 created the classroom site fund and there's a 1 cent sales tax um that Arizona voters

092chose to impose upon themselves to uh increase teacher pay. And so it builds up millions and millions of dollars each year that are distributed based on um the total amount that's available and the total number of students in the Arizona public school system including charter schools. And so based on our enrollment, we get a certain number of shares essentially is maybe a good way to put it. Those shares are worth uh more or less each year depending on tax revenues. Our teachers for the last several years, this has been a substantial portion of their overall compensation. We start our teachers on the salary scale about $41,000 42 something like that. And this has brought to a a full-time teacher who's with us throughout the year an additional $13,000 and change each year. So it's it's

09320% plus of their overall compensation. So it's a big deal for them. teachers were aware that our enrollment has gone down a bit due to vouchers and people saying $8,000 to keep my kid at home. I'll try that. Um, so they might have been expecting that the amount of 301 money, they often refer to it as classroom site funding money, uh, would be going down this year based on our decrease in enrollment, but it turns out the value of each share based on tax revenues gone up enough to offset that. We actually have a little bit more money than we had last year. So, not only will teachers be receiving the very same amount that they uh received the last couple of years in a row, but there's even a little bit extra to fold

094into the salary scale. And when we shared this with teachers, we thought, wow, are teachers going to worry about not getting the full amount of of all the 301 money going directly into a bonus at the end of the year as we've done for several years. And the contrary was true. Teachers said, "That's a great idea. we can benefit nurses and paraprofessionals and other people who support us as well as getting virtually all those dollars uh to in our PC check in one way or another. So teachers were very very positive about that and that's kind of where we're at with that. So an additional $221,000 available to kind of fill in the hole that's created by the lack of funding uh from those other things that Brian pointed out in the first column. And

095these the other things that we've shared are not new to our our board members, but this this this column is. So, please interrupt with any questions that you have as we go along. Um I do analyze our our our funds because we have like 44 of them. Um there is a partic one of them has generally earned about $50,000 of interest every single year and it has increased our carry forward in that fund and my recommendation is to use that um for a position essentially alleviating M our maintenance and operation budget with the position uh alleviating that to be in this fund which is applicable for this fund and it will free up $50,000 if um we do do a staffing analysis every single year. Unfortunately, uh our decrease enrollment has hit the elementary the

096most. Um and so based on that staffing allocation we will we are recommending to go down in two sections at Aayia Jed, one section at Taylor Hicks. Our mode within that is uh enrollment paperwork has gone out. Enrollment will continue all the way through the beginning of the school and principles will do enrollment verifications in May. And whether it's either one of these or another grade level at another school that has a boost in enrollment, we always uh verify in May. And if we need to, we'll use one-time money to have a new position essentially. And if that position is continued in the future, we would budget for that next year. So part of our budget package is is the essential of uh three positions or 200 or no, I'm sorry. Yeah, $210,000 between the

097three of them uh to help offset the race. >> And to clarify there, we're not looking at class sizes significantly higher than the same targets we've set for years. So, if you were from Connecticut and you looked at our class sizes, you would lose your stuff. You'd say, "What?" If you're from Phoenix, you'd look at our class sizes and be envious. And that's where we're at. >> And then just for the uh benefit of the public, there's no teachers being fired for these these uh that is correct. Yeah. There we have people retiring and it worked out really well. >> And you know, the staffing allocation in this process works really well. So that we when we we're not having to carve with an axe, you know, this really is a scalpel and due to

098retirement and just people moving away, we have not had to have that riff uh process. I think it's been 15 years or so. So um so those are the three Mr. Tenny went to or I don't know who you talked to, >> city. city council and really said, "Hey, look at our neighboring districts when it comes to the cost of the school resource officer at the high school." And you know what? I bet you, you know, we can support our kids more and have the city pay a larger portion. Before it was, we were paying 75% of 10 months. And in this case, it's now 50% of the 10 months, which gives 27,000 in savings. Again, going to our mission to be able to give as big of a raise as as it's fiscally responsible.

099and and that's what you're going to vote for. Um we have Medicaid reimbursement. Students with health needs that have an IEP. Anyone who's working with those students that have those areas, um they can either do what's called a random moment or a MYIP billing. Essentially, they're logging their time working with those students and that brings in what's called Medicaid reimbursement to offset the cost of associated of those employees. And we have expanded that I think two times what it used to be. And those that can do either direct billing or or random moments um have expanded. With that, we have over the last couple years brought in $200,000 more in Medicaid reimbursement, which we kind of used as a fund to help oneset costs like curriculum or other needs. And in this case, we're recommending

100to earmark 200,000 of that fund solely for salaries and benefits. again having a couple people funded out of that fund and which um opens up M to be applied to the race. Last in gaming um we get very little when it comes we get nothing from scratchers. This is actually in gaming in the casinos and we have historically received about 140,000 for that every year. That has went over 200,000. It's about 260,000 now and it's sign significantly increased and we've paid uh some teachers one-time monies like when I said if we need a teacher in May there's areas you can spend that money uh and that is one of them but we're we're instead of saying we're going to cut teachers or a staff member uh in order to get $80,000 which we we can

101use that fund to offset cuts as well And so I'm recommending to have a teacher funded out of that fund. Once again, freeing up 80,000 of M. And that will make it so that on the right is the summary. We would be 20 134,000 to the good, which does allow the board a little conversation of whether a 2 and a half% raise is where we should land on or whether the govern board thinks we should push a limited more and eat into that net being positive. my nine years in this position. I think this is the largest net. Um we have lots of uncertainties coming up in the future and if you would like my opinion on that 134,000 I can give it but it is there for you to discuss if you want to

102have a little bit bigger race. Going to make a couple of quick follow-up comments and hopefully you've got some good questions about where you want to go uh with this. First of all, Brian, thanks for your thoroughess there. This is a template that we've used successfully for years, right? The The only things that are reflected here are adjustments to last year's budget. Right? We're not going over every line item in the budget for you. There'll be thousands of things. These are things that we're looking at recommending or um absorbing a significant difference from from last year. That's the first piece. Uh the second piece is yeah, Brian's exactly right with our our medical insurance having uh we just found out in the last couple of days that it's it's going to be it's kind of

103weird to get excited about our insurance costs going up $174,000, but we're super excited because it's usually $400 $500,000 or something like that. So, the fact that um we're putting another $173,000 into uh benefits for employees, unfortunately, not a dime of which they'll see in their paychecks is kind of sad, but also exciting in a different way like we talked about. But because we were earlier anticipating a larger increase there, we didn't think we're going to have more money available for anything else. And so, our all of our other recommendations to you are based on those assumptions, you know, as But for the benefit of the public, there are multiple things that that um a little bit of flexible money could go toward. The three main things, as you recall, are class sizes, making class

104sizes smaller. Really, to make a significant difference across the district there, you'd have to hire 30 more employees, which would be in the in the millions and millions of dollars. There's not money for that, but we could target some money here and there to reduce the class size here or there. That's one um opportunity to to use these funds. and other opportunities to expand programs uh various programs whether it's you know curriculum we want to buy both of these curricula for this program or just want whatever there's opportunities to use money that way the third opportunity is to uh increase staff pay the board has for the last several years asked us to find out what what's the priority with our staff and you've asked me as well where do you think you can have

105the biggest uh impact on students we've talked about this before the very best thing we can do to help students be successful is put a great teacher in front of them a great support staff for that teacher. That actually happens to dubtail very nicely with the overwhelming uh input that we get from people. Teachers are in relatively big class sizes compared to the rest of the United States. They know that. And yet the overwhelming feedback that we that we get every time we survey people formally or informally is that's okay. I know where we're at with class sizes. We've got to have some more money in our pockets. Pres gets incredibly expensive to live. if you want me to stay here in PSUSD, we can't be below the state average, which is already pretty low

106to begin with. So, our recommendation, every assumption that Brian made is talking about more money for salaries, etc. There's other opportunities out there for the use of money, but to be clear, to be very clear, our recommendation is to do what our staff is recommending, which is use any money that you feel is available to put into staff raises. So, at minimum, we'll recommend that two and a half% raise, but as Brian talked about with that 134,00 we want to every bit of that. Right now, you could go all the way up to a 3% raise. Now, I'll I'll point out a couple of things. Um, I think that's about what Humble is was talking about conceptually offering their folks. It also would represent the lowest raise we've offered to our staff in the last

107decade, which would be rough. It's less than half of what people at the county and city get on a regular basis. On the other hand, it's the first time in Andy, what did we figure? Six years >> that the raise, if the board went even at two and a half percent inflation last year was 2.2%. So, this would be the first time in a very long time that teachers purchasing power would actually be increasing slightly with either uh scenario, 2 and a half% or 3% uh raise. The other thing that I'll point out, and then I'll let you process and ask questions and whatnot. There are a lot of things with $134,000 we could do. One of them is is additional programs or things of that nature. Andy and Kelsey help me out. We have

108people come to us with a new idea for a new staff position every few days. Right. Um and uh we usually say that's a terrific idea. We'll we'll think about it and you know if the budget allows for that we'll think about uh passing that along to the board. A discussion that we had recently um was around instructional coaches. They're super impactful in helping teachers hone their craft and be better at impacting kids. And we're fortunate in our district to have had a board that says we want to invest in that. And as you know, we've got an instructional coach at each school. And that again, so impactful and they're great. They're great folks. Kelsey leads that team and they just do such a good job uh there. One of the things that we've been

109looking at is trying to increase our engagement at the high school to make it um to bring some of the the real positive things we've brought uh at our K through eight schools up to the high school where it's a little less lecture and whatnot that we might get in college but would be a little bit more engaging etc. That a big part of that would be helping coach teachers. We've got I'll give you an example. We've got um how many teachers do we have at Lincoln? About 14ish teachers at Lincoln. I think they've got one instructional coach. The high school has 62 teachers. They also have one instructional coach. So, we've talked about boy, if there was a place that we would add anything in the district. And again, we get requests for some

110addition someplace all the time. It it might be to recommend that we have some additional instructional support at the high school. So, we're thinking a little bit about that. That's something we could do with some onetime money this next year. Pilot that if we felt, boy, that went well, come to you next year with that. or if you felt like that's a priority, let's talk about putting some of that into budget. So, anyhow, I just I share that in the context of there are so many directions that $134,000 could go and it's up to you to determine if you want to put that in to what teachers say is their all staff say is their highest priority salaries from them now for them now. Save all or part of it for a rainy day. We

111get lots of rainy days in education. uh or to invest some of it in in that way or another way that you see fit to direct. >> I did just tell Sarah I share this documents with her so she can pull it up if you want to play with that raise. You can see live what that would do to that that net if you if you care to. So other than that questions that you might have. >> Yes. So if you said what what would happen if we took half of 134 and put into races and the other half saved it. We could show you exactly what that would look like. Thanks. >> If it was if he said, you know, let's let's just let's maximize the raise that it wouldn't make it. Well, it

112would look like it would go to three and >> yeah, it'd go to three and that would have a 5,800 net. U >> uh you'd have to change No, I put it in. You have to change the I'll I'll control it if you want to zoom it out so that they can see more of the document. So that's what you say gets us exactly to >> literally >> we're using all of our money which is which is often what our recommendation is for you right >> Brian what's your opinion on that money >> I'm curious since you said pass >> it is it's a great question to ask >> if I knew the override if the governing board so passes votes to have it go on the ballot and I knew their override would pass

113I would say maximize That's but we don't know yet. >> That's a big if >> it is. It's a huge if because really >> in our community >> the the middle column where we're essentially generating $788,000 through using interest >> on a fund. >> It's about the last there's not much left, >> right? Besides new kids coming in and rolling where we have a positive in the lefthand column of revenue versus a negative, I think we have a better chance of the override happening than that, us not being down ADM next year. Um, if I knew the health insurance wouldn't spike due to global things or national things, there's a lot of I'm always cautious. You know, Clark and I actually are more in where similar. You know, Mr. Howard used to push the envelope

114and I I mean, I would have to be way over here because he I want a 15% raise next year. I'm like, "What the heck you talking?" And so I'm always conservative. >> The 144,000 would really I mean it's a half a percent for next year if the override doesn't pass >> or >> what's the position? or you know if we were talking about like the instructional coach position you know we're talking 70,000 so that cuts this in half and that then would be saved for that and a quarter% of raise if the override doesn't pass. >> If you felt important to put that in the budget this year again we could use one time money to to do a pilot for that and see yeah how it goes >> and then you know if

115it if it was important we would come to you and say this is one of our priorities this year we really encourage you to keep this in the budget. Yeah. And so yeah, then that's a perfect example of the proactive budgeting is if we feel and the governing force, yeah, we need two instructional coaches at the high school, it would be we have we we are very luckily or skillfully uh financially secure with reserves. And so our carry forward is going down, which is what keeps me up at night. Um and it needs to slow. even if we needed to slow it with time, we because we have money from when we dissolved our um our joint uh health benefit trust with Humbult. So we have money there that could pay for premiums instead of

116M paying. So we are in good it's all one time >> if we needed it to dip into for an emergency things like that. Do you have any uh capital things on the horizon that you just don't think we're ever going to see a grant for? >> Yes. >> I mean, everything everything that's out there, but I'm just curious as far as other one-time money we would have to be able to make sure we have available. >> You know, from a capital standpoint, we still have a million dollars in a fund for um >> from school buildings that we sold. >> Thank you for >> Awesome. Thank you. >> So that so from a capital be used for Brian. Can we use that? >> It can only be used. It can be used for buses.

117It can be used for things that have a life more than a year. It can be used if we did have an HVAC went down and the school facilities wouldn't was didn't have the money to fund it. So, we've got about a million >> be used for technology, for instance. >> It could, which is good because I I ballparked we're looking to to apply for a grant to offset some of the cost of Chromebooks that we'll need to replace in the next couple years. That'll be higher on our list if you go for a bond. But if the bond doesn't pass, >> oh my goodness, >> we've got >> that will make a dent. >> 2500 Chromebooks that are going to be failing in the next few years. And I ballparked the replacement costs are

118$1.3 million. So >> they're about $400. >> Are there are there major capital things coming up? Yeah, a bunch of them. How much does the state give us for that? Zero. So we've got to be really really thoughtful about how we fun those things. >> We receive about $2.2 2 million in district additional assistance. That's the stuff. Um, but we do divert $700,000 of that to M. So that 2.2 is now 1.5. And last year we spent more than 1.5 in our DAA. Um, this year we'll be probably right at the So we're not generating generating any additional carry forward with our DAA. So any major capital need would have to come out of the land sale money or those other flexible funds that we have that have some balance. >> We're hoping our community

119will respond positively to probably the the most affordable bond that's ever been asked for in Arizona >> besides the 2015 because that fair >> but there would have been a tax decrease if we >> Can you put 2.75 on the additional rate and see what that looks like? Oh my gosh, technology is amazing. Oh, that gives us 70,000 in >> that would pay for a position someplace. >> Yes, >> that probably >> or or it would, you know, put that in the bank in case we have, you remember the time we were visiting with some great parents at Violet who were concerned about, you know, potential class sizes next year. Turned out that they were even lower than we anticipated that they were talking about. Let's spend that money now on another teacher and whatnot.

120While we were having that conversation, we had a pipe burst in one of the air conditioning units at the school just started flooding and it it brought into sharp review for everybody in the room. That's why we have to be very very cautious about spending money now because we need money now for kids now and teachers now. I don't want to carry a bunch of money forward. That's not what we're supposed to do. But we do need to have a cushion between us and the abyss in case stuff happens or we're going to be in the front page of the paper like all the districts down in the valley are cutting that because they were not as cautious and thoughtful as Brian has recommended. >> I I run a business. I don't know how successful

121it is. We don't deal with big big numbers like these, but my recommendation is as much as we can. >> Is this something we need to decide on tonight? Yes, >> because the contracts are going to be awarded. So, we have to the contracts are very clearly, you know, it may change. Like I know the teachers know they can't rely on everything that's coming out on that because things can shift, but but we want to give them as much confidence as we can. Um, >> yeah. So, you'll be approving a number around a conceptual budget tonight. So, exactly like Jen says, so that we can make an offer to teachers of this is what we anticipate that we'll be able to offer you next year. Stan said I could have his vote, too. So, >>

122Oh, wow. Fantastic. >> Oh, was that what he said? Yeah. >> He said he said, "Vote for me, please." >> What are your thoughts? >> I I do like the 2.75. That's a hard one. I mean, it's hard to to say don't go to three. There's benefits to to both of these. Um, you know, I'm wondering if I think 2.5 we should do better than 2.5. I guess that's what I would say is let's do the best we can to get it as high as we can. If we can add an additional co coach at the high school there's going to benefit to that as well. So, while my heart says three, my head is saying, >> I'll I'll throw a curve in there just because as much as I was talking about reserves for

123capital, we're probably even more financially secure when it comes to MO reserves because we do have probably at this end of the year, at the end of the year, I think we'll probably be around H, excuse me, about 2.5 in know carry forward into next year. But we also have $2.2 million sitting in that uh premium that we can spend on health insurance. And so with that being said, taking a risk and pushing it a little bit and if the override passes, that's our race for next year. So building in a few >> I think Jane got disconnected. >> Jane got disconnected. Um, I uh having a position new next year without it saying 70,000 on there is not as concerning to me because we have the one-time reserves and if the override does pass,

124we really would be looking at efficiencies for this type of thing because the raise is taken care of. So, I don't think you can go wrong. I do know that our staff knowing that we're down with our I I I presented to Discovery Gardens on Friday and I said 2.5 and I think the general feel was that's great because >> probably didn't think it was going to be that high and so a three would just be over the moon on commitment to retention to our staff and our commitment to raises. So, >> do I think that the decision based on the high school instructional code is dependent upon it saying 70,000 up there? I would easily recommend that to use onetime money for that and build it in next year depending upon what happens with

125the override then say let's not go as high of a raise. >> So, we could potentially still do that. >> Yes. >> Okay. Okay. >> Yeah. From one time. >> I like the three. I don't love being so close to what inflation is >> because that's it's kind of sickening that our state gives us 2% or inflation, right? Whichever is lower. And that's ridiculous. And I mean, >> obviously our number at two and a half is even higher in raises than what we're getting for inflation. I mean, the number is 100,000 more, but I'd like to see us get as close to that three as we can. >> This is the first time I would say were above inflation because when it was eight >> we gave a three.6 I mean, literally every single person

126buying's power went down essentially took a a a staff cut pay cut >> when it's lower than inflation. 4% for insurance. We have a lot of people that do have dependents and luckily they can get it through the district, but that 4% >> affects them as well. >> Affects them. It's about 11,000. Oh, no. It's over 11. It's probably 11,700 for a spouse. And you know and and 4% is almost $700 of the raise would be going to that raise in itself of cost. >> So >> I think I'm have you been able to follow the conversation even though you got cut off. Do you have thoughts about >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good. I've got Yeah, I'm good. I've got the numbers in front of me so I can still see what's going on

127there. >> Do you have thoughts about the amount of that would be appropriate. Again, we're recommending a minimum of two and a half%, but we've had various board members looking at 2.75 or three or whatnot. What are your thoughts around that? >> Um, I'm looking at if we were to go, of course, my initial thought is that I would love to go three, but if we went three, our 134 net suddenly is down to like 9,000 if I'm doing the arithmetic correctly because it cost about 125,000 to do a half% Great. So, I think I'm leaning towards 2.75 as opposed to 2.5, but I could I could go either way as far as what the rest of the board members thinks appropriate. >> Okay, good input, Madam Vice President. >> Wow, that's fun. >> I

128I did the calculation on $61,396 average teacher salary and we're talking about $150 a year each paycheck it's going to be >> before taxes $12 a month not a huge I mean >> right it's almost more about optics of >> how the teachers feel about it versus a um perhaps as much of a dollar and cents per teacher, right? Like sadly the number impacts our budget greatly and it impacts their wallets very little. And so it's frustrating that it doesn't have as big of an impact for them as it does for the for the outlay for the district. You know, because when we spread it across everybody, it impact is not as great. >> And I think knowing that the one-time funds are available and even if we did go 2.75, we would still have

129to come back and ask for this M next year. Correct. If if if we spent if we did a 275 and spent some money on an instructional coach, we would still need to fund that instructional coach next year because that's just right. It wouldn't be an increase to this though. So if you said, "Hey, 275 and we're directing you administration to to get a that's that's an idea that's been wellreceived by the that we've just talked about in this few days with with wow there's a little bit of flexibility here what are ways that we can impact students so anyhow to answer your question we had 2.75 that would give us just about enough to hire that and if you told us fold that into the budget starting this year we're pretty committed to that

130idea after we would have that amount in the budget and assume that same thing for next year there are losses of revenue >> yeah and and with that it can go the other way If because a lot of times with positions, we do use onetime money because our dollars need to stretch so far that really the value of the position is evaluated six months or a after it has been implemented for the year. So we could still leave that 70,000 on here if that was a position that the governing board and you know and districts thought the high school could really benefit. we could use the onetime money and we have the funding for it next year or or the equivalent of it because we didn't spend it this year. So, you know, it's it's

131kind of one half or whatever half dozen or whatever. >> Can you read that number at the bottom of the I just can't read. It's too far away. >> 69,997. You're welcome. and a and a a teacher instructional coach as we talked about process almost 70 to $75,000 depending on their level of experience. So turns out we didn't do math beforehand but turns out that that could work very very well but that would give you zero additional carry forward dollars if you wanted to do that how important that could be too. We don't typically recommend to you that you sit on a lot of money though. We have funding and there's kids now and teachers now that need it. Thoughtful about the amount of carry been okay so far pretty good shape. We got a

132smart very conservative CFO and he's right. Joe used to say, "Let's do this all." I'm more kind of like Brian. Let's let's hold back a little bit more conservative, but absolutely. It's up to you. I'll endorse whatever. >> I really think we're going to pass over. So, if we go% >> Oh, and Stan does. Okay, good. I'm glad you're you're uh aware of that. I I agree. I knowing the carry forward we currently have and having read very thoroughly your audit report that we'll get to later. Um [laughter] I feel confident that we could do the three and be good. Um I feel that mostly because of the skill in which you function about how you make sure our our funds are available to us. you know what I mean? So, I just don't think

133most boards get to even play with those numbers because they don't feel have the confidence behind what they are, but we do. So, that's my I still feel like three is there, but >> that's just >> I I would agree that I think we have a much better chance of passing this bond and override and hearing that we have the one time funding available if we want to do this additional position that pushes me towards the Jane, any additional thoughts? >> Are you talking to me? I'm having a really hard time with the volume. >> Yeah, sorry about that. It's not an ideation. >> I I hear what I hear is that we're leaning more towards 3%. Is that correct? You're >> correct. All three members and I'm I'm very happy with that as long

134as we can >> use carryover if we need to for other expenses. >> Sure. If we needed to, we could do that. Yeah. They've got a lot of confidence in our electorate and press to step up and Yeah, >> I can spend $3.65 a month to help our schools. >> Yeah, >> I don't know if a lot of the >> has got the votes. >> Okay, >> real quick. Can I interrupt? Um >> down 14 to 19 with 5 minutes and 19 seconds to go in the second half. in the first half >> second quarter. Thank you. >> Okay. >> It's been back and forth though. We've been up, we've been down. >> We have a live scoreboard happening on his cell phone. So, in case anybody's wondering >> to um I was just going

135to say just because I get to see the 40 million that we spend in our operational budget a year. I think the impact of the additional well, in this case, we're recommending um 2.5, you know, If you vote on the three um versus the 2.75 or or recommendation, it is a a a small amount in in our totality of our budget, >> right? >> Versus I think what the impact would be and the message you're sending to the staff. >> So, I wish all of them are >> you'll spread the word. Thanks so much. So, I will take a motion on all amend here as we go to approve the 2026 2027 budget package based on the enrollment projections, increases, and decreases that were presented, but with a 3% raise instead of a 2.5% raise

136for all staff. >> So, move. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor? I >> I >> Okay, >> I don't think you can do that. >> Stan doesn't get a vote. >> He chose to >> You don't sound You don't look like Stan. >> Just throw that out there. >> Okay. Item 8B4. consider approving the issuance of contracts and agreements in eligible PUSD staff members to eligible PUSD staff members for the 2627 school year. >> All right. Yes. Thank you. So, now that we have uh decided on that conceptual budget and a 3% uh raise, the the request is to now issue contracts to our staff as soon as possible. Uh, of course, timing is key. U there is a state law that says we cannot issue contracts to teachers before March 15th but

137we can issue contracts to some of our other salaried employees before that. So the plan is with your approval to uh issue those contracts. Um we break it up by employee group. So some uh might start getting it this week uh some will be getting it next week. And then uh the teacher group the plan is to issue those digitally over spring break. and then they will by by law as well. They have 15 business days to get those returned to us. But uh in your packet there is some sample contracts that you can see the language for the most part is similar to what uh has been used in the past. Uh so we we plan to have those um ready to go. Like I said, this year we are doing something a little

138different and uh using digital contracts and um that way we'll be able to get those out to them quicker and return to hopefully quicker as well. So, any questions on our contracts? >> If you're not going to renew somebody's contract, can you let them know before March 15th or is that the same time same time frame? >> Uh we Yes, absolutely. So, we do have a few staff that are on uh like an improvement plan, for example. And so, uh for those situations, we we'll hold the contract until the conclusion of the improvement plan. Uh in other situations, if we know that we're either nonrenewing, of course, if they're notified us of resignation or retirement, uh we we don't issue those contracts. And if there's just a straight non-renewal, we would notify them as well

139beforehand. Any other questions? >> I don't have any questions. So, >> I will Do you have any? >> No, I was going to say I'll make the motion. >> I'll take a motion to uh approve issuing our contracts and agreements to eligible PUSD school staff. >> So, moved. Second. >> All in favor? I >> I >> Nice. >> Okay. Item 8 B5, consider approving the PUSD salary placement schedules as presented. >> Andy Binder. >> Yes. So, uh we use a salary kind of an initial salary placement model where uh we each employee group we have a separate placement scale uh that uh we try to balance both competitiveness with surrounding districts and around the state as much as possible. Uh but it's it's used for our new hires when they come in place them based

140on uh their years of experience. Some employee groups we also include their um their education levels and and those are included. Now the ones that were included in the packet were based on a 2.5% increase. Uh we do have a a formula that basically increases uh along with it's a little tricky. We we don't want to increase it too much. Uh that would keep us competitive, but we don't want it to be where a new employee would come in higher than a current employee. So we have to kind of find that balance where we're staying competitive, but not to the point where it leapfrogs one of our current employees. But uh so the ones that are in your packet are based on a 2.5% increase. So we would um adjust those. But uh the again

141the formula basically is the same. And uh what what we do is we look at all the different uh employee groups. We try to make it make sure we are competitive and feel like the ones presented to you are pretty competitive and meet that criteria. So any questions on our salary skills? Can we approve without seeing the new changes or do we need to wait? We can approve because you can just change it based on a formula. >> Adjusted based on the 3%. >> Yes. >> Any questions? Okay. Then I'll take a motion to approve the PUSD salary placement schedules as presented. >> I'll make that motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> I >> Okay. Item 8 B6. Consider accepting PUSD's fiscal year 2025 single audit report, annual comprehensive financial report, uniform

142system of financial records, and compliance questionnaire. Brian Moore. >> All right. uh new requirement uh I think it was two years ago is the governing board needs to accept basically our final products from our annual audit uh in a roll call. Uh we have three products that uh are generated. One is the annual comprehensive financial report which is like 180 pages and it's right up Jen's alley. um not so much anyone else's but it is really the financial snapshot of the district including debt and everything and that is a report that our auditors do we hire them for that because it is extremely complex and actually it's well outside my skill set um and so that's the first one second one is what's the SAR it's a single U audit reporting package um and basically

143that is the auditor's uh test our federal programs and the spending and how we use it and revenue and everything. Uh you don't want any audit findings in this uh on this report because you actually have to do a corrective action plan and it's a lot of steps and you have to prove that you uh uh rectified the issues on why you had an audit finding. We have not had any audit findings on our SAR in nine years and uh fiscal year 25 was another year of that. Uh and then the last is essentially what we're tested on. It's our final exam. It's the uh compliance questionnaire. They look at 200 areas and do a sampling of 50 uh accounts payable dispersements and we have to get them their packet. They look at all of

144the things that they have to look at and if anything's out of line then it's a it's a finding. Uh the average district uh has about 16 findings. So in that where it's all the no nos uh this way. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeses. Because yeses are good. The average number of nos you'll see within that is about 16 in the last five years I think including this one. We've been in single digits and um it's not something I ever thought was possible for a district just because of the mass amount of people that are involved because it's not as it's not the business office, it's HR, it's the site, it's attendance which is the number one audit finding uh in the in the district. It's it's our property control which is the second highest audit

145finding and I think we had seven uh last year which actually is one of the higher years because we were in the fours one one year and five another year and so seven is what that document shows and all it is is proof to our constituents that we are good stewards of taxpayer money and we follow the rules. I've told you before when we have an exit interview with our auditors when they come that's the first time I usually get directly involved but they routinely say we just don't run into districts like Unified School District very often. This is you guys are doing something right that we're exemplary in in the way that we are cautious with the use of precious taxpayer dollars and resources that we have. >> A lot of it goes back

146to that gentleman right there. But like you said, it's a big team effort. Ryan could be stellar at it and you a bunch of other people not buying in. It's hard to line up all of >> and we've been there. I mean, we we 15 years ago we had a not my predecessor before we had a stellar CFO and um and we didn't have as much buy in to rules or even education of those rules to at the site level and and at one time we had 60 audit findings and now we're down to seven. There's 500 rules and the question basically is did you follow all 500 rules perfectly every day at every site. That's super hard, but you heard very very rarely does somebody make a misstep and they're all minor things. >>

147Yes. >> Can you tell us where our public can find these reports online? Once you say yes to the roll call tomorrow, I will pass them to Sarah and they will be at the bottom of our main page on our district website and uh and you can click and see and read and be astounded and say yes on the potential possible override in bond if that comes to >> well that's what I want people to see is I I did read it because I am a nerd and I really do like a bond an audit report. I mean, and I wrote a lot of audit reports in my day of doing audits and I even audited PUSD one time many many many years ago and um it is it really is unheard of like to

148and if you read it, it it really shows the effort that is put forth districtwide to make sure we are incredibly good stewards of not just our money, but for sure our money, but also our staff and our students and all of the I mean it's just so impressive and I would love our public to read it because it's really very very outstanding and I agree I don't see I didn't see it very often when I was an auditor I did lots of governmental audit and >> well and they do things >> most governmental departments don't run this >> they do things like change things and they retroactively make it effective I mean one year we had five audit findings and two were ones we didn't even know about >> you know it's kind of

149like great and one of them one of the audit findings things on the compliance questionnaire has to do with two um two-factor authentication uh for some of our programs for people like myself that work a lot at home and those programs don't have two factor authentications and so we get an audit finding immediately because we didn't write the software >> right >> so anyway kudos nice job >> well to everybody >> nice job love it so I will take a motion to accept all of these documents from our annual audit. >> I'll make that motion and I'll second. >> All those in favor? >> It's a roll call. >> Oh, you have to do roll. Okay. >> That's just different. >> Jean, do you vote I or nay on that? >> I >> thank you

150very much. Okay. Item 8B7, consider approving a contract with the International Alliance Group to provide support if the district chooses to hire an international teacher. >> All right. So, uh, part of my job obviously is to make sure that we have qualified, uh, teachers in our classrooms if we ever have a vacancy and we're able to find those. Arizona clearly has a teacher shortage, but fortunately we've been really uh lucky to be able to find qualified teachers to fill our positions. Uh this uh contract that I'm bringing to you is with uh a company called uh A. It's international alliance group and uh they they work with international teachers to kind of bring them here to uh on a J1 visa which is kind of a cultural exchange visa. Uh lot of school districts around

151the state and around the country are using this to fill some of those vacancies. Uh like I said we have not been um in a situation where we've needed to do that uh last several years. I don't think we're in a situation right now where we'll need to do that. But I would like to have this kind of in our back pocket if we do have a need and um needed to kind of reach out. They um there's a lot of companies out there that do this kind of service. Um I've looked at a few. This one's been very impressive uh in terms of the services they provide in the the process. They I'll just mention briefly here. There's there's there's a cost for the service that they provide. They do everything from bring the

152the initial recruitment. They they screen candidates. They will um if we we interview them and we say this a great candidate we want to hire. Uh they they work with the state department and figure out all the visa paperwork and they bring them over here and they find help them find housing and all the different pieces that need to happen. So there's there is a fee for that. Um we only pay that fee if we select somebody. So if we we the board agrees to this contract and we end up not ever going or at least this year, you know, going in that direction and hiring somebody. There's no there's no charge at all. Um the charge that they would uh charge us. Uh if we do select somebody is for the most part offset

153by costs that we don't have to pay. So there's there certain uh taxes that are not applied. the Arizona State Retirement System is not pulled from their their pay and we also don't match that. So that's a cost savings. There's an insurance savings. So overall, like I said, it's it's kind of a net neutral cost if if we did go that. But again, right now, we've been really lucky where we haven't needed to do that. But I do think it's a good idea to have this in place if we did need um to kind of go this route. So any questions on this program or this company here is >> there's a few smaller rural districts in Arizona that are staffed primarily by teachers from overseas people from the Philippines is a pretty typical source

154for for that but we've not tapped into that yet but we're we're just asking are you interested in in having that tool in our toolkit for the future if we ever need setting up the mechanism correct >> so I'm curious these are all J1 visas >> these would be all J1 correct so does the company International alliance group. Do they issue the documents DS 2019 document? >> That's a good question. I don't know that document, but I know that they are responsible for um kind of going through that whole process. So find that out if that would be helpful. >> Yeah. So I'm curious then just because we know like H1 well I don't know if everybody knows but H1B visas now require a minimum I think $100$100 investment from the agency that's hiring you

155>> correct >> so the J1 visa hopefully would nullify that hopefully >> J1 is completely separate from that yeah we actually uh I I did some a lot of research actually into the H1B visas for a situation. Um and and worked with them on that for a while uh to see what if that was a possibility as well. Um but when when we really did look into it, um the H1B visas >> um really were not something we were able to do. So this is just primarily or this is just on J1s >> that don't have that. >> And what's the time period that they would have for that visa? Would it be a one year or would it be multiple years? >> Right. Um so if a teacher is selected um they follow the

156same procedures um in terms of evaluation. So if there was a situation where we said this this person just isn't cutting it, you know, we're not stuck with them for a li, you know, a certain amount of years. Um but it's a three-year um okay visa that can be renewed up to five years. >> Okay. Just so you know, it appears I AG is the accredited J1 sponsor. Okay. >> So they are the ones that would handle the forms and all of that DS whatever you just said. >> So that >> I saw that in here. >> The status then of that individual would be handled by I wouldn't be our issue. We wouldn't have someone with immigration knowledgeing them on >> what they can and can't do under the law. >> Correct. Right. >>

157Yeah. I I would not want to and I and there are some districts that put a lot of energy into doing it. internally, but that's not something I would recommend. >> Right. No, I agree. Those things change fast, too. And >> right, >> keeping up with that can be challenging. >> The last question I would have is on these what's this is going to sound political and I don't mean it that way, but it's it's about getting these individuals that are granted the visa. How is getting a visa is it working with the Department of State at this point? Is it not working? I know for my colleagues in international education in the university system, it's really hit and miss. You know, you could have a student that absolutely meets the qualifications for the school,

158but for whatever reason, the consulate in that country doesn't approve an F1 visa for them to come or a J1 visa to come. So, is there any type of assistance that this group provides to help those individuals get through the State Department process, especially in these kinds of times now when it's there's real emphasis on let's shut the doors, you know, don't let anybody in, right? Um, yeah, my understanding is that obviously they they handle that process, but that the the biggest challenges that they've been facing are not necessarily with the J1 visas. It's some of the other ones like the H1s, but there there's more more and more restrictions constantly and the the delays and the the lotteryies that are a part of it and things like that. So, yeah, that's my understanding is

159that the J1s don't face those same restrictions. >> Okay. any concerns from any of our teachers or staff that we approve this and now we're going to try to backfill all the positions with, you know, with overseas teachers or anything like that. >> I certainly hope not. That would not be our approach. Um I know we uh we talked that if we were in a situation where we weren't able to fill a position, you know, after some time and we said, "Okay, let's let's explore this option." um get some potential candidates. We would have to still um you know consider a lot of different factors. Um I don't see this as a situation where we're we're filling multiple uh positions. Again, I feel like this would be a situation where we where we're kind of

160our backs against the wall and we have to to find somebody that, you know, can fill a need that we can't otherwise fill. >> Yeah. I think we're in a different spot than a lot of districts because we have our own in-house educator prep program, which is our Keystone program. And so that has allowed us to fill a lot of these vacancies that otherwise we might not be able to. And if I had a preference, I would I would go that route before this route, but Mr. Binder's right. I mean, in those emergency situations where we just can't find anybody qualified for that position, this is a great option tool. >> Exactly. >> Maybe a plan D, but we would go through plan A and B and C for great Okay, I will take a

161motion to approve a contract with I AG to provide support if the district chooses to hire an international teacher. >> I'll make that motion and I'll second. >> All those in favor? I >> I >> Okay, so that brings us to our section. >> This call being >> Oh, now it's >> okay. >> AC1. Uh Brian has prepared the school board summary budget for our review >> as present. 8C2 bond and override discussion. >> Okay, super. Not sure how much time you want to spend on this tonight, but I'll I'll share a couple of things that might um help you determine um Paul Vince got back with Brian and I is it yesterday? I think it was yesterday and said, "Okay, our we've we've concluded our uh phone survey." And Jen, you mentioned that you

162had a friend of yours who was actually one of the >> one friend of mine who was surveyed. Okay, there you go. Um we've concluded that. We're compiling and analyzing the data and we can meet with you this week and so Brian have and I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon I think right set >> with Paul to hear his initial feedback. >> Um that I think that'll be super formative to your next discussion. >> Do you want to at our ne the a question you might ask yourselves is do you want to spend part of our our next typical board meeting with the other um uh business items we have really digging in deep there and hearing that information for the first time in public. I will of course share it with you individually as

163soon as we we have it. But your first opportunity to discuss it together would be in a in a public meeting. You might consider having um a a special study session to look at that information and discuss it without making any determinations about what to do as far as the um as far as the ballot measures and then making those ballot measure determinations in our in our April meeting as you had discussed in the past. You wanted to try to shoot for that as a target if you could. Timing wise, I still think that's wise. But do you want to try to process all that information and then make those decisions that same evening is a question you might want to ask yourselves. >> I would prefer to have a separate study session where we

164can dive into it a little bit because we may have questions that we will then need answers to before our April board meeting. >> I would agree 100%. >> I What does Stan say? Jane, do you have an opinion on that? >> I would agree with Jen said I prefer to have a little bit more time to discuss between ourselves before we start the public debate. >> Great. So with with your permission and we'll get this information from Paul soon as he says, "Yeah, this is in sharable form. I'll get it out to each of you individually." You can start processing that. Uh if you've got any questions you feel like Brian and I can answer, we're happy to again get with you individually. But as far as a group discussion about it. We'll do

165that in the public meeting. Isn't the long report >> and maybe have Sarah reach out to each of you, see a time in the next two, three weeks maximum. We've got spring break in there. Maybe the week after spring break, something like that. >> There you go. To see if people, you know, when when you might be available to get together for an hour or something. And we could either do it in person or virtually, whatever works for for you. >> Okay. with that. Do you want to have additional discussions about things? I guess I can give you one other couple of other real quick updates and then you tell me your thoughts. So, Brian and I think we I shared with you in a board report that Brian and I had an opportunity to

166um go down to a a school uh ballot measures elections conference put on by is it pronounced stifle? >> Stifle. Stifl consultants group. And actually there were folks from Humble there, folks from Chino Valley there. We were there. Folks from all over the state learned a lot of good things. Mostly confirmations that that what we've been doing in terms of time frame and um the discussions that you've been having and whatnot are just right on target with what they uh would recommend. One um question that came up and was affirmed for us was while there's no ballot measure out uh there's there's no um there's no uh election officially for us to influence the outcome of is it all right for us to reach out to our parent community and say hey here's where we're

167at. Anybody interested in helping and could we do the same thing with our teaching community? And the attorneys who do this all the time this is this is our specialty said absolutely. we'd encourage you to con to consider something like that. So find out who's interested because once you say, "Hey, it's on the ballot." Then we we as you know, we step back. It's factual information only. We don't use any district time or resources to advocate for that. But while there's no while it's a concept, we can advocate for that the same as we could advocate for, you know, let's add uh girls field hockey or this is a great curriculum, come take a look or what. So anyhow, I've started drafting a letter for um our community members, for our our parents primarily, and

168I'll I'll do a version of that for our teachers and send out and say, "Here's some information you might be interested in. Got questions?" Great. If you're interested in in participating in uh the campaign for this, here's who you can contact. And we've already had between the um the advisory committee uh and some folks there who said, "Count me in when when you start to get traction on this." and some others who've reached out in the meantime. We had one at a board meeting a couple months ago about 30 people who've already said there's work to be done on that. I want to be part of that. So, that's kind of good. >> And Sarah Vincent, I think it's okay to to share that. She said, "I'm I'm interested in helping to lead that. If

169there's other people want to lead with me, absolutely. But if not, let's let's let's get going. Saddle up the horse." So, I appreciate that because she's a she's a real advocate and super sharp and has some experience with this kind of thing and knows who to reach out to to get advice. So, those are some updates from my end, thoughts, questions, discussion. >> I would just say I've had really positive feedback. So, I don't disagree with you guys that I think we do have a a supportive community around the idea of a bond and override right now. Um today I think it was it it was eye openening to me the number of rural districts that do not have the capacity to get to raise money through bond and override from an aspect of home

170values and number of homes within their district boundaries. And we are very blessed here with um with the ability to do that. And so uh not all rural districts are in that situation in the summer. in very dire situations, not necessarily from a voting population, but just there isn't the capacity for them to really have an opportunity. So, we are fortunate to live where we live. And I think we have a very a very committed population and we need to lean in to those that are committed and and do our very best to rise above the negative voices that are going to for sure show up. They always show up somewhere. I mean, that's just the way it is. >> It was interesting sitting in this in this session today, this advocacy day, and kind

171of being torn because we do have a community with assessed property values that allows us to fund most of our budget. And so a lot of what they're talking about technically doesn't apply, but when you don't have that bond and override opportunity or or not opportunity, we have the opportunity, but when you don't have necessarily a community that supports it, then we are treading water. Even with the great facilities we have, the age of our buildings, the the the disrepair that some of our HVAC systems are in, we don't have the flexibility because we have to pay our teachers. We have to hire staff to do what we do and we keep those in such. So, it's a real hard it's it's a real tough place to be sitting knowing that we're one of the

172few districts that are assessed property value covers the budget that we have right now but it still isn't enough I guess is what I'm trying to say if that makes any sense. >> Um that's a real difficult place to sit. >> Well, the budget that we have the amount that we get as you know is set by the legislature. So, >> Yeah. I think most people don't realize just what you're talking about Andy, which is there's so much property wealth here that >> if you're in Humboldt or Chino or most anywhere else in the state, you're taxed up to the the QTR, the qualifying tax rate all the way up to the top. Folks in Prescuit are only taxed about twothirds of that. And it it satisfies everything the legislature allows us to have. So

173if you're in Prescuit, you're already starting off with lower property taxes for K through2 education than almost any place else in one of the states where property taxes are lowest in the United States. That's one of our talking points. >> So, it's hopefully we can get that message out somehow, get that across to the community. >> We have really aging buildings, age and continuing to age buildings here. >> They all got a year older last year. >> I know. Dang. >> Like some of the board members are aging, too. We need to get this done before some of us are here. Jane or Brett, do you have anything you want to add to that discussion? >> Jane just texted me. Go ahead. >> She says, "Lost you again. Good night and sleep tight to all."

174>> So, she was there for I think the main part of things, but >> Well, it's late where she is. So, >> um, any other comments? Are you good? Okay. >> I I I really I appreciate your optimism. I think if we can do a good job of messaging, let people know we're in the bottom 1% of all school districts in the United States for our funding and we're super careful with every dime we get from you. But if if we're going to sustain our success so far, we've got to have you step up to the tune of $6.35 a month to help us out. If we can make those points to people clearly, boy, there's not too many people who could reasonably say, "I'm not doing that." and and it makes it makes me

175want to say let's do more, you know, let's ask for more, but >> you got to realize the environment you're in. >> You saw in the paper our neighbors are talking about a bond, right? You're you're trying to you're going between should we do 20 million or 15 million, I think, >> trying to thread a needle that >> they're talking about 80 to 100 million in the neighboring community. >> That's way more typical in Arizona. This board is super conservative. You're not wrong about that. I make decisions around. >> Yeah. And you know, and part of that messaging is is because of our property values. And >> yes, >> we we we can if our budget if we got a thousand more kids, I think we could still generate our whole budget based on our

176property and not tap the general fund at all like the other 200 districts. But it also puts us in a precarious situation because of our size. We don't get small school adjusted. We aren't larger where you have the economy of size which comes with efficiencies you know a buy jud with you know 500 students or 450 versus Lincoln with 280 you know those those are different districts are like that too so we're in this kind of in this middle area where that is a benefit but we would have more if we were bigger if we would have we don't get any tailor grazing funds whatever that is because I don't even know what it is because we don't get other districts do, you know, and so we're kind of right in the middle where I

177feel we're a perfect size, but really from a a funding standpoint, we're we're probably not, but our taxpayers also benefit because of the property wealth and we have the the lowest taxes because of that. >> Dr. Mang, do you have a basketball score update for us? >> End of the third quarter, Badgers are up 38-35. >> Well, that's just scored two free throws to give us a comfortable lead. We outscored the Wildcats 16 to nine in the third quarter. >> Nice. >> Hopefully that'll keep >> nice. Nice. Okay. So, any item 8 C3, any requests for future agenda items? >> I have one, if you don't mind me publicly saying it. Um we have an opportunity to have um Prescat High School students that are going to Greece in May to present at a conference

178on community uh engagement and involvement. It's through the launchpad. These are four Prescuit High School students that are going to be going and they would like to present to the governing board about their opportunity. They've been working with their teachers, with the administrators at the high school to >> get their AP exams taken at a different time so that they can make this trip because it's it's a great professional um chance for them to to network and learn about development, community development types of things. So, I would like to propose that we allow them to come speak in April. >> Sounds great. >> Very good. Sounds like we got at least two board members in favor of that in addition to I'm kind of in favor of that too. So, >> okay. >> I [laughter]

179>> um 8 C4 important dates. Spring break is coming March 16th through the 20th. >> Oh, good. >> And spring holiday April 3rd. The Do we get to keep our spring holiday? >> Yes. Great question. So, we've already applied to the state based on the You know, there's two pieces to it. Instructional hours. We have to have a certain number of instructional hours. We're well over that in all of our schools, the minimum standards. And then we're supposed to have 180 days as well. >> They they told us that they will automatically wave that as long as the board says yes to that. I have to certify that in advance. So, if you if you're going to change your mind, you let me know real quickly. But in past years, the board has said >>

180so because again, instructional hours are well over minimums. So, we're planning on that and then you'll need to essentially give us the official thumbs up at our next board meeting. That's okay. We thought we'd wait on that until actually the snow season goes by. I looked up I Googled the average snowfall in the month of March and Prescuit 5.1 in. So, we may or may not be able to do it at this point. I hope we are. >> I know. >> I sure hope we are. >> We always get some sort of sneaky thing coming in. >> Lots of rain. >> I had a baby on April 8th in the snow one time. Well, I wasn't in the snow, but I mean, it was snowing that day. I mean, I wasn't in the snow. That

181would have been awful. That's like my worst nightmare right there. [laughter] >> I know. Yeah. I know that I realized after I said it that sounded like I was in the snow having a baby. All right. Our next meeting is April 7th. Um it's our last of the policy review study sessions at five o'clock and then we will uh convene here at 5:30 for our regular >> study and voting session >> and we will have another study and voting session at some point or study session >> study session >> at some point uh prior to this meeting >> we'll kind of look at you'll >> like maybe the Friday after spring >> break >> and ask okay sounds Oh, >> we Fantastic.