PUSD Governing Board Meeting - December 2, 2025

001So yeah, go for 20 minutes. Great. What do you think, Clark? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I shared with you and we had posted for the public as well that um hopefully to kind of take a look at there's there's eight remaining um whatever uh what do they call these? Terrible habits out of 28. I think we've gone through 20 of them um one by one, but there's eight remaining ones and and the ones that wanted to maybe touch on tonight were the three that that might have the most applicability to to our board in the future. Uh number 21, 25, and 26 if that's okay. So hopefully you've had a chance to look over those. So terrible habit number 21 was sign a petition. I think there's there's broader application for the general

002principle here beyond a petition. So I thought this would be a good one to talk about. That's my thought. Anybody remember the scenario here? and I'll take a stab at it. All right. Um, so I think he was going into the grocery store, our our terrible school board member, and there was a woman from the community who was demanding that I I picked up on that word a couple of times, demanding that that the school gets a new library. I guess there's one school, the Grand View School, didn't have as nice a library as everywhere else in the district and they're going to do something about it. Gosh darn it. And um he had known a little bit about it and he and he agreed that they ought to have a new school and he

003was happy to sign the petition and it showed up on the schoolboard agenda. And she got up there and she was animated and she asked everybody in the room who signed the petition to stand. And so he stood up and um made himself look like a a terrible board member in the process. And there was other thought or questions that other board members had that he hadn't considered. And so actually he was kind of surprised as the as the discussion went along and realized there were a lot more things than he hadn't thought of. and he was a little bit uh realized he was a little hasty and should have should have uh waited until they had discussed it as a board. Perfect. That's a that's an excellent summation and the options um were you

004know don't don't worry about that you have a first amendment right to sign the petition. Was was this section disputing that in any way? [snorts] No. No. Absolutely. you, in fact, I think it said something along the lines of you've got a first amendment right to make bad decisions. Go ahead and do that if you like. It's totally within your legal rights to do that. It's maybe not your best idea. Uh the the key concern overall though was that this person was determining first, right, and then discussing later. And that's that's the situation we can't get. We've talked about previously. I was just going to say that we've talked similar scenarios in the past where minds are made up before Yeah. they're even discussed with fellow Yeah. the ready, fire, aim approach is not one

005that that that looks good in in the public and it it doesn't lead to great decisions in all cases and regardless of whether it's, you know, a new library at Grand View School or 4 day week or a specific amount for bonds and overrides and whatnot. If if you come in saying we're doing this and then you then you discuss things, that's that's tough. you want to it's absolutely um acceptable I think for all of us to have kind of our our opinions that are starting to form based on information you have but but to have a decision made in our minds about something before you've had a chance to discuss it is tough so that was basically the the idea there any other thoughts about that one I the very last sentence under lessons

006learned I thought was good it's not recommended procedure to strut into a board meeting [laughter] with a list of demands I thought that was pretty pretty nice. Can you strut without a list of demand? [laughter] Both of those pieces are problematic, aren't they? Trying to figure out what's the problem there. The struting and the list of demands both. Don't be a peacock. Basically, I [laughter] there there was I think it was this one. I've read eight of them, so they're all kind of flown together in my mind. there was some um if I'm remembering correctly uh a recommendation you don't know what to say to person who says hey you're behind us on the whatever it is you're behind us on the 4 day week art show you're behind us on the no 4 day

007week art show you're behind us on uh whatever it is 5% pay raise for teachers but 3% for bus drivers aren't you say you know what absolutely we're going to look deeply into this issue I'm I'm I'm hearing from all uh as many different opinions on this as I can and we'll discuss it and then we'll try try to do our best to make a decision that's in the best interest of kids. Something like that is a is a good response. Okay. So then 25. Remember your political party. This is something that we've um unfortunately seen in another nonpartisan board here locally recently has come back to bite people. They they they're supposed they're supposed to while they were uh elected in a nonpartisan manner, not because they were a member of the Democratic party,

008the Republican party, the Green Party, Libertarian Party, whatever it is. And uh unfortunately, a couple of people on that on that uh public board leaned heavily into but be before I'm a city council person. I'm a Republican first and and they they've found all kinds of mess for themselves. So, anyhow, who can who can uh uh sum summarize this scenario for us? I didn't really feel like it was he just or she assuming I didn't know they um wanted to support the issues that their party was in support of first and foremost that came first in their eyes that you support your part your party's standing [clears throat] and that comes first. I think that's kind of a general summary of what's going on. That was that was basically it. Um and and bringing up

009like party platform agenda items for discussion at future meetings, which you know I Yeah, this is probably my favorite chapter in the book because I feel like I personally have had to deal with this. I was going to say we on some levels. Yeah. and to me being on and one thing he mentioned that I thought was interesting if you're seeing issues and discussions through the lens of your political party that will sway you in a direction you might not want to go as opposed to being your lens should be kids and staff. Yeah, that's it. Kids should always be they should be our party. We shouldn't be forgetting about I think we should always try to not remember our political party. I don't I don't care what everybody's political parties and I think I'm

010not sure of everybody's political party affiliation, but I think we've got a a good representation from across the political spectrum here, which is probably a strength. I used to tell people when I taught in 36 years of teaching, I never ever ever asked a parent or a child what political party they came from because it didn't matter to me. And I think being on the board, it's an honor to work with the four of you because I feel like we work really well together and it doesn't matter what political party we represent. It has nothing to do with our job on the board and I just think that's important to remember. So there's a sentence that Jane that I under or highlighted that talks it says I fear you're seeing issues through the lens of

011your political party rather than through the lens of what is best for children in the district. That's what just you were talking about. That's the lens we should always be looking at first. Can I share a real quick anecdote that I just love? This is not a board member, but it's it's a it's a person that I was a colleague of mine at Presca High School for several years. And this teacher actually was the sponsor of our Young Republicans club at the school for years and years and years. I was shocked when this person um uh retired from uh from her role at school to learn that she was a registered Democrat. I thought that's fantastic. No, none of her kids knew. This is a social studies teacher and you would think if there's anybody

012who's going to, you know, let their leaning show in class, it would be that person. kids never had any idea one way or another. I think most of them assumed because she was the person who for years sponsored the the young Republicans on campus that she was also Republican. Although she didn't show that in her in her lectures or her interactions with kids or whatnot, but it turns out that that's not the party that she was affiliated with at all. It was another party. But she was she was balanced enough that nobody knew and that she could say, "Hey, there's you you kids want to organize and and do good things in the community. I'm all over that. You bet. I'll I'll help you out with that." I thought that was super neat. And like

013I say, I was very very surprised when she Adam knows who I'm talking about. I think Stan might as well when she retired to to learn that she was actually not registered with the party of the group of kids who she'd sponsored for years. I thought that was pretty neat actually. And and I I really I appreciated and admired that really nonpartisan approach. That's not what we do. We don't we don't bring our ideology into the classroom. If we have teachers who do that, we talk with them. We say, "Hey, that's not what we're about. We've got some specific policy around that. Uh, and we need you to stop or there's going to be some, you know, some action we'll need to take on that. And Andy, help me out. In the last several years,

014we've not had a situation where I've had to follow up with somebody more than once. Occasionally, somebody will say something that a parent's concerned about, right, Adam, it'll come to your attention or you'll bring it to our attention or whatnot, and we get with somebody, we say, "Hey, you know what? This was taken in this way. Let's just be cautious." And never had an need to follow up. I I like that and I appreciate that about our board as well. That's super cool. I think most people who who would feel like they want to lean into what their political party is is promoting would be very offended if the opposite political party did the same. Okay. Yeah. Great point. In in a board setting, right? And so we have to think too from other people's

015perspective, what if that other person came forward with their party's agenda? How would you feel as well? And like you said, we we expect that of our teachers. be expected of our staff not to bring their political beliefs into our schools. So why would we as board members not follow suit, you know, and not follow that same expectation? I had a teacher um say to me, we were talking about the election when I was running for election and a teacher, of course we have teachers that support us and some probably that don't, right? All different people. And this particular teacher had said, "I never share with my students anything about my political belief." She goes, "Partly because it's it's not appropriate. Like it's not the right role." She goes, "But also because I know I

016have influence over them and that's not the right thing to influence them about." There you go. And I was like, "That's a great point." That 100%. So it was good. Great. I got to tell you, when I read this chapter, I thought of Brett. Oh, you did? Did you? Because he he often says, you know, what's best for children, you know, he makes decisions based off of it. And I I know you didn't read this book before you even joined the board, but I mean that's where your heart is, I think. Yeah. Did you [laughter] Was this your cheat sheet? But see, you're saying what we all do. This sport works well together because we put kids first, right? And we always whenever we vote on anything, we kids and staff are foremost in our

017minds when we make a decision. Yeah. And we that's why it's a pleasure to work with you all. I mean, I got to tell you, I didn't in the service. I didn't know. Nobody knows what your political affiliation is. It's not discussed. It's not even a thing. And that's the way it should, you know, be on here, too. Wasn't until I moved home that it really realized it's a very it's very important to some. And uh but serving on this board, it's it's very it's very important to just put the kids first. And that's what I learned from this chapter. That's awesome. I appreciate we all try to check that at the door when we come to this meeting and and in other parts of your role as well. One of the things I highlighted

018is underscoring what you've just talked about. Your criteria for making a decision should not be the degree to which it corresponds to some abstract political philosophy, but rather the degree to which it improves educational quality for children in the district. And that's the approach I see you all take. I appreciate that. Okay. And then the last one we're going to discuss, we may have a few minutes left over because we're super efficient and whatnot is on your early morning early evening, sorry, your early evening dog walk. Terrible habit number 26. You you uh promised to do a favor. This is just just chain of command. Who can who can uh summarize this one for us? Well, this this one was about the prospect of closing a school. Okay. And you know, you're on a different

019I think you're on the right chapter later. Are we on number 26? Oh, it's about I went to 28. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's about moving a child to a different 28 was good, too. We might have time. We'll see. Do a favor. Okay. So, this one was about um board member meeting the neighbor and the neighbor bending their ear about how their child was uh not treated fairly in a class in a classroom setting and the the board member took I'm going to say took compassion and acted trying to get the child moved out of that class going outside of the chain of command not referring the parent back to the teacher and then onto the principal and then on to the superintendent if that would be the appropriate path. So basically just went and

020tried to take action and manage staff which we all know is not our role. So also disclosed stuff about the teacher. Oh yes private information. Yeah, fair enough. Yes. But I I think we deal with this occasionally when you'll have maybe even a teacher approaches you and says I'm not happy with what's going on here. I want you guys you to do something about it. And once again, it goes back to chain of command. If you haven't talked to your principal first, you don't come to me. I mean, that's I'm the Yeah, the la I mean, the last resort. I like the term decision-making matrix better than chain of command for the military. Chain of command works for me. They use the term chain of command in here, and it's good shorthand for exactly what

021we're all talking about, the same thing. We know that. But, uh, Andy doesn't command a lot of people. I try not to command Kelsey too much and you know stuff like that. You guys some [laughter] Yeah, we'll get some apples on their call or something. Salute you in the hallway. Different stars. I think we're on to something. So the the recommended action here was was number five. Listen carefully. Suggest that Dorothy follow they use that term again, chain of command, right? And then I like the last piece as well. ask her to keep you posted. You're not making commitments that you'll that you'll insert yourself inappropriately into something. But but it show instead of just it's to me that sounds much less like you're just trying to put somebody off. Say I'm that's not my

022problem. It's yours. Follow the chain of command. Get with your principal. Get your teacher first. Whatever it is, but say, "Hey, what? Let me know how that goes." And if it doesn't go, you know, the the way that it's supposed to with our decision-making matrix, I can ask questions about that and help that flow appropriately. Very appropriately. Yeah. Yeah, I got to tell you again this this one um reminded me of another board member but because this one happens a lot more often than in my time on the board. This is the scenario of that because we're around parents and we're I have been on the board cannot believe the number of people and I learned it from you Jen. I mean it was because when we had an issue was about the wrestling coach

023and somebody approached Jen and and they told me that this same parent that Jen had said I encourage you to talk to the principal and so she followed right but let me know and so but the parents still contacted me did the same thing but I had learned and took a page from you because I knew that's what you did and you know just follow the same way but and it very effective you know but and then in the lesson learned It says that you know you like you do a great job of letting us know and keeping us informed about what occurs or what did occur and where we are. So, we're way far removed, but at least we're aware because that same parent can still contact us. And then, right, well, and such

024a good thing in that particular scenario was that when the parent went to Missy and and probably Adam to some extent, they were very pleased with the outcome and I think it it added trust for them in our district's administration and how things are being run. and then they may not feel like they have to call us next time because they can now know that they have people they can reach out to. They can help. But people call us just because they're frustrated in that moment and they're not feeling heard or they don't know what to do next or whatever. And but in this case, I don't even think they'd ask the question yet. They they were just frustrated in that moment. And that's to be expected and we are so involved in the community

025sometimes that people just reach right out. Yeah. I I think the same thing like with the recent issue we had with a parent contacting some or all of the board members and expressing displeasure, but I didn't see anybody else's reply, but basically just said, "Let's take it back to to the school." And I actually left it on Clark's plate to do that instead of me making that initial outreach. But and Adam's been all over that prior to that person getting with us and since and whatnot, as you would expect. And I think the the upshot is that you all handled it before we even got involved and it was handled in a way that the parents are like I'm perfectly satisfied with the explanation. I did get a reply to that email. Oh, good. Okay.

026That said, yeah, I'm I'm very happy with the response. Yeah, they were very pleased. That's good to hear. That's good to hear. I don't always hear that piece. Yeah, I should have forward that to you. No, no, no. You know, we only forward you bad news. Sorry. There you go. We're not going to tell you when good things happen. [laughter] All right. Well, good. I appreciate that. Good feedback. Okay. And I think that's it. So, we've got like 45 seconds. Any any like general takeaways or thoughts or comments about having gone through this book stay. Was it helpful? Was that an effective use of couple hours that we spent total on it or I think so. I like it. I like the format, too. Y was helpful for me. I'd kind of like to know

027what our student board members think of this. if you guys felt engaged at all or I mean you didn't have the book to read so but what do you think of us interacting in this way I guess? Yeah personally for me I think it's really beneficial especially just to go over you know a couple things that might be concerned I really liked the political party chapter personally when I read that one I think it's really important just to try to look at it in more of a open-minded view and I do just really appreciate you guys talking about it beforehand. Thanks. I also think it was helpful. I think it was interesting to see, you know, these are the type of issues that I didn't even think you guys would have to deal with, but

028it's interesting to see that, you know, they are things you guys deal with every day. And I just thought that was interesting. Cool. Nice. I thought this guy was pretty insightful. If somebody had asked me to come up with 28 different scenarios and make I wouldn't have been able to do that. I've been paying attention to this for a while and thinking myself is pretty thoughtful. I could have come up with a dozen, but they were it was it was pretty meaty and meaningful. So, thanks again for being willing to do that. Okay, great. Um, so that brings us to 520. So, we'll bring this uh meeting to order of the December 2nd, 2025 PUSD governing board regular meeting. Uh, Jackson, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance, please? To the flag of

029the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Item 3A, um, approval of the agenda. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Motion. Do we have a second? Second. Motion and seconded. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. Item 4 A, approval of the minutes from the study session, book study, and regular study and voting session meetings of November 4th, 2025 and the two or the 12:15 p.m. special meeting of November 7th, 2025. Uh, do we have a motion? So, move motion. Do we have a second? I'll second that one. Motion and seconded. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. Um, item 5A, bond and override consultant presentation.

030Paul Ulan. Welcome back. It's been two years. It has been a few years. I haven't seen him in a lot of this. go forward. Okay, Mr. President, members of the Mr. President, members of the board, Superintendent Tenny, it is a pleasure to be here. Um, my name is Paul Yulan. My address for the record is 5320 North 16th Street in the great state of Maricopa. Um, I am I am uh it is a pleasure to be here. I've been here before many many years ago and um some of you full disclosure might recognize me. I'm a newly elected November 24 so I guess coming up on my first year anniversary on the Glendale Union High School District governing board and so I know uh the challenges and it was interesting to hear some of the

031discussion before not related to bond and override elections but decision and process. So, uh, I I applaud you just for being here because I know how how important it is. I I've been involved in elections across the state of Arizona for almost 35 years. Um, I've worked in 12 of the 15 counties, uh, including Yavapai. I've worked for Prescuit Unified, uh, Humbult, Chino, uh, Mingus, Cottonwood, I think that's and Sedona, Oak Creek. So been around and have have a good sense of not only the elections but of of the Avabai County and here just to give you some perspective and and uh expert comments and commentary as we go forward. So, um, no shock and all you have to do is look at the last couple election cycles across the state, not just in Yavapai

032County, that, um, asking for money from the taxpayers has become a little bit more of a challenge. And, you know, we are in a highly partisan climate. It's been that way for several years and now it's getting worse. And you're seeing that not only as I say at the top of the ticket, but all the way down to school board, water board, and some of the other things where party comes into play when really we're here for kids. And I applaud I heard that earlier. Um, you know, that's why we're here. It's not a conservative or a liberal kid. We're here for kids. But we are in a political uh a partisan climate. We're dealing with vouch every district in the state is dealing with vouchers and the you know the ESA expansion and what

033that means if you've seen the paper and I think today the governor talked about that's one of her top priorities for 2026 and that issue isn't going away. Same thing with with option, you know, other school choice options that parents have, whether it's um uh charters or private schools or you now have the micro schools and the homeschooling options. Every district, most districts across the state are dealing with declining enrollment. That's only going to get worse. In addition to birth rates and some of the other issues, you have federal government coming in telling you what you can and can't do um without really understanding your dynamics in your individual community. You have likely a couple ballot measures that will be there in 2026 that will impact I'm giving you money here. Am I going to

034give you money here? Do I understand what those are? And then the legislature. you know, we're going to have a contentious budget session. They still to this day have not dealt with the aggregate expenditure limit. Um, and if you had told me four years ago that they basically kick that can down the road and not make that an issue, I would have bet the House that that wouldn't have happened. But for whatever reason, it's there. And they're in the process of trying to make more election changes. Um, which again changes they changed the rules in the middle of the game. So you think you know what you're doing and you think you know you're doing it the right way. You know there there's some potentials for that. And so what can you do? And as

035I say the first and most important thing you do is continue to teach your students. You know [cough] that that is every day. And as a board member, I I my first tour I was at Greenway High School, which was just awarded an A+ uh designation. And I'm there as a board member getting the tour and meeting with everybody. And you don't realize all the miracles that happen every day inside your four walls. And you know, not only do the legislators need need to go to schools and see that, your community doesn't see it. And so every day you pick up 1,005 2500 kids and you deliver them home safely. Okay? All the all the meal prep, all the education, all the good things that happen. You we just don't we don't do a good

036job of educating. And that's not Prescuit Unified. That's every that's K12 Arizona. But continue to teach your students. continue to provide that information of what you're doing on a regular basis to your parents, to your staff, and and to your community. Getting them in the four walls, getting them to understand, hey, we have a great program. We can't charge you for it, but it comes out of our M budget. If we want that program, we need additional funds or we make changes. You have to understand who's going to come out to vote, and I'll talk about that in a little bit, and more importantly, who doesn't. So we saw some very close elections um across the state where literally 30 40 50 votes meant the difference between winning and losing. You can go out and

037test your message meaning what works you know what sells to people to your voters to your community. And then even after you call and we'll talk about that a little bit continue to communicate. Just because you call for the election doesn't mean you should you should uh shy away. And as I say, never stop because there's always another election. So part of a process that I would highly recommend is putting together some type of needs assessment or blue ribbon committee and that's made up of of a group of individuals, parents, community members. um you know, you want to try to have reasonable I mean you you you want people that again it's not a majority but it's also you're trying to build consensus and you walk through and there's not a district in the state

038that doesn't need capital funds. There's not a district in the state that can't use additional M dollars, but you're going to walk them through that process so that they're going to be the ones to come to you to make that recommendation to go for an election and what what's included in that election. The second part of that is understanding your demographics. So, how many voters you have, what those voters look like, age, party, and gender, who's projected to vote in 2026. Because believe it or not, voting is habit forming and you either typically do it or you don't or you vote in presidentials or you vote, you know, in in general elections and not in primaries. And so we also look at, you know, going through your demographics, looking at past election results. So, not

039you haven't had a bond or an override in a while, but we have some statewide elections and county elections that you can draw some inference within your within your your precincts. Third is going out and actually doing a poll of community voters um typically by telephone because that's a way you can control that audience and the responses so you get a valid sample of your of your electorate. But you test the level of support and opposition to, you know, what you think those needs are. You might even say, would you support 20 million, 40 million, or 50 million, or would you support these programs on an override? Obviously, the more specific you get, um, sometimes that helps. Also remembering in most cases 60 to 70% of the people you're talking to aren't your parents. So

040they have no idea class sizes and uh uh retention and the shape the condition of the football field or the leaky roof. But again, you know, you're trying to you're trying to get a sense of of your community appetite for for uh for funding. And then communicate with your parents and staff. So, I'll tell you, every district that I've worked with, we have staff members that have no idea what a bond or an override is. No idea what the difference of the bond or the override is. And I will tell you, it's easy when Mr. Tenny goes out and says, you know, you want X, we need Y, or we fund this through this. That makes perfect sense. They expect him to say that. But when the um bus driver, okay, or the maintenance staff

041or the instructional aid says, "You know what? We really need and I deal with it every day. You know, we don't have the technology. We have too many kids to deal with. You can't pay for that." And if they say, "Oh, they don't need it. They're just wasting money." You can't overcome that either. It's important to make sure your your staff and your parents are engaged and understand why you're doing this and why it is important. And I can't say that enough. We've had um I've been involved in elections primarily special elections meaning odd years where parents turn out at 8 10 15%. And that's a parents that we know are registered to vote. So, I forgot we'll go through on your demographics. We'll actually match one of the one of the services that you

042can get is to take your parent and employee list and match it to the voter file and actually tell you who's registered to vote and how often they vote and it will be eye opening. I'm used to it, but you look at it and you say, "What do you mean?" So, part of that again is taking that information for your communication. So, you know, you on your social media platforms, you're able to append your parent list, your employee lists, your voter list to make sure they're getting specific information about an election that you are in the process or have called for. Again, not telling people how to vote, but providing factual information as you move forward. And so, why why is it important to handle, you know, to hire a consultant? Because Mr. Tenny, who's

043a wonderful individual, doesn't know everything. And so it's that's true for sure. [laughter] [snorts] You know, you you want, you know, it's like you're you're going to court, you probably hire an attorney. You don't want to do it prosay. You have knee surgery. You don't go to your general practitioner. You want to know, you know, somebody who knows what they're doing, has been around the block, understands the dynamics of the community. You want the, you know, the individual to go out and work with your assessment committee. You want somebody who understands we don't pull and get 100, you know, 400 parents out and to say, "Of course, we're going to support the bond. Of course, we're going to support the override and you haven't talked to your community." You know, your parents are are generally

044supportive. So, understanding that and then being able to access the voter file, access some other tools that are helpful as you go through. and I go through this. Part of that election process is not only having the district do its job, you need an outside entity to help. And and you know, for me, that's the political action committee. That's why, you know, they're the only legal entity that can go out and advocate for for or against um what you what you've called for. You know, you have you have rules that you must apply to or or adhere to. 15511. You cannot electioneer. You cannot influence the outcome of an election. Doesn't mean you can't provide factual information, but you can make a the district make a presentation at Rotary or Kowanas. They can't the district

045can't stand up and say vote yes. The pack can be there to do that. And that's why it's important. They're the ones that are going to go out and raise money. They're going to spend that money. They're going to go do that through, you know, communication, you know, the door knocking, the canvasing, the mail, the phones, the social media. All that's out of the pack budget. That's not the district budget. And you need to have that in place. Otherwise, there's not a district in the state, maybe Catalina Foothills could go out, call for an election, and not have to do anything. And so again, the the pack advocates, the district provides facts, and you can keep your pack open. You're, you know, every cycle. Uh I I know of districts that do that. So that

046especially on an override where, you know, at some point you're going to need to renew that election, renew that override. You're not starting from scratch. It's relatively easy. It's not a lot of paperwork. And again, they can go out and fundra and be visible in the community election time and non-election time. We're here. We're the advocate. You have a foundation. In some respects, it's a it's a different entity, but it's an extension of the of that foundation. They're there to support the district. And again, I look at it as when you have a especially for some districts when you're raising money for an override, it's easier to raise money over two or fouryear window than coming out, hey, it's January, we got to raise 20, 30, 40 grand, whatever that number is in six months.

047You do that and you raise 10 grand a year for four years. You've done the same thing and you're just banking that money. And so once you call for that election, which will likely if you move forward be sometime in late May or early June, um again you'll need to give notice to the county first week in May that you that you intend to go for an election. That's a new statutory requirement. Um, you can continue to provide factual information and you should you should be out there telling people what you're doing, why you're doing it, what the impacts are, what the consequences are. no threats but real I mean because most people don't know most people are not involved or engaged and so you have existing platforms that you can provide that information and

048go out and do that and you [clears throat] know again that's speaking as I said that's speaking to organizations it's encouraging your parents your staff to get engaged on their own time um I know some districts have had uh parents uh teach excuse me students that need credit uh for for National Honor Society or service community service. It's not the only option, but it's one of those options to be able to go out and you [snorts] know knock on doors or hang some signs or get or get engaged. Um I I know students and and recent grads have written prostatements of support for bond and overrides. So that's an option as well. But again it it doesn't happen in a vacuum and you know I I always say never stop. My life is real easy.

049I used to work I used you know my life is odd or even so. So is it an even year election and presidential or ginatorial or is it a special election? But you never stop. You know there's always another election and it's important that you continue to foster that group. um you know, cultivate leadership, keep people involved, keep them engaged because especially as you get, you know, we've had I've had packs where their kids are long gone, but they still care. They're still involved in that pack in in some leadership role. And with that, you know, answer any questions that you might have questions, The question I have is how would would you be involved in helping a pack form in this community as a consultant or is that something? So I I have and

050and you know I can and I have I think that's uh uh you know a question for if there's a group of individuals that that want to get engaged that want to be involved and and again that could be as simple as here's the form or uh in a number of instances I actually act as the treasurer because they want to make sure that their reports get done and they get on they get done on time and you know when secret dates pop up that nobody's paying attention to, we're actually filing so that the packs aren't fined. But that role will be determined by what the what the pack what the pack wants. But I I'm happy to I I enjoy doing that because that's doing the work to get to that point and then

051okay, now let's go implement. Here's the plan. Let's go do that. So as the consultant who's engaged with the organization that's heading this up, you could still be a part of that pack and still be engaged as the treasurer and some other role. What whatever that role that the that the committee needs. Okay. In in some cases they're um I would say I'm the conductor making sure the trains are running on time. other there are other times where I'm building the train from scratch and making sure we have all the parts that that we need and I will tell like I know in 13 um there was a great the I think the pack was already existing or they had started but they had great leadership you know it was just a tough ask at

052that time but you know the Greg and uh Miss Fernandez I can't remember her first name they they had a great It was one of the best packs I've worked with. And we you lost. Okay. We had 52% turnout in a special election. Unheard of. Okay. Unheard of any in any other jurisdiction. But great great people that were involved and understood and and hey, tell us what to do. We'll go do it. Yeah. Okay. So, do you offer two different essentially two different sets of services where you would you would be working with the board to make the decision about what we could ask for as well as once we make the decision then you would move over to working with the pack and be funded by the pack for that whatever work is done

053with the pack. Correct. Separate from working with us. Correct. Yeah. I was treasurer in 2015, so I don't remember how much you were with us in 2015, but my husband was on the 2013 committee, so I do remember a lot of it. And and again, it's, you know, part of that is what do you, you know, what do you need? You know, what can you afford? What do you need? How can I be helpful? Is there experience and leadership within the pack or do we need, you know, start that direction? But right, you know, the key is you have it and you keep it so it doesn't go away. That's one of the challenges too. Do you My biggest concern is one, especially for the override, how much um do you pull information before before

054we make a decision of how much we're going to ask for? Are there certain things we stay away from? um especi dealing with our demographic um just lessons learned over time. I mean it that that's [clears throat] that's we just don't want to do something then holy cow we don't from Jump Street we don't have a chance because we made a decision to include something like a artificial turf field or something like that. I I think that's a great question. I think part of the part of the answer is that assessment committee is you know is representative of the committee. you go out and say we're going to we're going to give the superintendent a 20% raise and that's where the you know that's the first priority for the override you know that's not going

055to fly is it to and from past experiences and other districts overrides are almost exclusively uh full day kindergarten uh salaries salaries and benefits class sizes which really comes into um you know, class uh salaries and benefits and then some programs. Are there some some things that you can monitor or or sort of hedge around that a little bit? Yes. But like full day K is great as a parent. It's not so exciting if I'm um I'm in the community and I don't have kids or grandkids. Wh why why do I do that? But, you know, I can point to uh Morirana, which had an existing override in 2024 and went and at 10% went to 15%. And we surveyed it. We took that 5% was and we we sold that as it's going exclusively

056for salaries. Now, it wasn't it was certified and classified. So everybody got a piece of that, but we're taking that 5% and we're putting it in the the salary um pool and and so it wasn't programs. And yes, some of that is I you know by definition is class size or class size reduction, but it was all salaries. It was all salaries and that and the survey sh like it sold because the I mean that's what the survey said and I'm a little surprised by that, right? Um but like that the community was willing to support it and the override passed pretty comfortably in in 2024. And you would do the surveys. You you do the survey before like part of it is you have to have an idea of um what you what you

057need, what you want and what what your community is willing to afford. And so, um, going out for, and if you look at Chandler in in 2024, they asked for almost $500 million. They had major opposition and they got they didn't lose. They got beat. They retoled that ask, less, you know, lowered the ask, refined some things, came back in in 2025 and were able to pass their pass their bond pretty comfortably. The override was a little tight, but they or no, the override was okay. The bond was a little bit closer, but but they passed. So, you have to have a realistic expectation coming in and asking for $200 million. I know you need it. What's the tax? You know, what's the tax impact for that? Your community, you know, your community is not

058going to pay 25 bucks a month. I guess my question is, I know we said you and you, but [laughter] is it is it you? I mean, is it Well, yes. I mean, yes. I mean I think trying to gauge um I think that you it's not I mean part of that is me okay I think your your assessment committee needs to have a buy in of that makes sense and then you have to have the financial discussion so if you do um you do the bond and the override what's that combined tax rate increase and and can you structure you know you have existing debt that can you you know when you're paying that off and you can like pass your bond but wait three years to sell to do your first um sale

059so you're replacing debt that is now paid off with new debt. Now that might make sense on the tax rate you when you promise a new football field and an auditorium and it's five years down the road. How upset are your are your community members going to be? Hey, we proved the bond. Where, you know, where is it? But, but I think, you know, part of that is having that discussion of what's realistic. Gotcha. And and and I'm part I'm not the you know, I'm not the golden one to say this this is right and this is wrong. But, you know, there is a lit, you know, there is experience to look at and say that's not gonna, you know, that's not gonna sell. You're advising, you know, it's like turf. Okay. I I will

060tell you turf fields are are great. They're absolutely amazing. But the difference of understanding what that means versus the cost are two different things. And I Well, let me explain that. Uh we were at a district and it was less than 10% of the bond that was going to be for turf fields and we spent 90% of our time about 10% of the bond and the the big issue that I learned at that you I mean true story I'm not no we learned that I think that was true in our 2013 election. Yeah. There you go. And it absolutely was. Yes. [laughter] That's why I brought it up. do that. But that's a real good example. And but the flip side of that was in this particular instance, two principles stood up and they said

061and and part of this, you know, you're learning. I've been I've been around, you know, not perfect, um, but I have an understanding of what works and doesn't work. And the and the two principles said, you don't, you know, in the essence of people, you don't understand. During football season, do you know how many times I say no? Get, you know, can't get on the field, get away from the field, you can't do this, you can't do that. And when they added turf, the usage, you know, it's about the same cost long run because eventually you got to replace it. But your usage goes way up and all of a sudden the district, hey, we're leasing it out, renting it out on Saturdays and Sundays. So, we're generating a little bit of revenue and our

062community loves it and it looks great and we're maintaining it. And so there's a cost, but we got our comm, you know, the little league football and the little league soccer team. All of a sudden, we had some ambassadors because, hey, they're going to have turf. We're going to be able to use the field. So, perspective. Thanks. Well, the only thing I was going to ask in regards to the override, if we were looking at trying to get our teachers and administrators and staff up to state average again, is that something you could play around with with the numbers? Brian and I've discussed this in very short detail, but that's something you could help us with. Figure out what the bond I mean the like what a teacher salary should what the average what sort

063of percent we would need to float a override that would get our teachers up to at least average. Brian probably knows that. Brian can do that for us. I can I just want to know I just want to do a caveat just so that's on the record. We invited Paul here. [clears throat] He knows our district. he was involved in 2013 and so he's very familiar with Prescuit. We just have more retirees than we did then. Um we have not procured Paul services yet and so the one thing I want to make sure is he ser is just an expert on in the field because it is his business but I don't want us to um eliminate him from competition because we're asking him about his services specifically and we haven't given other businesses that

064opportunity. So a consultant would help with that. Okay. So not so much Paul because we haven't hired him yet. Answers my question. Could a consultant do that? Is it is it that's a reasonable way to ask if answer from experience would do it? Yes. And I would ar and I would say that that number comes back to so if you need a 10% override to generate X dollars so you can do this on your salary scales. um what's that what's the tax impact for that because ultimately every every issue that whether it's it's salaries, programs, staff reduction, utilities, I mean our my district, we're going to get hit with about a 15% increase on the proposed APS u rate increase. Okay, that money's got to come from somewhere. So you have to look at everything

065you want means, you know, money. What's that tax rate going to be? And you have whether you're asking for five cents or $5, you're asking. And any person in my shoes will tell you you got to be careful how much you ask for. You got I have to see as a community member, what's my return on that investment? you know, how are we getting, you know, so teachers and staff have more money to spend at a restaurant or buy a car or buy a house. Um, or I'm getting a a fine arts center or I get to go to I can sit in a comfortable uh stadium seating to watch Friday night football, you know, those kinds of things. I have to get a return. I have to get a return on my investment. So

066a lot of the things you're asking really it will be how much you know what's that tax rate in impact going to be and that's why the financial folks are so important for this a way to way to try to structure that the override's a straight cost because you can't you can't sell the override today and then three years later when you've paid off debt you know that's a recurring cost to generate that on a yearly basis. What's the role of board members in all of this if if a district decides to go ahead with a bond override? Great question. Um, so you are legally entitled as a as a board member to be a private individual to go out and advocate. So, uh, by statute, you're required if you do an override, the board

067will do a a statement of a statement of support, you're you're legally allowed, unless they change the rules, um, nine plus the governing board members statement. Okay? 200 words or less notorized. They go to Mr. King's office. Um, you cannot you are barred from doing a board statement for a bond, but you can do an individual statement as a board member and you can put governing board member or president whatever in your in your signature. That is that again is legally allowed and you're allowed to support, you know, advocate for against bond and overrides. You can't use district resources. you know, you can't be here and you know, boy, we need people to get out and vote. Um, but you can you can work a football game, you can go knock on doors, you can

068write a check, you can try to raise money as an individual, not as a board member. And I've seen it on all sides, especially this cycle where uh board members were very happy to support um one two particular instances board members were advocating against their own election, which is Yeah, you're shaking your head and I, you know, or they say, "I'm I'm going to help and you're charging the hill and you turn around and they're way down there. You go. You go." So, um, but it's a great question. I mean, you're you're legally allowed to do just about anything as long as you're not using district resources. And the question is, does that help or hurt? And I think that's uh you know I I there there are districts in the valley that they are

069contentious 32 on a lot of decisions and having a board member going out promoting it probably doesn't help but there are districts where they the the community expects you're you know I expect you to be out advocating. Why are you not? Okay. Thanks. Why is it that you think that parents don't vote and how can the community or the board in general help to make parents vote or encourage them to vote? So, um that's a great question. In a statewide in 2024, Arizona's turnout was just under 80% for a presidential election. In 2022, turnout statewide was just under 65%. You look at, and I haven't looked at the canvas yet for Maricopa County, um the special election across Maricopa County, and Maricopa County had a hospital uh tax, a hospital bond on the ballot. So,

070the entire county, not just school districts, the entire county got a ballot. I think turnout was under 25%. So when it is a special election um and I'm now over 55. So I pay attention to my property taxes and my tax bill and it's an allmale election for those for a lot of those elections. I get my ballot and I I actually get my mail. I get my mail on a regular basis. I'm paying attention to it. I don't have to worry about getting my kids to school or getting the permission slip signed or some of the other things. And so you're not paying attention. And that's and it's not because you don't care. You just are overwhelmed with everything else. And not everybody gets their mail on a regular basis. Even though they get

071the mail, they don't always go to the post office or empty the mailbox. And so when you get the ballot and you don't recognize what it is, you're not participating. I know that because we run the data every election cycle and you realize how few parents come out to vote. They're not registered and when they do are registered, they tend not to participate at a higher rate. So we track um most consultants, we track returns, meaning we get the return data from the county. So you start looking at especially for the special elections where 75 80 and in some cases 90% of the people that are voting are over 50 years old and the 18 to 30 is a very small number that's why can you speak a little more about the difference you've seen

072in a special election versus holding an election during a general cycle? Um obviously this would be a midterm cycle u guminatorial election like what do we what kinds of factors should we be considering there in regards to that that is a very good question and we also have two board seats that will be opening in that same election. So so there's not a one-sizefits-all election there. I I've had clients that we love pres you know especially on overrides it's a little different. We love the presidential election. So when you look at a presidential election, you typically have a higher turnout. So you have and I say more diverse and lower uh lower information and so you know if my community has supported schools, we tend to hey that's a that's a good time for us.

073Same thing with president with a gubernatorial election. And again, some of that is let's look at past history and what have we done? Do we do better? And you know what what what's our election history to look at to say does that does that help? And then the specials I have districts that like we love the special. It's a their win number, you know, instead of 65% turnout, it's 25% turnout. So I can I have fewer homes to contact. I have I'm I know I'm gonna get and from most districts you're getting 40 to 45 46% yes and 40 to 45% you know 40 to 45% no. There are a few exceptions, but generally speaking, you're dealing with 10 to 15%, you know, and so if your 10 to 15% is based on a smaller

074number that that allows you, you know, I can spend more money touching you on a regular basis or I don't have to raise as much and you know who votes. Presidential election, it's just a a wild a wild, you know, it's a wild wild west and and some districts like that. I call it static, which is I'm paying attention to the presidential election. I'm paying attention to the Senate election. Um, we have two major statewide propositions on the ballot and and like you can't get your message out because everybody's paying attention to that and and they ask, you know, you knock on the door and the first thing, you know, are you you voting for this or that? You know, I'm like, no, I'm here on the bond or I'm here on the override. I'm

075like, "Oh, I that's on the ballot. I didn't know, you know, I didn't know that." Do you experience a large undervote in those cases? Because we certainly see that on on our school board elections most years, some undervote happening from especially if it's during a presidential, right? Because they're not they don't know. And again, part of that you ask about the board. Do you have candidates that are running that are supportive or are they we've said no. How many times, you know, do they have they not heard us, you know, say no loud enough? So that we don't know who's running, right? So I mean that's always a question and that's a legitimate qu and I'm not here to tell you what's right or wrong, but that's I just wanted to see what your experience

076has been and and you want a united front. I I mean it's tough enough given the challenges that I talked about when you have a candidate run for the board. Oh, they don't need the money. You haven't even Have you been to a meeting? Have you have you walked through the budget? I mean, I I will tell you personally, I was at a poll at the election and uh somebody Glendale Union had uh it was 22 Glendale Union had a an override up and a person came up and they were working for somebody who I didn't support and I said, "So," and they asked me, you know, they said, "So, do you support the override?" And she said,"Well, you know, they got all this co, you know, they got $6 billion dollars of COVID money."

077I said, 'Excuse me, Glendale Union got six billion dollars, you know. No. Well, no, not Glendale Union, but public education. And I just don't like how they spent it. And I asked, "Have you gone to the [laughter] district? Have you talked to the CFO? Have you, you know, gone through the budget?" No. I've talked to some people and that's what they told me. So when you you can't control that, but you want as as as much as you can, you want individual everybody on the same team rowing in the same direction and and sometimes you can have it. But that it it does come into play. There's no question about that. Yeah, that's what we've been talking about. Any other questions for I've got a question if that's all right. Tell tell us a little

078bit, Paul, from your experience on how critical polling is and let me give you a couple of scenarios. Um, [clears throat] excuse me. Our board has talked conceptually about some some figures and and they're probably going to be pretty low in comparison to what you've seen other districts ask. So, it you know, the the best example is that you you want to know where you're at. Mhm. Um and granted, you know, they're polling for the 28th presidential election today. You know, is are things going to change? Absolutely. But you're trying to get a sense from your community. You're trying to get a sense of do our priorities match up to what the community thinks we we need and where those differences. And that gives you a sense, you know, I would I would say generally

079public safety or uh you know, safety, security, technology, those are Those are the big issues. Um, you know, affordability in the sense that pay now or pay, you know, do you want me to wait 10 years to replace the roof? How much am I going to have to spend to to uh to fix it and repair that along the way? You know, the the example I have, Tulsson Union has been a client. We've had this was the 10th year 2025 that they've had an election. Eight [snorts] of the prior nine were finance were money issues. They had they asked for money. We had one land sale in there where we didn't have a campaign and uh we didn't pull. Um I thought they should have I thought the district should have and I told the

080district that this was the third year in a row going out for $125 million and an override. And uh Penergas, which is a feeder elementary district, has been a client for a long time. I said, "Let's find out how bad the the damage is." And that's maybe the wrong word, but how much of a hit are we going to take because Talison Union's going out and everybody's unhappy and they got beat bad. Um, and no, we're okay. We ended up losing our bond by 200 votes out of 5,000 over 5,000 cash. Let me ask then a little. So I don't know like but that gives you if if the board's looking at high amounts for sure we want we want to find out with polling what's tolerable in the community. Exactly. If they're asking for

081really pretty low amounts if they're for instance looking at maybe a a 5% override and a $15 million bond. We were talking I'll just really quickly tangentially tell you we were talking with our our friends from Stifel uh what a month ago something like that and he he ran the numbers for us and of course there's different scenarios on how it's structured but saying I Brian help me out with the the wording something along the lines I've never seen an ask this low potentially $15 million bond on the total property wealth you're looking at in Prescuit the total amount you'd be asking for in his 30 years of of working he'd never se he was laughing about how low it So, if our board's going for something that's that's kind of in that range, how

082how useful will polling be? Well, I I I still think I I I would say it this way for the guy who lives in the great state of Maricopa. Sure. Um you're in a conservative community. Okay. Uh there and that's not a bad thing. You're just in a conservative community and the majority of your voters um I ran what is it? So, in 2024, uh, I'm showing, let's just say 35 of the 44,000 voters are over 50. Okay. Ballpark. Yeah. They care about every nickel, dime, and quarter that is going out of their pocket. So whether it's three cents or 30 bucks a month, you want to know where you're at. And so I think that it it it first off it's a mile marker that you can okay this is where we we thought

083we were there we're there. What helps move folks? So is it is it safe you know is it safety? Is it security? Is it technology? Is it you know new field? Is it new auditorium? Is it deferred maintenance? Is it taking, you know, saving our M dollars for the classroom so that we pay for roof and HVAC out of bond dollars, not out of our M dollars, I I don't know, but you want to try to test that argument. Okay. I I think and whether you know and I would argue I would I would without looking at the finances 15 million bucks is nothing. I I mean I open up the laptop and I can spend that and like that because you do root, you know, roof, HVAC, uh just general repairs, it's probably 15

084million bucks without even thinking about it. You're right. Okay. And that doesn't include the football fields and lights and auditorium and safety, you know, alarms, carpet. Well, I mean, you know, and and a 5% override. Now, five is better than nothing. I I will I will freely acknowledge that. But in general, it's the same ask. If you're doing five versus 10, maybe 15 might, you know, might be too much of a reach. Like say, "Hey, we hear you. We we we got it. We're g, you know, we're not asking for the full amount that we could, but you know, it's the same amount of work. It's the same because it's still going to say increase and and that's the challenge. Remember, you get that override in place, you're here again in four or five years

085or it goes away. And if you if you go to five, you know, do you do you want to go to eight? Do you want to go to 10? It's better to start that number and then look at, okay, can we show steward, you know, strong stewardship of those funds? Can our community see the return? And then maybe you go for 15. Again, if you do 12 or 12 and a half, you're gonna have another election in four or five years. Do you go, you know, do you make that ask again? Sometimes it, you know, pull the band-aid off once. Just don't don't try to do it, you know, a little bit at a time. And again, that's easy for me to say, and full disclosure, Glendale Union's going to make that decision. We're at

08610%. We don't have a 15% override. And I'm the one saying, why are we leaving money on the table? Right? But one of our struggles has been we don't have a history with our voting population that supports a renewal of any size override like any size ever I don't think in the history of preschool district. So we we lost in 2013 with a what was it eight something Brian right and then we lowered it to 4.6 for 2015 one went after it again in 2020 and didn't make it. So, I mean, we don't have a history with our voting public of them supporting a renewal of any bond of any override of any size. So, our concern is how do we make up a 10% that doesn't renew. Well, and so that's something we have

087to look at, right? And and five and five is better, you know, five is more than zero, right? And I and I and I agree with that. I I but I would argue and I I know in 13 because I remember I said go for the bond. Don't go for the Yeah. like the number the that survey the bond was here the override was here and when you added them together we were you know we were at under 40%. And so I you know look I'm telling you you don't want to listen to me and they didn't you know they called for both. If they did the bond and not the override I think the bond would have passed or it would have been even closer than it was. But when you ask, you know,

088you some of it you have to listen to they're asking for a lot. It might, you know, you might it typically it's easier to pass that bond than the override. And so you get the bond and you get the bond in place and then maybe you go back in a year or two years and say, "Hey, thank you. We've, you know, we've painted, we've roofed, we've, you know, made our building safer. We've bought buses. Now we need to pay our teachers and our staff. Can you help us this time? I you know it's not easy. If it was easy, I wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be having this discussion for sure. Good responses. All right. Any other questions for Paul? All right. Thank you. We appreciate you coming up here. Is it all right

089if I kind of share the circumstances? Yes. A bad day. So, first of all, Paul lives about four hours round trip from here. So, just coming up in the first place is that's great. Really, really appreciate that. Secondly, on on his way here, he was involved in a car accident. While while he was on the phone with me, [laughter] handsree handsree just so you know. Oh, god. Minor offend, you know, somebody rear ended me. [clears throat] Yes. So, it's been a banner day. It's it's above and beyond for you to be here and answer questions about this and help guide discussions. We really appreciate it. All right. I'll hang out. Thank you very much. All right. Appreciate it. And looking hope to see all of you at uh at the ASA ASBA conference, too. December.

090Great. I don't know about we got a a big group. Big group going. Hope this will be Friday. There you go. There you go. All right. Moving on to item 6A one. Mr. Tenny, summary events. Great. Well, we've had a number of terrific things going on the last little bit, but I just want to highlight a few of them for you. Um, around Veterans Day, we talked about a couple of things that uh I think last time around maybe that were coming up and we had some some good pictures and thoughts about those, but this was the the veterans honor wall that the high school does every year. The high school JOTC programs been doing that Adam, how many years now? 15 years probably in a row, I think. and they do a great job

091of reaching out to our Prescott High School community and people who are related to veterans primarily and and uh honoring them. But they've got an honor guard that stays with the the materials and displays throughout the day. And anyhow, just terrific and we really appreciate the kids going to that. It's a great learning experience for the kids in the ROC. And I think for our other students at the high school who go by and realize this is a really important part of the way that our country is and and the blessings that we enjoy here in America is the sacrifices that people have made on our behalf in the past. And we're we're proud to be able to do that. It's my flack vest and helmet. Then is that right? It's in good hands. Nice.

092Otherwise, it'd be in my shed. [laughter] There you go. So, it's displayed every Yeah, that's pretty cool. I I didn't make that connection. Thank you for that. All right. Uh kind of in the same vein, we had in the Veterans Day parade this year, we had uh some entrance and they were selected as the best [laughter] in their category. So, one was our our band. They were best in the what the the music category and then our uh Air Force junior ROC from Prescuit High School was selected as the first place winners in the marching unit category. We got some pictures of them. uh participating in the Veterans Day parade. And then the last thing, this also is at the high school. Lots of good things going on in a variety of places and just

093kind of hitting some high points of places that we had uh pictures submitted, but on November 21st, were any of you able to go that morning? I don't know that I ran into any of you that day. I know that some of you have attended in the past. Third annual Adam. Yes, sir. Third annual opportunity for us to get with um uh Dignity Health YMC. We're fortunate that one of our education foundation board members is also the chief operating officer of the hospital. And so we've been able to make forge some great partnerships there. They've got a need for for people to to um be in all sorts of different medical fields that they they have a hard time filling and they know that they've they potentially got a a pool of uh future medical

094uh employees there at the high school. We know we've got kids at the high school who are looking for different opportunities in their future and some of them their their vision for what their future looks like is you know what what mom does, what dad does and you know what the next door neighbor does and they can't imagine beyond that and so this is really a great opportunity. They had everything from what phabbotomy to neonatal care to u general practice what was this one surgical uh assistance etc. What 15 maybe Adam different 12 or 15 different stations. There you go. Okay. dozen different stations that kids went around to and you had about 120ish kids. Okay, there you go. That made the opportunity available. Sign up if you're interested in this. So, we weren't shuttling

095a bunch of kids through like I'm these are all kids who say I might be I'm I'm willing to miss a couple of classes and make up the work later in order to go find out about this. It was pretty neat. I've I've attended each of the years and the feedback that we got from Dignity Health was they they love it. they love being able to do it and um that the kids are are just terrific. They they've done things like this in the past and I I get a version of this feedback about our kids at all levels frequently. And I want to pass this along to people in the community who've worked with other groups of kids, uh other schools, other districts, etc. routinely tell me, "Your kids are so well behaved and

096they're so polite and they're so attentive. They're so engaged. We just appreciate that." I love hearing that. that that speaks volumes about the culture in our schools. Anyhow, same same thing from the folks at Dignity. So, they were great. They were great. Ask good questions. They're engaged and hopefully then we'll help make help kids make connections uh with a career that will benefit our community in in the in the future. You know, there's not too many things that allow you to be able to afford to live in Prescuit if that's what you would like to do. This is, you know, one of the major employers who can make that possible for people. So, it was a great day. Adam, do you want to add anything else on that or have I pretty much exhausted it?

097I just think we've gotten better and better and I'm really proud of what it is and I think we have a lot of kids walking out of there with some new ideas this time around. I talked to four or five kids including my own child and I was shocked at the interest level that they had and I think that's pretty special. Yeah. Yeah. Neat. Okay. And I think that's that's what I have. Great. All right. Thanks. Um, governing board members Brett. Um, just a couple things. Uh, like the rest of you, I attended a bond and override meeting and I felt like staff administration did a wonderful job. The presentations were professional. I was also impressed by the wide variety of community members and how many people uh were there and in support. I just

098thought the event was well done. And I'm um excited to on the agenda today, we're going to maybe talk a little bit more about what we what we experienced there and um the input that we got from from our tables. So, thank you. Thank you for that. And um I got some good feedback on a Veterans Day presentation at Granite Mountain upper middle uh middle school. Upper elementary school. Thank you. I'm working on that. Um I wasn't able to attend. I wanted to get over there but didn't wasn't in the cards that morning but I heard it went well and then I had the opportunity on November 8th I was invited to help one of our teachers at Granite Mountain move their residences from an apartment into a house and I showed up and there

099were lots of people there to help the family move and it was it went it went quickly and it was a great opportunity. So that's my current Cool. They were well prepared. That helps a lot. Yeah. Yes. Yes. All right, Jen. Um, I was at the same meeting as Brent was as Brent was as all five of us were. Um, and also very impressed with the way that you guys presented the information and I I think my table was was very intrigued by what they learned. Um, I also have had a couple of different opportunities to have some especially one private conversation with another person in our community who who's very interested in some leadership around the Blondon override. So, that's exciting. Um, and then I also, my son is a sophomore at Presca High

100School and he gets to go on the Spain trip this spring. So, we have been having some Spain meetings and that's pretty darn exciting and super impressive how it all comes together and I feel safe with him leaving. I know. It's very exciting. I'm so thrilled for him. So, it's been fun. Awesome. Andy, um, I attend the same meeting. I don't need to reiterate, but yeah, really good job. Um, was able to attend the flag football home game that we won. Well, it was great. I had both my daughters here. I had my granddaughter here and they were in their letter jackets and man, that was the fun Georgia that what they were trotting on the time with they were playing. It was really fun and and we're glad that Prescott won because the next

101one was a wet, muddy, gross mess that they ended up disappointing in. So, um, also, uh, I I don't know if this is community comment or if it's here, but was at an event and someone asked me, and this is I not a PUSD parent, but possibly a parent that sends their kids to a private school locally says, "What do you offer for kids in Prescuit?" And it was so gratifying to say we offer advanced placement courses, we offer early college, we offer dual enrollment, and we offer CTE programs. So we pretty much can offer things for every student along with clubs, athletics, activities, marching band, theater, fine arts, all those things are available to all of our students. And I I didn't say, but I should have, what do you guys do? because I

102don't think they could match that level of involvement and activity for Can I piggy back on that really quick? I had the opportunity to to visit with some district leaders in in neighboring districts recently and they were talking about uh their their enrollment issues and and they're particularly seeing enrollment issues at their high school, kids leaving their high school for other opportunities including Prescuit High School. Uh but they were they were just complimenting us on on the different opportunities we have for folks. I was at Mile High I don't know an hour ago watching our white team play our red team and girls basketball cheering them on a little bit before the board meeting here and the principal uh came over and was talking to me and said we've had three of these families came

103to us at mile high so that they from a neighboring district so that they could play on our sports teams. And that's that's an example of, you know, extension of what you're talking about. High quality uh academics all the way from college courses down to, you know, special education supports and everything in between and programs that that draw people to PSD across the board. And it's particularly again the case at a level where we find other districts are losing kids to ESAs or or online things or micro schools or whatever. That's pretty neat. And I I think it led nicely into this discussion of the override, you know, because these are still voters in our district that will have a say in whether or not we can pass up an override. And it's like we

104offer all these things and our teachers are still at this level of salary, you know? Yes. And and this isn't just I don't I don't want to focus only on the high school, but these are activities and events and opportunities for kids at every level of our schools. um not the AP or advanced not that but at the lower levels our kids are in clubs they're in afterchool activities they might be in athletics at at the middle school art music and PE in all our elementary schools that's increasingly rare in Arizona right and so you know we we try to do what we can with what we have and and we do a pretty good job of it so this is why we would potentially be asking for additional funding great I'll just give a

105quick list I went to the for the bond meeting. I went to a couple flag football games. I wish flag football was around when my girls went to PHS because they all three would have loved it. I caught the tail end of the veterans war wall at the high school. The tail end. I went to a national honor society meeting at the high school which I found very interesting. And probably my favorite thing of all, of course, I go to the preschool once a month to sing. And Hillary Sparks mentioned to me that one of her little probably four-year-olds came up and as said that she'd really been working on her voice and she was really excited to sing again. So that just makes my day. So nice. Very fun. When the singing lady comes

106back, she'll be able to do that. Right. Turkey song. The singing lady. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Just amazing meeting um with great involvement. I think that's just a great um beginning. Honestly, I don't think that was that's been tried that we've just pulled everybody together right from the jump street. Um so that's promising. Um I did get a uh um a commitment from APS that if we want to move uh forward with putting the poles in and help out the Bayia Jud fence, they are that would be free of free of charge. So really Yeah. So talk to us more about that. Yep. I will. So, chunk of money. Yeah. So, they'll all the labor, the augur, the Darla or Frank or somebody else. Uh Mackenzie Rogers. Oh, great. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. And then

107um attended the flag football games and only attended half of the one that we won because it I saw that wall of rain coming and it so I listened to John Russ on the on uh on KYCA and it was great and Kelly. I listen to Kelly. just shows community involvement like everybody's involved and you know KYCA is still supporting uh PHS athletics. Um and then uh was able to attend the flag football uh banquet last night and uh we had 10 seniors that graduated. Um we only had two graduate the previous year but this team I mean I get chills. there in their two, you know, first seasons. They went undefeated in two seasons. So, I made a commitment to write the nomination to the um to the PHS Athletic Hall of Fame um

108for both teams and hope that both of those teams get in. So, anyway, because you can't really do one without the other in this regard. Um, and then I got to walk uh in the light parade with the Abaya Jud uh rise float and that was amazing. The kids there and uh the staff there and just great reception and so um and then um yeah I think that's it. Great. Great. So we'll move on to uh Jackson and Shay. Jackson, you want to go first or Shay first? Sorry. No, you're right. Um, recently we had our state for swim and the team did great. I think that for individual events, um, one of the girls, I think she got eighth in the 100 freestyle and then one of our boys, I think he placed, I

109want to say fifth in the 100 back. So, that was really awesome. And for our girls 400 relay, which like I said before was well at the last meeting, um each swimmer does a 100, which is four lengths up and down the pool. So really not not the best, but they got they placed third overall and that was that was super exciting and so awesome. And then right after that, we had our swim banquet and that was very emotional, very sad to end the whole thing up. Um, and then recently for S Club, I think it was last Wednesday, we cooked for PASS, which is Presc Area Women's Shelter, and we made chili, cornbread, brownies, whole bunch of good stuff in the kitchen at PHS. We had about I want to say about 15 girl,

110not 15, about 20 girls show up and cook with us. And that was really awesome. I got to go drop that off, spend a little time with them. It was very nice. And then um on Saturday we have a we the people conference coming up and that is for AP government and that's kind of like a little seminar where we create um each of each group. So we're putting into groups within the class we each create a speech and we have to make three of those different speeches on three different topics and we're just gonna do that over the weekend and I'm really scared. So that's a competition right competition. That's this weekend. Yes. It's on Saturday. Nice. High school. Okay. That's the regional one. And then assuming that goes well, you'll have an opportunity

111to If it goes well for us, then we go to state. Great. Fantastic. Oh, did you have a time, Shay? Do you know time on that? 8 a.m. 8 a.m. [laughter] Jackson knows. All right, Jackson. Um, so like Shay said, there was state for all of the fall season sports and swim obviously did pretty well. Flag football did well. Um, I'm not sure bad did well, right? Bad mitten did well. And then I'm think golf team did really well as well. And then we had winter sports start. We just played our first boys basketball game. The girls have had a couple games and wrestling has had a couple scrimmages, but nothing major. And then um Matt Force has been having some of the students from the high school go to the elementary schools and do

112their presentations to help kids make healthy choices and that's just been really fun to do. So yeah. Nice. Well done. I'll piggyback on that really quick. One of the things that Jackson mentioned you were discussing earlier you received some feedback from the community about wrestling coach and direction might go there. If you were to I was able to drop by a bit of a practice with Mr. whatever, a week ago, something like that. I I've never seen the legs. It was great. What they've got going on is is spectacular. It we did land on our feet there. Absolutely. And I appreciate your your feedback for the community and listening to them and and then your trust in us to try to do the best we could. We we don't always have, you know, great great

113options for everything that we're looking at. But we were fortunate, I think, right, to have some good options. And I think Mr. Neely and and Mrs. towns and their committee made some some really good choices there that are going to benefit kids this year and in the future as well. Pretty neat. Excellent. Great. Thanks for mentioning that. All right, I'll move on to item 6B, community comments. Uh Brett, um just a couple this month. Um, I've been I've had a number of conversations about the bond and override and anytime patient says I can't find a doctor in this community. I I use that to segue and I'm learning how to prepare my message. It's been, you know, it's a little mixed message, but with hands in the mouth, I got a different opportunity than the

114rest of you. [laughter] So, I can uh I got a I've got a a stage there. I got I'll figure out how to get my talking points just right. And uh the first time I get bit or somebody gets really upset with me, I'll uh probably change my tune there. But it's so far so far it's going well and I appreciate the the information that we keep giving keep um getting and it's helping me to kind of form my uh my response to people. So we have a great opportunity here. Um, I talked to one husband of one of our teachers who doesn't like the new grading system. Um, so I don't know if that feedback is is general or it'd be interesting to to know whether lots of teachers are feeling that way or

115just if this is just a oneoff, but um I've only had one person uh mention that to me. And then I had a couple of community members reach out to me about the drama department and not being able to do the spring musical this year. And I probably need to get with Mr. Neely so I have a better response to them, but I know I mentioned it to uh Superintendent Tenny, but um I don't really feel like I have a great understanding of how to how to respond or how to maybe just direct them to to to Mr. Dwey um and use chain of command or what's the word we you like communication matrix whatever you want communication matrix um maybe that would be a great way did we work our way through that I

116think we did we not well it did everybody wake up this morning thinking I love every aspect of the drama program for the first time in the history of a drama program at any high school probably not but but are most of the people who had serious concerns about not having performance opportunities in the spring have they come around to seeing Actually, there are performance opportunities planned. Yeah. And I think it's mostly dying down. I I believe I sent something to board members with a little bit of a followup on that. And if you've got additional questions, don't hesitate in this forum or uh offline or and or with Adam, I'm sure you're you're he's got better, more direct information than me even. I tried to address it to the extent I could in that

117email. And if you've got additional questions, please do ask. I didn't see that email. Do you know when you sent it? So, I can I'm sure I just missed it. A week ago, maybe 10 days ago. about a week ago. Look one more time if you don't. It is I I've been in Brazil [cough and clears throat] for the last 11 days. Got home late last night, so I have some catch up to do. Great. Yeah, probably in your box. Awesome. All right, Jen. Um I'd say mine was also general Bond and override kind of conversations that were good, but and then of course the same drama stuff, but Mr. Neilie and Mr. Tenny both got back to me, so it was it was good. They seem content. So Candy. Um same same things. Um

118just one other interaction I had actually this afternoon with a a parent of a he's a parent of elementary students. U but we do some work together at PHS. And you know just as we leave every week we kind of debrief on what we've done with the kids and you know how these kids just amaze us every time. And I think the comment that came up was there just aren't bad kids here. So that was really pretty gratifying because huh that should go in a t-shirt. It should I I mean it was just you know it was really gratifying to to hear that that like we don't see the problems even from the kids that aren't your high flyers. I mean, I I I know there are problems every day in class and and whatnot

119that don't get me wrong, I I'm not looking at it with rosecolored glasses, but we're not seeing a lot of destruction, a lot of terrible things happening in our schools. And I just want to be grateful for that. And that feedback coming from parents is really good. That's great. Can I really quickly piggyback on that? Is that all right? I don't want to extend things out too long. I um you've probably seen Tom Horn in the news uh recently talking about the thousand teachers that have left the profession in Arizona over the last year. That's a lot. I mean, we didn't have that many to lose and and a lot of people have just decided they're not going to teach in Arizona anymore. And Tom Horn has said there's two primary reasons for that. One,

120teachers don't get paid enough. There I could probably count on one hand the number of things that Tom Horn has said in the last few years that I agree 100% with, but that's one of them. Teachers do not get paid enough. The other thing that he's suggesting is is a main narrative behind teachers leaving is they're not receiving support in the classroom for discipline things. He he's been playing that same key on the piano for two or three years. We we've our our um our principles send out surveys every year, couple times a year about how are you feeling about the leadership in the school. One of the questions is specific to that and the data we get on that is super strong. Our teachers are feeling very supported. Part of what you're talking about

121Andy is we get great kids from great families. You're 100% right. Part of that is we have a really good culture in our schools and and teachers who deal with that well and support from principles and whatnot. So when Tom Horn says that's happening everywhere and that's why teachers leaving, I can't speak to other places. I really can't. But I I we've got data that that refutes that here in Prescuit. And you're right, we've got great kids and it's a team effort. It's it's great parents and great teachers and everybody and volunteers. We're in schools helping people. Love it. And and not to leave out what our teachers are doing. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. That's that's a huge part of it. But yeah, it it helps create these good environments where children feel that they

122can be themselves and be successful, whatever that success story is for them. Right. Absolutely. Well, thanks for that. Sorry. Thank you. That's great. So, Mr. Horn does play a really good piano. Okay. Are you aware of that when you I know he plays one note really well. He does play He does play a good piano. Um, I only had one community member. I think you got the same email that I got about what are we going to do about academic achievement in this district and I think a lot of it had to do with phonics and I I'm pretty up on what we're doing with phonics right now. So, I did have a conversation and I think it went pretty well. I was happy with the report. Kelsey helped me out a bit there, too.

123So, I think it went all right. So, if I don't know if any of the rest of you respond to that email, but I think we've got it covered. I' I've found personally responding to that community member to be not as fruitful as I've hoped. Uh however, I would love for the the board and the public to hear more about what we're doing in terms of phonics train. Is that something you'd like to hear from suggest that perhaps when we get to for future items? I love it. Okay. Because we could actually maybe get Sarah from Taylor Hicks involved because she's she's dynamite. So, I thought that might be I don't know if anyone would come to listen to a presentation on phonics, but it's pretty well there's some great things that we're helping train

124our teachers to do. We'll come. Yeah, I I'd love. So, we are we are doing what we need to be doing and it's successful. Um the only other item that I had was I um had a parent just ask the question about what is this, you know, going from abs to one, two, three. And I was like, "Well, that's what it was when we were in high school." And um you know, it kind of changes and and they and they kind of questioned it. And then um and these are and these are parents of just high achieving one PHS recent PHS grad, one in the high school and one in sixth grade and um and very involved. And I just asked the question, well, did you go to your parent teacher conference? And their response

125was no. And and so my response was from a parent what I received from my kid own kids parent teacher conference was super enlightening about how we're doing the formative assessments and how the retaches and and it just changed there too like well maybe I should get a little bit more information about so anyway and great great people but just like go oh dang it you know it's not about change sometimes is hard but dog on it was a good change so Right. Well, I think over the year, I know when I was teaching, we did a parent teacher conference with every single parent at the elementary level, whether their kids were high-f flyers or struggling a little bit. And I think we moved away from that a little bit in that it's more volunteer.

126Does a parent want to come to a conference? Would you say that's true, Kelsey? I think most K4 are trying to meet with every single parent, which is easier for them to do because they have anywhere between 25 and 30 students. when you get to Granite Mountain, they have a lot more students. So, they are prioritizing, but also leaving times available for parents to sign up. So, anybody has a chance to participate who wants to, but I think you're right. If the when they sit down with the teacher and actually hear all those pieces, it does give them kind of the full picture. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Great. All right. So, we'll move on to item 7A, consent agenda. Um, do we have any items we want to highlight or pull? I have one I'd like

127to highlight. That would be 7 A2 approving the donations. Okay. Any other items? Okay. Then we'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda minus item 7 A2. I'll make that motion. Have a motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. Motion second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. All right. Item 72. [clears throat] Uh J. I would just like to individually thank our donators from this past month. We had a donation from the Acer Music Park Association for $2,000 to the PHS coral department. That's pretty cool. We had a donation from Dan Beetle of an Orion Star Blast Telescope in the amount of $5 to Prescuit Unified School District. I don't know what that is. 500. I don't know what an Orion Star blast telescope is, but a telescope of

128some kind. It's a telescope. I had we had a donation from UTBJ Utador, I don't know if I'm saying that correct, for $150 to our wellness fair. Diane Ryan gave us a donation of $100 to the science department at the high school. That's cool. And we had a donation from the New York Life Foundation in the amount of $3,000 for and again I don't know what this is exactly. NY LGSS1 grant. Anybody know what that is? New York Life is a big um yeah Jesse Stickle um now exactly where the money needs to be spent. It's in the Jackie Jesse Stickle world, right? But um they participate in something that um their participate generated $500 for each site. Oh, that's right. Six sites for 3,000. And that's what this is. So each of them have

129500 to spend in the Jesse Stickish world. Perfect. Okay. I know what it means now. I think I think it has it has to do with grief um and uh and helping students uh get past grief from hard events in their life. I believe. Yeah, that's right. That's right. talk about that. Yeah, put the time. I'll tell you Diane Ryan is this not the first time she's donated often to the science $100 like 10% of a teacher's salary for the year. I think a retired teacher, right? Even more retired teacher. She officially retired. Yes. Or is she still working? No. She's working for fun now. She sends us all kinds of great information. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure she's still a contributor for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Good lady. Great. All right. Can we get a

130motion to approve item 7 A2? Consider approving the donations as presented. I will make that motion. Motion. Do we have a second? Second. Motion second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. Item 7B, public hearing. Do we have any uh public calls? Okay. All right. So then we are going to move on to item 7 C study and voting session. Um do we have any calls of public there? All right. We'll move on to item 7 C1. Uh consider approving the fiscal year 2026 budget revision number two. Uh Brian, that's me. That's you. All right. Just uh just because a reminder, we adopt our budget um in in July and we do that specifically to set our tax rates. Um PD again is one of only a few districts in which their

131100% of their u M and U district additional assistant budgets come from our our property tax owners. Uh if you are off by that by 1% and for us it was $325,777. If we're off by more than that you have to do a budget revision in December. PUSD is in a because we're in an interesting situation where 100% of our our taxes come uh or our budget comes from our property tax owners. There's a little bit of flaw in the system for districts like us because part of what is budgeted is is called move on when reading um monies and that is not allocated to the district until late November, sometimes December and last year. It went into January and so we have to have that in our budget in in July because we have

132to have taxed dollars to fund that. Um but when the state calculates how much we should have, they don't include it. That was $155,000. So our 1% of $325,000 just shrunk half. So we can only afford to be off by 0.5%. From our adopted two calculations, which we were. And so that's why the budget revision is coming in front of you. This is the budget revision number two because we did do a budget revision uh number one in August because the final budget forms were not released in order for our budget adoption. So this is the budget in front of you. Um, when it comes down to it, the you need to do a budget revision is is based on September's data. Um, just to let you know that where our budget revision is, which

133is based on um the most current reports and uh and what the state gives us, they give a report called a budge 25 where they calculate based on current data. we actually are only off about um about a hundred the budget revision budget $40,000. So if they use the most recent reports and had that move on when reading money in their calculations, we actually didn't have to do a budget revision this year. So it's in front of you just because of timing, because of the reports, because of our precarious uh taxing situations. Most districts just leave that move on when reading money off of their adopted budget because when they actually get it, they'll revise their budget and it comes from the general fund because they have a cap on what they can tax and

134anything increased comes from the general fund, not from the taxpayers. We're not them. So, it's amazing that we haven't had to do a budget revision every year and I think in my nine years we haven't three times. And so, that's what's in front of you. Um, we will have the official end budget revision in May because it's after the 100th day and uh they're constantly recalculating ADM. So that's [clears throat] what's in front of you and the reasons why and I'm here for any question. I don't have any questions. Seriously, I know. Holy smokes. Told my wife I wasn't going to get home until like 9 because Jen was going to talk about the budget. [laughter] Awesome. [snorts] I should have told you before the meeting so you didn't be worried. I was I didn't

135sleep last night. [laughter] Took a little extra medication. All right. Well, since Jen has no questions, [laughter] um we'll take a motion to approve the fiscal year 2026 budget revision number two. I will make that motion. We have a second. I'll second. Motion second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. Item 7 C2, consider approving the 2026 schedule for the governing board meeting dates. Clerk. Okay. Super. So, in our in our December, it's December already. Can you believe it? In our December meeting of each year, we we take a look at um the dates that we're planning to meet for the next year. This, of course, if if if there's a conflict that comes up that we know of partway through the year, you can always make a change to this, but

136we want to get this information out to the public as soon as we can. Generally speaking, you've you've chosen to meet on the first Tuesday of the month. The exceptions to that would be if if we're just coming off a holiday, if we're still in a holiday, will be the case for the first Tuesday in January. You can see we're there the 13th. I think that's the case as well. Maybe for one of the breaks, maybe for Oh, maybe not. No, it's not the case. Okay, great. And then we we do things differently in June and um sometimes July, but we won't be in July in this case in June just because of when the budget needs to be approved the first time and the second time, right? We've talked about this in the past.

137If you've got questions about that, Brian, give you even more specifics. But there needs to be what, 10 days in between first approval and second approval. So, we need to have two board meetings that are at least that far apart. But, we need to have the first one be as late as possible because the legislature in recent years has not been approving a state budget, which then sets our budget until sometimes uh into the middle of June. And once they do that, then then Brian has to start on the the calculations based on your conceptual budget approval that you would have done probably back in March. That gets the the gears rolling for the actual the figures and filling things out. Anyhow, long story short, those are the dates that we've got there before you.

138If you got any questions or any um any uh what's the word I'm looking for? Recommendations for change. Oh, the other one. Thanks. So, November, right? You you'd asked to not to try to avoid election day as a board meeting. That'd be the first Tuesday in November. So, this is the second Tuesday in November. Thank you. So, questions about any of that? I did just have a question. We had a 5:00 start time and I feel like I saw an email about our start time maybe being delayed for the main for the primary like general meetings because we'll be doing something prior to that. That'll be that'll be 100% up to you and it's another agenda item a little bit later on discussion of No, you're this just says 5:00 pm. So yeah, so this

139this is [clears throat] we set this for now and then if you determine you'd prefer to do study sessions in addition to these on those same nights, we'll make an adjustment to that based on what you choose there. And if not, we can leave it as is rather than than try to do the two of those discussions together. They we keep them separate for for simplicity sake, I think, was the idea. Right. I don't have a question. I just have a comment. Um, I think Sarah is the one who puts these on my calendar. They get there electronically magically and I so appreciate that. So, thank you Sarah. [laughter] Big time. I would agree. I'll I'll point out a couple of things that come to mind for me just really quickly if I can. There

140are a lot of boards that meet twice a month. I appreciate that this board has uh chosen to to try to get your your um public business done in one time a I think that works better for you personally and certainly works better for staff members who've been here since, you know, 7 o'clock this morning getting ready for district leadership team meetings and then all sorts of other things and whatnot. So, that's that's appreciated for sure. Uh the other piece is I I really appreciate the timing that you hold these meetings. It makes it as as possible for uh community members to attend if they'd like. Our city council chooses to hold it in the middle of the day. that automatically excludes a large part of their constituents from being able to attend. And the

141fact that our board generally says, "Hey, let's do this at a time that will work for our community is admirable." Also works better for our work schedules, too. If that's the case, that's icing on the cake. Yes, sir. All right. Um, then we'll take a motion to approve the 2026 schedule for the governing board meeting dates. So moved. Motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. Motion and second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. Um item 7 C3, consider approving an adjustment to the PUSD 20 26207 school year academic calendar. Kelsey. Yes. So just for some context, this year was the first year that we moved parent teacher conferences to right after fall break. And that was so we had first quarter report cards completed. we could have those conversations with

142parents about exactly where students were. Now, we were worried. We didn't want to miss students who were struggling first quarter. We didn't want to miss an opportunity to talk with parents. So, we added some time into the middle of first quarter. But what we found as we got into second quarter is second quarter has a lot of breaks. Um, you had two half days coming off of fall break. You have veterans day. We have a professional development day. You have Thanksgiving. And then you get into the holiday season. So, there's a lot of disruptions. And we found that Yes. where we're utilizing that PD day in November. It would be a lot more beneficial if we could move that to first quarter. First quarter is where we lay the foundation for the entire year and

143that's where we need the most time to kind of get things solid to shore them up. Um and then with parent teacher conferences coming right after fall break. um giving teachers a little bit of additional time to plan and make sure that they have everything ready and prepared because not only do teachers do conferences on that half day, Thursday, Friday, but most of them are doing them every day that week before school after school and sometimes even into that following week. So they are busy when it comes time to for conferences. So, what we're asking here is taking our professional development day that's typically been in November and moving that into October um to give us more time in that first quarter and to allow teachers to have some time for parent teacher conference preparation

144and it is the 9th, right? That's the that's the second. Oh, that's the green. I think the way we've got it currently on the calendar is November 2nd, right? And we we're asking Yes. would you be amendable to moving it to October 2nd for all the reasons [snorts] Kelsey out seems reasonable. I don't think you'll have any discussion on that one. I think we're good. We can do then we'll take a motion to approve the adjustment to the PSD 202627 school year academic calendar. I will make that motion. Motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. Motion second. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. Go on to information discussion items. Um 71, Brian Moore, chief executive, financial officer. Not executive financial, just chief financial officer. That came with a raise, wouldn't

145it? Wow. Was it executive? No, sir. It's fine. Okay. Sir, okay. Has prepared the school board [laughter] review for your review. Where' that come from? And Jen, do you have any questions? [laughter] I do not. I have to say I do love the asterisk like the it doesn't allow for carry forward. That just makes me so happy to know, you know, it's uh and it's been and I want to say as we continue throughout the year, if you see anything in this report that you think would be beneficial, it has really evolved over the last nine years. So the asterric showing carry forward the restrictions that certain funds so continue to uh give suggestions, but uh if there's no discussion as presented. Great. All right. Item 72, potential study sessions. um clerk. Okay, great. So,

146um as you know, the the board voted a couple of months ago, I guess. Was it last month or was it the previous month? Two months ago to for us to to move from the um the ASBA model policy program that we've been subscribing to for years to the trust model policy program. The shift from that, one of the concerns the board brought up repeatedly was that's going to be a ton of work for Sarah and for Andy and Clark. We were concerned about that ourselves, but felt that it was going to be uh worth the time and effort. We met with Jennifer Mlennon and Lillian Lee how many weeks ago? Three weeks ago is all the days run into one for me. Yes, about three weeks ago. Got some information from them about um

147they they've gone through this process with with a couple few dozen I think uh districts over the last couple years. And sounds like a lot of the leg work that we thought we were going to have to do to get things ready for uh for you in board meetings um and and have extra committee meetings for and whatnot, they're going to do for us, which is great. It's it's super good. I I think more than we anticipate. Am I Yes, absolutely. So that's anyhow um long story short, we asked them how how much time does our board need to to look at this uh within a um a regular board meeting or in a special meeting as we go through this and and their recommendation they've seen it all in in all different formats. And

148help me out with this. They said there was one district that did it all in about 15 minutes inside of one board meeting. everything their policies as they migrated that the key thing that we'd be looking at is which of our currently um non-copyrighted policies PSD specific policies we would want to migrate over to uh our new policies within the within the copyrighted trust policies. Um so one district did that in 15 minutes. Uh other districts have have spent hours each month in in meetings, but they said what they've seen work the most often, particularly for districts our size and with the number of policies we've got that are outside of of what's the the the model policies that the trust uses is four different sessions of about an hour each. Has they've seen give

149boards plenty of time to ask questions, discuss, well, do we want to move this over as is? Do we want to make a little adjustment to that etc. And there's what six different sections now. They talked about doing two in the first month. One, two, three, four, and five. Okay, there you go. Sections. So for me, five sections. There you go. And the first two, one of them is is Yeah, there you go. Do this together. So their recommendation was they feel like, you know, based on what we've shared with they asked about our board makeup as well and how, you know, what's typical? Do we see a lot of 3-2 votes? Is there a lot of contention in discussions? I mean, so we certainly have seen that in the past, but we're seeing a

150lot less of that. We've got a lot of thoughtful questions, good robust discussion, but generally speaking, our, you know, our board has has uh landed in about the same place on most issues. And they said, you know, given what you've told us, our recommendation is four different times. And so our taking that into account, we talked, we thought maybe the the one good way to try to honor your time would be to try to do it um the same evening as our regular board meets. We we can do it in a number of different ways. We can hold special meetings the third Thursday of every month from noon to 1 if you if you'd like. But we thought given your schedules and what we know of your preferences and and correct us if we're wrong

151for sure, maybe doing that prior to our board meeting, not pushing the start of our regular board meeting back too far. So, we're still accommodating the public appropriately and not getting out of here at 9:00 if we have a, you know, a more weighty agenda. But if we went from 4:30 to 5:30, that should give it four different months, January, February, March, April, that should give us the time that our our uh partners at the trust are saying you would need to ask questions and what we can certainly extend that or adjust that if we need to, but but planning on that is the template is our recommendation. You have questions about any of that or thoughts? I just would like to hear from the three of you. My time's a little flexible. More flexible.

152What's the most workable for you if we wanted to have all five board members involved in looking at what we talked about? Do we think it's going to be an hour? You think? Yeah. You'd have to get at 4:30. Again, there's some districts that have spent 50 hours on this total and some districts have spent 15 minutes, but they said what they've seen, given what they know of our dynamics, their their best guess is we'd be able to do that in four onehour sessions. That works for me. Does it work? It works for me. I can leave work at any I mean I can be flexible. Yeah, it's kind of up to St. I feel like you have the hardest schedule to and thank you. I Yeah, I can I can make it a point

153to break away and get here by 4:30. So, there's lots of permutations. We could start it at 5:00 and go to 6:00 and then start a board meeting at 6:00. We got here later. We could do it on a different day. We could do it all at once in one long I'd like to do it the same night and it works best for me and it's only four times that we're starting at 4:30, right? Or are we gonna Yeah. Yeah. Do you have another book for us after we're done with this? That that that was part of the thinking of trying to wrap this up today was to give ourselves that flexibility. So I like it the same day, too. It's easier than trying to fit another meeting in. Does that work for our student

154at the end if you even care to get in on this? Yep. Yeah. because you really want to see what policies were moving. Policy review is very exciting. Honestly, that you you might find some of your your most uh beneficial input from students in those discussions. I mean, Jackson, you have practice or how does that work on Tuesdays? Practice will usually get out at 3:30. Today, we just got held a little late, but if I need to, I can tell my coach that I need to take off 30 minutes early or something. Yeah. What did you do wrong? What did you do? We didn't the extra wind sprints. We had to film our hype video today and then [laughter] Oh, film the hype. All right, that's fair. You remember filming the hype video back in

155the day, don't you? Yeah, kind of a big deal. Run DMC, please. Run DMC. We did some hype etchings on a stone back [laughter] when I was doing sports. So, awesome. [laughter] Are you in a sport this uh in the fall soon? No, I'm all done with sports for the year. Okay, gotcha. You got lots of other things going on. Sure. Right. Both of you. So that works with your schedule, you said. Yes. Okay. Great. Okay. All right. So that's okay. You can give us administr that January. We'd start that in January. If if you want to give us administrative direction to do that, we'll we'll schedule things in that fashion, including show up on your calendar. [laughter] Thank you. That's great. All right, great. They're planning to join us. Yes, Jennifer and Lillian virtually.

156And so we'll it's a study session. So we'll go upstairs in the inspiration lab where we have a big interactive panel and it'll be Jen and Lillian that will meet with us. It is open to the public. Still open the public is welcome to come up there as well, but it's just more um technological easier up there. There you go. All right, then we'll move on to uh item 7D3, bond and override discussion. Mr. Denny. Okay, super. Well, I appreciated the kind feedback about the the meeting that we had. I tried to go out of my way to get a a broad range of community members at your advice. Uh not just people who would cheerlead for us and say, "Yeah, let's do 15%. Let's do $50 million." Kind of a thing. Because it's it's

157unlikely if we get only cheerleaders in the room advising you, right? you wanted an advisory committee that that that's going to match the electorate. Um and and I feel like we did get a pretty good range. Most of the folks who RSVP know to me were people kind of in the the the farther right of the political spectrum unfortunately. So we had under reppresentation there in my mind really. But yeah, I thought we had good representation. We had a really good I think there's some good feedback people that were invited that were not able to join us that maybe would have had a different perspective really possibly went on and did this. I asked a couple of county supervisors for instance to join us. One who's been the the head of the citizens tax committee

158in the past one who um ran for our board in the past and was kind of an antagonist and whatnot and they just said can't can't make it but did reach out to them at you know your recommendation. So, but you're right. We had a fairly good representation of of different um perspectives, I think, in the room. And so, that was good. Uh did did we have anybody who wasn't invited who showed up? We sure did. Yes. How many? One. Just one. Just one. You can probably guess who that might be actually. And it doesn't mean that that person wasn't welcome to be there. We we went to the We want those voices. We went to the extent of asking that person to participate, which wouldn't be typical, right? uh in a in a session

159where people weren't invited, but there's one person and and here's another voice that you know doesn't necessarily always mesh with uh the majority of of feedback that you get from other folks. So, did we have a board member at that table? We did not have a board member at that table. No, I don't. We had a long time leader of former PSD teacher, longtime lead um Jenna James was at that table. Rebecca Hornman was at that table. Who else was at that table? Janette. Oh, Janette Bray. Yeah. And one of our great principles. So, yeah, there's robust conversation there. Carlo. Oh, for sure. Emry D. Carlo. Yeah. Who who's attended our board meeting several times in the past and asked us some good questions. And the last time that Kelsey and I visited with her,

160we left it at, hey, if we have things in the future and we want some community input, would you be willing to have us reach out to you? And she said, sure. So, we specifically asked her to be there. And that was great. I'm confident she probably reached out to the the one person who came who wasn't on the, you know, invited list. I had somebody ask me, "Tell me about inviting that person. You playing like some kind of 4D chess that I don't." No, no, no. The person came of their own accord, but we were, you know, willing enough to to uh integrate that person in the in the full discussion and ask for their feedback as well. Not everybody who was there gave feedback in the I don't I think only one board

161member did, for instance. I don't think any of our principles did. I didn't. Um, etc. I was about to and then I thought, you know what, I want to either way. I think though most of the people who you asked to be invited to that who weren't PSD employees or board members did give uh feedback and so that's represented here and so I just want to walk you through the graphs. I think I shared this with you earlier but just really briefly look at this together. So the first question again there were 22 responses on all of them and we asked people do you have any other comments? Any other feedback you want to give? And usually when we do that on a survey with like parents or whatnot, we'll get 300 people given all

162kinds only five you real brief comments to [cough] to process. So those are at the bottom as well. Now the first question was is is this a good idea or should we be should we be doing this? Um and and everybody well and then we ask excuse me within that is it the right time to go for a bond only an override only or a bond and an u a bond and an override or neither and of the folks who are there and again represented I think a broad spectrum of opinions in the community after the presentation that we gave and whatnot. You can see the the results there. Can I ask this might not be tactful. Sure. Did that person answer this? No. Okay. That's all they needed to know. Oh, yes. No. Yeah,

163you're talking about the the one the one community member who who um does who didn't receive a specific invitation? Yeah, I don't think that that data is in here. Good question. Is that what you Thank you. Okay. So, there's that. Any questions or thoughts about that? Should we we good to move on? There's only like six questions, so it should be pretty quick. Next question was then uh what percent of if we do go for an override what percent do you think is likely to be supported by a majority of PSD voters while still having the most positive impact on students and staff? And you know in our presentation we really emphasize that hopefully that was a a key part of your discussions at the table groups as well which I wish we had more

164time for. I regret not scheduling more time in um and you can see what they had to say there. 5 to 10% was the the vast majority with a couple of people saying no, you you really really need to go higher and a couple of people saying don't go any higher than 5%. I'll say from our table there um we did not play with the numbers. Well, there's more discussion. Sure. So, I'm I'm not I'm confident there's probably eight people there that probably didn't understand the question. Okay. So, just just I don't know who answered it. Yeah, fair enough. But I was I had already done it and I was semiconfused, you know, because of our conversations. So I know that that was a sentiment at our table. Got it. Got it. You know, we

165provided the calculator that Brian had there. Well, that's when Brian and I discussed very briefly what sort of percentage we would need to go for to get a teacher salary up to average. And I think we came up with roughly seven. So we and then we played with the calculator. So when we put seven in you could see what it would do. We'll whatever we do if it gets to average you can guarantee that average is going to move in future years right. So we need to by average do you mean like average? Sorry for interrupting but do you mean like average for like the state in general? Okay. Yes. Yep. Yeah. So PSD has historically been below the average. It wasn't very many years ago. We're about 15% below the average in the state

166of Arizona which is toward the bottom of the nation as you probably know. We've worked really really hard over the years to I mean frankly we're skimping on facilities uh to be able to put more into teacher salaries and there was one year we got slightly above the state average we were so happy and then the state average has moved on us and a win we keep going up but not as fast as other schools. So, and and Brian has pointed out a couple of times in the past as well, part of your thinking that the um the standards for reporting uh salary for uh for teachers are are there's some flexibility in them and there won't be going forward. So, we should get better data on that. Yeah, that's interesting. Just because what I

167was told that the the teacher salary is just their contract plus 301 money. That was it. and that was the standard and they have that on your annual financial report. I got a call from the auditor general the my assigne to look over all of our data and he goes no we got to include the the extra duties as well and I was like I don't think I don't think that it's cons. So, so somebody's taking tickets at a football game, that's included in their teacher salary as long as it's coded to the 10,00 coaching clubs and it's it goes against because some people don't have the tax credit money because of donors. So, what I said, I'm I'm just as confused now because ours was like 60,000 and it jumped to 62 now, which

168is what's going to be on the auditor general report. Really close. And I don't know. I think yeah I I'm just confused but it's not really 62 because the extra is that's the average amount that people are being compensated by us for the variety of jobs right but it's not teaching no those other roles are not generally teaching here you know I I I it made sense with the contract and then everyone gets 301 money everyone gets the same amount for a student ADM and whether districts use that for teacher compensation or professional development or instruction instructional coaches. That's up to the district and it lowers their teachers, you know, average. So, I'll get more clarification as the auditor general's report on March 1st comes out, but as of right now, ours is like, and

169I this is off the top of my head, it jumped like a thousand bucks because they said no, you got to include that and performance pay, which they said was not going to be a part of it either. We'll just you use the uh volunteer coaches and how much they get and include there and the salary and yeah lower it right with you know governing board salaries as well. Right. Exactly. Next pie. The question was I'm going to donate my salary. There we go. If if uh a budget override's approved, how should that funding be used? And you can see the the two options that were given. 100% for staff raises or staff raises plus some way to possibly bring class sizes. I think the the wording that we use critical staffing needs at each

170site including class size reduction, right? And we talked about maybe what that could look like an allocation to each school annually to, you know, Adam says, "Oh my gosh, look at the size of the biology classes. We got to get another biology teacher." That would certainly be class size reduction, but not a measure that would say, "Let's bring every class across the district down, you know, 3%." That would be a much bigger amount than than you'd probably be willing to go for in an override, and it would take all of that if we did that. So anyhow, and you can see the the results there. Everybody said at least staff raises, right? Those that was built into them. But but most people I was I was actually surprised by this. Surprised by this small a

171strong majority of people said do staff races but also give some flexibility to do something that would adjust class sizes at pinch points. Thought that's interesting. Which is a big deal for voters. Yeah. A lot of voters are going to look if there's a class size caveat in there. They're gonna be happy. Great. Next question then was uh if an overrides approved, which PSD employee group should receive raises? Right? That's built baked in that 82% of what we do is that [cough and clears throat] you can see what people had to say there. Most people said all staff there were I think one person said only do that for teachers and one person also said do it for everybody but don't include administrators. And we talked about that dynamics, what that would look like, right?

172the impact that that would have on the budget and etc. So people went into that I think with enough context to be able to answer reasonably there. Next question was what level of bond issuance do we think would be supported by voters and we talked about you know a whole laundry list of things we could do with it. Talked about how far you know certain amount of money go Paul just an hour ago almost laughed at $50 million and how that wouldn't go very far. are we and we brought that same uh concept up with people in the room that evening, didn't we? That this this is not very much. But when we've asked for more than this in the past, people have said no. So, we got to balance those things and and and

173really direct our messaging to to convince people whatever we're asking for is really needed. So, anyhow, you can see what people said. And we could ask for 400 million. Yeah. Yeah. based on the property wealth imp [cough] as much as $400 million. I think yeah, okay, good%. There's some free polling for you right there. maybe three 350. And I I I mentioned before our steel guy when we brought up run us some figures on $50 million. He just chuckled at us. He said, "Are you kidding me? I've never seen anything like this. Every you'd be looking at an ask of, you know, $26 for an average taxpayer. We're routinely asking for 2005$500,000 $1,500 for people from from homeowners for bonds. You're talking about a tiny fraction of that. If pe basically said if people don't

174get behind something like that, shame on them. So I thought that was interesting. Okay. And then the next question, the last question I believe, if we decide to put this on the ballot, it's likely that that interested community members may form a pack. and if so, are you interested in in participating in that? We had one person said, "I am so crazy busy at work that I just don't know if I could do that." But everybody else said in some respect, "Count me in." Including again those people from, you know, farther right on the political spectrum that we would not necessarily have even counted on being supporters of the concept, saying, "You bet. I'm I'm with you. What whatever you need." Everybody at my table to Yeah, we're supportive. I thought that was interesting. I

175thought we'd see strong support here because right, we had a lot of people who were pretty invested in the district, but we also have people who are not and they they come from different political groups in town that aren't representative of our families and whatnot typically and they said, "Yeah, this is important. I'll I'll help with the messaging or you know, whatever it is." So, there you go. And then here's the the comments. I think I shared those. The one that's interesting is that one about other city hot topics on the ballot to me. Yeah. So, that's one thing that did anything on this coming back? No. And have we heard about the jail? No. Any confirmation there? No, it was Pat that brought it up, right? No, it was Lesie that mentioned it to

176me that it was something that the county was considering. Um, it was the county manager though that has is no longer with the county that was really supporting that and kind of moving that forward. So, she wasn't sure if that was still a thing, but I haven't had a chance to check in with her. So, I need to find out if that's still a consideration that there might be jail. Yeah, it is super important. Paul brought this up just an hour ago as well, right? You got to look at what else is on the ballot and how that impacts voters looking at at your ballot measure. What's his name? Dave Rose. No, at at my table he was uh Pat Kirkall. No. Andy Stickle. He just he just graduated a year ahead of us and

177he was played basketball with you and Oh, John Brownella. Johnella. Johnilla. He his uh he suspects that that I'll ask for a jail tax. Okay. In our same Well, the good news is the deputy county manager is a former government student of mine. I'll just call him up and say, "Let's not do this this year." So, that that should take care of it. Yeah, you got that handled. Could you call Sheriff Rhodess? Yeah, absolutely. I'll call Sheriff Rhodess and say, "This is not the time. Get clear the path for us." No, absolutely. That's that's going to be something to consider, right? Nobody wakes up and says, "I want to pay more taxes." You've heard me say that before. and and very few people say, "I want to pay for that and that and this at

178the same time." More people would probably choose to put their money for kids instead of jails. But I mean, it might it might help us if we if if it goes on the ballots because then they say, "I could say no to that." And I feel good about saying no to taxes, but I could say yes to that. Yeah. No, there's a good point there. That's a very good point. It's a very optimistic lens you're looking through. Always always has an optimistic lens. That's my specialty. Uh-huh. So, anyhow, there's the data and I think you've got that in front of you as well. And then any discussion you want to have tonight based on, you know, what you've heard from Paul or where you think we should go next or whatever, I'm I'm ready to

179take your direction and try to take any next steps at on any time frame that you feel is best. What Sorry. Go ahead. What is the next step? I mean, where where do we go with this? Is this a decision the board makes to expend that money on on a consultant if we choose to do that? It do we direct you to set up a pack? I mean, I just I'm curious how this all happens. Yeah, I don't think you would direct me to set up a pack and the the board's going to want to be thoughtful about once I I do know this once once the board um makes the formal move to place a ballot measure. At that point, as as a group and a board group and as a district, we need

180to be very very cautious about how we approach things. Again, we're not you know this, we're not allowed to use district time or resources to uh impact the outcome of election. At this point, there is no ballot measure. There is no election around this. We can talk about this freely and advocate for it in different ways than we would be able to later. We would want to once once the board does decide if if that's the direction you go, yep, we're placing this on the ballot at this amount, this amount of ask for a bond, this amount for an override, one or the other, whatever it is. At that point, as a as a body, you need to step back from that. But Paul made very clear that it's probably part of your role as

181board members individually to advocate for it and and there's some real difficult optics around, you know, one person sitting at the bottom of the hill. I love the metaphor for an election by May the 1st. That first week of May. Does that include the numbers? I gave you a time. Yes. Yes. Yeah. The when we finally get the the final wording to Steve King's office. Yeah. I think we've actually got till June. It's June. It's true. You have to notify the county first week of May that you are likely calling for election and then you have the actual ballot language mid June or end of June. But how do we how do we get from here to there? Yes. Like did I hear we have to do a bid process or or how do we

182even get a committee started to to if you're going to use a consultant for for anything paid? Yeah. We we'd have to go through the procurement process for that. Brian, you want to talk about that briefly, what that would look like? Yeah. Um, you know, the services that uh any proposal, it's going to be over 10,000. Okay. And so um either they're going to be on a state contract, which they have been vetted through a bidding process before, or um we would need to get quotes from at least three. Uh and with your direction, uh we can start that process in the business office. Kathy Moody, fantastic purchasing director, would be reaching out to folks. So, I just I I'm just trying to make sure I understand. So, since there is nothing on the ballot

183officially at this point, we can direct the district to look into bids for a consultant to assess the feasibility of this idea. And I think we've got a sample fee schedule from one consultant already that we can share with you. If again that consultant's on state contract and you decide that's the person we want, I think we go directly to that person. Yes. And if that person's not on state contract, like Brian says, we'd have to get three people to give competitive bids around that. Then you could look and see, okay, well this service that we've we've heard about that seems key. We want to pay for you may you may look and say, I think we've got this. We've done this a bunch of time. We're five smart people. Let's do this. That's fine.

184That's one approach. Maybe not necessarily the approach that that leads to success in most districts, but certainly okay. You may go all in and say, "We got to have this and this and this." There's sort of a menu, I believe, of of services that you could look at that the board could uh contract for. And then once again, once you get that on the ballot, then you step back and you're not paying for that or voting for that anymore. It would be a pack that would need to to continue with that person's services. If they we can expend district funds for this assessment feasibility. Mhm. What we want to decide as a You sure can. We sure can. Okay. Yes. And we can decide prior to that May date if we wanted to choose sooner

185so that a pack could be formed and get started doing the work that they need to do. Occur overnight. One question you might want to ask Paul while he's still here is is there an advantage to waiting until May? Is there is there a disadvantage to doing that in January for instance? That's probably premature, but is that a question that you would like to have answered? Paul, is there an advantage to [laughter] So, um Oh, I'm thinking how to answer the more time the pack has to go out and build what you know, do community outreach, so build support, and that's votes and money. Okay. the better off you are. So for example, uh you know there are multiple districts that are going through this exact same process. Some have a pack in place, some

186are starting from new, you know, new. So if you can, you can always start that entity and if you end up making a decision not to go, the goal would be for, you know, you're not spending your resources as a pack in January, February, March because the vote's not till November. So most of that money either can stay there or can be refunded. And and that there's reporting, it's public. It's not like it's secret. It's there's there's transparency on that. But the the earlier they start, the better off you're going to be because then they have an opportunity to go out to talk to donors, to talk to the community, to build, you know, build some enthusiasm, if that's a nice word to say, so that in March they know here's graduation, here's uh when

187school starts, here's, you know, back to school nights. Those are great opportunities. Here's July 4th and other events that are prescuit community events that we want to be at. Whether that's factual information from the district or vote yes from the pack, if you've started that, you're in much better shape. If that is helpful for you, thank you. One of the key decisions you'll want to make at some point in the next few months, I think, is around the polling. My understanding is that's potentially one of the more expensive uh But potentially, as we heard tonight, one of the more useful services, particularly if in my mind, and check me on this, if you're looking at pushing toward upper limits of recommendations on amounts, if if you're going rock bottom, it's either yes or no, basically

188in my mind, right? If you get a bunch of people in the commit in the community who tell us, "Nope, we're not going to support you at 5% and $15 million." I don't know where you go with that other than to just drop the whole idea. I I think it sounds like you're pretty committed to trying to do something. If you're going for amounts higher than that, I think it could be very useful to take the temperature of the community on on anything above a rock bottom. I would I would recommend um thinking and and getting feedback to Mr. Tenny only because that's going to change uh the scope of what we ask for three folks to give quotes if we don't have someone that we prefer on state contract. So we have to ask

189them to provide us with a proposal that is of similar nature and if one person puts polling in jacks their price up. The way that quotes work is we need to go with the lowest bidder unless there is a justifiable reason to go with someone close. Um that could be familiarity with a district. It could be past experience working with a district. Those type of things. Uh but you know if we got if we got three quote three proposals and two of them are 40,000 one's 15 we gota go with 15 just for the same services we be real specific holding could look different right get specifics about what that looks like so we really we really want to put out there these are the things that we're looking for and but under state contracts

190they're a set price they can't raise or lower it and just right there no it's the state contract basically says they've already been vetted vetted through a bidding process that has been formal. So, we know and it's vetted really um from a quality and a price standpoint. So, really it it's already going into it that you've been vetted by the state. You're on a state contract. So, we know the number you're going to give the district is going to be good. Um Kathy needs predetermined by the state to be reasonable. Yeah. Kathy needs to go through and she needs to actually look at the bid that they got on state contract and do what's called due diligence so that she is really vetting that this price is going to be, you know, just because they're

191on state contract, they can't all of a sudden say, "Well, we're going to double what our fees are." Um, and so she would make sure that whatever that proposal was had due diligence for the district on a financial standpoint. So, that's a decision at some point you'll need to make and I'd recommend discussing and deciding on that, you know, in the in the near future if you can on if you're going to do polling and and then based on that polling and or what you've already got from your advisory committee determining uh amounts that you're asking for and then we can we can really start rolling from there. Once you do that, we can notice [snorts] Steve King that and it could be in January or February, you could notice Steve King, hey, we're looking

192place ballot measures within a couple weeks after that if you if you felt like yeah we've worked with their office enough and our attorney enough to make sure that we've got the proper language for that we can get that going etc. But once yeah, once the board decides that you step back as a and the district steps back as a as a payer for services and the pack would need to coales and if any further services are wanted to pay. So we've listened to Paul's proposal. Do we need to listen to another one? So Paul did not provide a proposal. He provided information based on his expertise in the field. It says proposal on here but that's okay. Yeah, that's that's French. That that stands for initially looking at a scenario where it was a

193proposal, but we decided that we should make an adjustment to that. Yeah. Right. If you guys were to end up polling, I would suggest going to like a retirement home such as the one that I work at, Evergreen Village, just to get a sense of what the seniors in the community think just because I know personally from my experience, they're a little bit less inclined to vote for the schools. But yeah, that's just my suggestion. Yeah, I would also suggest my suggestion is it's easier to say we'd like a proposal that includes polling and then once I mean because really Andy this none of us are experts in this. I mean I in my professional opinion we really need to secure a consultant. I mean they're going to guide us. They're going to do the

194timeline. They're going to help uh the the agendas of the meetings. They're going to help go through the data. it may be deemed that polling isn't needed once that process starts. And so we would make sure that that would be like an optional, you know, so if we get a proposal and includes $20,000 for polling, you know, I would I would make sure that person or whoever was a lowest know. This is just for in case stake, you know, so it doesn't lock us in um to that. But I would I would we could get in trouble if we added polling which doubled the price which we didn't have that information when we you know in all of the the quotes. So that that would be my recommendation. Can we currently see what the state

195contract is that you already have for what the pricing is acceptable within the state contract and the that the state this that a company being on a state contract just gives us that open door to say, "Hey, give us a proposal and if we like what we see, we're just going to go." So, okay. So, they're they're not going to say, "Hey, from a state standpoint, this is the range that you can expect." It just puts a company on a list that says these folks are on one GPA SAVE Mojave because they've had that vetted process. Um, and so yes, but I think we've got a sample fee schedule that we can we do that we can redact some information and share with the board. Here's here's what one consultant is is [snorts] quoting us.

196uh a consultant uh it was between 20 and 30,000 and I can't remember if the proposal did have um polling in that proposal. Um so you'd have to look a little bit at that but that was one of the services. So it's kind of an allocart thing if if I'm recalling correctly. Yeah. So that is kind of the range that you would be looking the most expensive of the services, but again potentially the most critical of the services. If you're going to go for, hey, let's try 10%. Is that going to fly? You you're going to want to test the community out there. 5%. My personal opinion is there's not a lot of point in in asking the community if they'll go for five. If they're not going to go for 5%, there's not any

197point in doing this. I think you've already predetermined there's a point in doing this. If if the board did say yes, we're directing, you know, Mr. Jenny to direct the the business office to to start and get, you know, proposals. I mean, obviously we know Paul and I would say, "Hey, Paul, are you on state contract?" He says, "Absolutely. I'm a state contract through the duration of of this project." And I say, "Okay, give us a proposal." We would preview, you know, look at it. Paul says, "No, I'm not on state contract." Well, then either we go to the list. I point to Kelsey for some reason. So Kelsey would tell Kathy to go to the side procure, you know, procurement websites and look at other companies that provide that. We could then say, "Hey,

198we'd like for you to give a proposal. You're on a state contract." If we're really interested in someone named Paul um and he's not on state contracts, we would have to go through three bids and hopefully Paul would be and come down as the lowest if that was and and his name's Paul. So, yeah, I'm actually not talking. He's an example, but um you know, Mr. Yulan is someone who's worked with the district before, is familiar with our district and our community. And so, with your direction, I would call um you know, Paul and just say, "Hey, put it together a proposal and are you on state contract?" So, if we wanted to do I mean consultant sounds like a great idea, but if we wanted to do polling, could the pack pay for the

199polling or does a district have to pay for the polling? That's a good question. I think you'd want to do the I'm just kind of thinking through this in terms of thinking out loud. You'd want to do the polling earlier rather than later. And so, we we'd be in the process where we have not pro we we've not put a ballot measure out that yet. So I mean I guess there's nothing to prevent a pack from forming tomorrow sooner. A pack can form anytime I think right and would have to fund some districts. Maybe you can speak to that ongoing they don't create a pack and would you that' be great. So um great question and different scenarios. The challenge with that is like the a pack I had a pack today. Hey, let's go

200out and test 10 10 or you know uh five or 10% and 25 or 55 or 25 15 or$25 million on the bond. They they procure they do that the pack pays for it assuming there was the money for that. The challenge is how does the pack then share that information to the district because it's not the district's information, it's the packs. So, in some cases, um, the benefit of the district doing that is they're going through a process and you're not polling tomorrow. You've gone through some assessment, you've gotten some feedback, you have the financials, you have here's construction costs, you have all that information to help draft that instrument. And then that is, you know, it's public. It's there. You know what's going on. [cough and clears throat] If the pack does it,

201it bec, you know, the challenge is they don't have all that information and you're doing it earlier because they're you're trying to give that information to the district. How do you legally provide that information? You know, I can come and present it, but it's not your information. It's the packs. If the pack forms tomorrow, I don't have any money either. Is it Paul? Is it fair to ask as an expert in this area, given what you know of of the board's potential needs around polling, give us a ballpark figure for what that might look like? Is that $500? Is that $15,000? You're So with two issues, you know, like you're you're probably between, you know, 10 and 20 grand. The more questions you ask, the more exp, you know, the longer the survey, the more

202expensive it becomes. But that's sort of a ball, you know, ballpark for that. So That that's a pretty good answer to that question. If the pack did form tomorrow, they're not going to have $15,000 to make this happen and they'd be limited in how they could share that with the board. So probably that's going to be a board thing to pay for. Can the board members serve on a pack? Yeah. Right. Yes. So that would they be part of that pack. I'll tell you that for sure. They can share that information. I mean really from a a district cost because we're doing this in an even year. Um and the county uses forest fee monies to pay for evenear elections. This is the cost. This would this is the cost. This would be the only

203cost for any cost the district would be paying for a consult other there's no direct cost to the district to get this on the ballot. As a caveat to us being on pack, we would be obviously limited to the number of us on set pack or every pack meeting is a public meeting. For sure. Correct. If you were to show Yeah. If you were to show or three of us or more, you would probably need to post out of um cautious cautious. You have to be cautious because you're not discussing it's not a board meeting. It's not board action board items are not being discussed. But you would probably as a courtesy like I'm sure you when you go to law conference or ASBA conference, you post board member, you know, we might have a

204quorum, but they're not discussing board items. You would probably do the same thing. Yes, I I I feel comfortable giving that direction that we should we should ask for this for quotes from a a consultant or or multiple consultants depending on whether they're in a state contract and I think the value of the poll I'd like I mean personally I'd like to get I'd like to get the maximum amount that we think we can get. I I think and I think the only way to find that number is by is by polling or else or else we end up asking for something that I think is I think is lower than our privilege living living beneath our privilege I guess is is a way is a way to say that. So I I'm in favor

205of spending the money um for the consultant and and for the polling quite frankly. I had one person, let me just share this, that it probably fit better in an earlier conversation, but one somebody at my table um said that he felt like asking for a low amount of money was kind of like a band-aid. And and we're just and that's kind of the situation we're in. We're just trying to we're just trying to fix, we're trying to repair, we're trying to get by. And he says that doesn't inspire anybody, but if you if you asked for something bigger and he was I mean he's the he's a city manager, so he He has a he he would love to see I think he'd love to see us build a new high school and then

206sell the mile high and create a conference center so that we can bring people downtown and the downtown partnership. But his his concept was good. You inspire more people. If you get the whole downtown businesses to be to be inspired by by our um ballot measure, then then you have you have more people. Um um so I mean that obviously he has a different perspective and and everybody at the table had a little different unique perspective based on well I think we're gonna we're gonna have a jail tax so we might want to consider that and hey we need to inspire inspire people. We need to bring midday you know midweek um people to downtown Prescuit. Um, you know, that was I I I also wanted to know if anybody had a, you know, a

207conversation at their table that was something different than we had talked about here. It Well, not different from what we've talked about, but very similar to what you brought up. Not from a point of view of a city manager looking at the business side of things, but looking at it from a parent perspective and saying, "We know you need more. What is it you want? Why are you only going for 5%." was basically the direct question to me and I said we haven't decided anything yet. I you know and they kept pushing and pushing and saying well what would you want? What would you ask to see? Um so I gave him an answer. I I think it was still probably low but but I think there is some appetite out there but also had

208the same concern about the jail tax being on the same ballot. Um not to say that we wouldn't be successful with ours but just to to warn us that this may be coming and you need to think about it. So these are current parents, parents of alums, alums themselves that were saying this to me that like and from the very far conservative side of the spectrum saying this we don't have we don't have the voice of the retirees who's moved to Prescuit in the last you know three to seven years and that I mean that's a cohort that We probably don't have their voice and we don't know what their polling might be polling might be. If you're going to shoot for the moon, I agree. You need to figure out where the moon is.

209Also don't have a voice from save the Dells and they've expressed disinterest in being involved in this in any way. I'm aware. However, they're always very interested in the elections and have a lot of influence over them apparently as we have seen in recent years. And so I think that I thought I had some decent strings there and I pulled them pretty hard and I was rejected. Yeah. Yeah, I know. That's a bummer. Is it Is it a no or just No, it's a it's a we're we're focused on not in our wheelhouse. They say it's not in their wheel They say their wheelhouse is just acquiring open space, but Jen's right. Their wheel their their actions have gone well beyond that recently. One of them's a former educator. Um I I thought I would

210be able to play that card and you just said now we're we're focused on water and land and whatnot. Good luck to you. So yeah, it just be good to capture that in a poll if we were to poll is to make sure there's some some at least individual people who are involved in various organizations so we know kind of where they stand. Um I'd like to give direction but um But I would rather do it in the form of a state contract to be honest with you rather than bid. Just just familiarity with um how secure it is going under state contract. You can get bids and so it can come lowball and you may get a low ball service and that's that would be my concern. And that and the state contract protects

211us kind of for that because again they've been vetted. So that's why we have them. That's why we have a you know a person. Is there always only one option in state contract or could there be more than one person who has a straight state contract? Um there's an a purchasing uh site that we we prescribe to that Kathy uses um to you put in a general area of interest and it'll say from a state standpoint who allows on a state contract currently. So, so as a board, do we do we have a say in the the who we choose then or is that something we need to bring to a vote so we can look at it or is it everything that we want on the list or do we give you direction to

212find somebody that best suits us and then that we approve the contract? I would say yes if you want if you want to make it a vote. I mean there [cough] really is there's there's very little wiggle room when it comes to the proposal the three bid you know. I mean, I would say 10% leeway. If there was a second person that we really were interested and they came in second and they were within 10% of that lowest, I would actually call our auditor and say, "Here's our reasons and justifications for not going with the lowest, would you agree?" because um procurements is just a sticky thing that the auditor general looks at and it has been that way for the last six years ever since district in down south got in trouble. Um, so

213it would really be an administrative thing that we would be going through and if the board wanted to have an official recommendation and we can discuss why, but there'd be very little wiggle room if it was a bid. Oops. As long as we're we're in within those parameters, I'd be very open to having you make that decision. Right. Typically, if we're bunch buying a bunch of desks, we don't bring that to you and say, "Hey, which company should we?" But something like this, absolutely. I'd be very, very interested in your voice on that. And I my preference would be to have you make the final decision again as long as it you know is within those guidelines that Brian just shared. Um when's our January board meeting? 13th. The 13th. I would have asked Paul

214Paul if we didn't secure a consultant until the middle of January knowing that we're going to be going. You're you're fine at that time. Okay. So we could bring Okay. a presentation of our work given there's Christmas in there and break and all the output, right? Yeah. Is it feasible though on your end? Oh, absolutely. Okay. Let's do it. I think we should do it. Yeah. Okay. That's great. So, your direction is to look into procuring consultants, get you Yes. prices on that and and whatnot. Get back with you. Okay. And then the pack, formation of a pack, wait till after that. Yeah. So, again, we don't form a pack. We're going to have to have interested community members. We can on on an individual basis or even at this point on a group basis,

215you can go, you know, corner somebody. Jen has had discussion with some folks who maybe interested in um heading up that or leading being leadership role in that. Really? I just from our my experience before I think who we have in leadership on that pack is very very important and um it makes all the difference in the world like the yeah and 21 willing people who've already said make me a part of that. I'm assuming you as individuals will have some interest in that as well. I certainly will. So we're up to you know about 30 people already who've said sign me up. What do you got? I think that pack will have multiple committees, right? And I was just thinking as far as the board goes, you know, if we each were on a

216little different committee and then we wouldn't have to worry about the time postings and everything. I guess I'd be cautious about us being too involved in that as far as running any subcommittee or anything. I for sure I'm for sure. I don't think we I don't think we need to run the committees, but I think if we're on or we have different areas of focus, I I think maybe I can ask Paul this question. I was intrigued by the the the way you addressed this earlier. It sounded to me like you said you've seen board members who've been extremely active in packs and there's no reason to be concerned about that on an individual bas. It's public record. you know, the former president of the Talison Union Board was the new chair of the pack

217for 2025. So you've had and and every district is different and I think the dynamics of the community come into play with that where you know two board members are chair and treasurer because those are the only two um statutory requirements and it could actually be one person is chair and treasur although not would not advise that. you know, part of it is what, you know, what makes sense in the community and, you know, sometimes it's former board members, it's comm you know, two community leaders, you you know, you tell me, but um you there's always a fine line of being active or supportive and running the pack and and so, you know, I I would tend to agree you need to be careful of how upfront or how visible you are, but I I

218also think it's important, hey, my board better be out advocating. And you could do that in different ways. I mean, that doesn't mean going to every pack meeting, but hey, I'm here to advocate or tell me where you want me to go speak or I'll I'll canvas, you know, three weekends. You just tell me. Um, but part of it is what the community what those expectations are in the community. Yeah, you should be thoughtful about what that looks like. I think the optics are positive if board members are very involved. You may feel differently and to I totally respect that as far as what you're able to do legally as individuals. There's there nothing no limitations do can't do it as a group. Can't do it in this room at this time, but other than

219that, you can do whatever. So, you're going to see me out a bunch on this as an indiv as an individual. I'm I'm all in. Somebody tells me scale it back, I'm going to tell them sorry, maybe next year. There's also a lot of power in getting other members of our community to step forward and to be involved because we are the same faces people see all the time talking about schools and when they see someone from the hospital start talking about schools and someone from the county start talking about schools like it makes a difference to them they see it differently because we become kind of yep everyone thinks we support schools because well we are we are and that's what we do but but I so I think as much as it's important

220we show up because if we're not there, that's obvious also obvious that we're not present. Um, I think really leaning into all different areas of our community and getting as broad of a spectrum as we can of people involved is very very valuable and we need our youth leaders to get [clears throat] out the youth. That's what I was just thinking. Was that not key last time it was successful? I know that absolutely. Yeah, it was very key. our chairperson, our superintendent went around to a lot of different groups and had our one of our board uh representatives and the student body president at the school at the time was doing both was involved in a lot of Was that not your son Nathan? That was my son. Yeah, he spent he spent a ton

221[laughter] like I feel like that was Nathan Tenny, but I could be wrong. We're not sure how much Nathan had at the time, but he he led [laughter] a student group that that uh very powerful advocated for it. He got them together on a bi-weekly basis and said, "Okay, here's what we're talking about this week and here's what you can do and show up at this time and we'll knock doors and whatnot." Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of our public loves to see our students, like I look at you, too, and I think it's such a great example. They love to see students that are doing well, who can articulate and communicate well. I mean, it really makes a big impact and they they like to support that. So, I think it's good.

222Yeah. Just really quickly, he was home for Thanksgiving. One of the discussion questions we had as a family were, "What are some of the greatest accomplishments in your life so far?" And he said, "That bon hands down. That's the reason I'm working for Congress right now. There's a lot of things I've done in college and high school that, you know, led me in this direction, but that that's been one of the most formative things that I did. I'm so proud that we were able to support the school district that way." And I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. So hopefully there will be other people like him that will that will come out and 10 years from now be talking about one of the the biggest things they did for their community was helping the

223bond and override get passed. Well, and if you think about it, like we've talked about, we formed an education foundation and it makes a big impact, but nothing like we can make in a short amount of time with the bond and override [laughter] in monetary terms. The foundation, but it doesn't it doesn't have the same financial in terms of support and whatnot. But boy, the foundation's terrific. Oh my gosh. But yeah. Well, and I think the foundation even helps just the overall perception of education in our community has improved since we've had the foundation in place. But it definitely it's such a fun impact to do the bond and override. Yeah. By far one of my favorite things I've ever done. So, we'll we'll do what you've directed. I think we direct. And it sounds

224like you're you're wanting to I think it's wise personally, but it sounds like you're wanting to hold off on talking about figures amounts until you get some polling data. Yeah. Okay. Great. Does that make sense? That was I was I would be super cautious. You've talked about this before, but boy, if if if we shoot for the moon and we get it this time, we're putting a lot of pressure on people four or five years from now to shoot for the moon again. True. And shoot for the moon again or put ourselves in a situation where we are cutting people's salaries. That is Yes. That's that's tough. That's really tough. We're a really unique situation compared to some of these other places that do that regularly. I don't know that we're going to be So,

225be real thoughtful. Even if we get polling data back that says 10%. Be real thoughtful about that. I would love to see 10%, but I don't want to put the next 7.5. That's whatever. Again, I'll leave it up to you, but I mean, really, I mean, if you think I think 6% or right around there or 7% is right around 1.5 million. So it doesn't pass again. You're cutting a half a million dollars just to make up that revenue over a three-year period. Insurance is going to go up a half a million every year. And we just get that with a 2% coverage. So raises would be very difficult in those years where it didn't continue if we had a cut in order to come up with Yeah. We could potentially hamstring future boards by

226getting a lot now if if we can't do that again in the future. Not to say that, you know, we won't, but you you've seen the the political climate in Prescuit change over the years, and it hasn't changed in favor of of school support. There's no saying we'll have a board that supports uh renewal. Oh, fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. No, Jen, as well, we talked about our our table groups. I'll I'll be brief here. Our table group saying, "Yeah, shoot for the moon, whatnot." Which I love that. I love that. That just makes me so happy. You and I had a conversation with some folks in the community who said, "Yeah, I think we I mean a conserv representative a really conservative group saying, I think we can get behind this, but not suggesting

227that we shoot for the moon at all." I mean, they said something along the lines, am I wrong? If it's under $100 total, you could probably get a lot of people supportive. I mean, that's that's night and day from what Paul is talking about some of these other places, right? where they're asking for $1,500 toward a bond and you per per property owner and and another 700 over a year total a year. Yeah. Which and what were you saying? I was going to I was just going to circle back and say absolutely we can we can [cough] we can do what you're asking. Okay. I was listening. I was just being higher you go the more people will say no. I can guarantee that. Well and also the the higher you go the more you're

228in danger with the next time you need to. Yeah. We knew it. We're not I'd always love in 2020 to know whether if we just asked for the 4.66 and didn't ask for an eight, even in CO what that end result would have been. Yeah. Yeah. 4.66 doesn't get us very far. The people at your tables have a really good point. That barely gets us to maybe state averages if we're super super careful. If whatever percent override with the calculator, you're looking at just a tick less about across. So 7.7% override uh will get us, you know, 6.8% raise for all staff. It's pretty much what the calculator ended up showing. Last thing is I want to say is I I I don't know that 2020 is the best comparison for us. Honestly, having been

229a part of that committee, knowing everything that went on and knowing the people on that committee, we were not prepared for this. Did we have a consultant in 2020? I don't think we did. at the board level or the pack level? No, I know we didn't at the pack level. In 2020, it was a vote. It was calculations to the county and really I mean we were shut down. I mean, we didn't even start school until after it was a terrible basically as people weren't even holding school. Give us more money for school. People scratch their head. There were some that passed. No, wrong answer. Just say no. in 2020. I mean, there are places in Arizona, it routinely passes. Routinely pass. You put effort into it, it's going to pass. But our effort was

230let's stand on the street corner and talk to people. It there wasn't a real concerted effort in 201. There wasn't staffing corners at the morning. And really, I mean, when it comes down to it, if your if your property value is made up mostly of businesses, you know, if you have a big Amazon warehouse, they're going to bear most of that impact of that tax. And so, a voter who, you know, saying, "Yes, I'll take a 400 million, you know, bond, you know, but I know my impact, you know, Amazon's taken 70% of that hit." You know what? And that's just an example. That's not us. Yeah. Well, no. If I can add, let me caution you on that a little bit. So, Saddle Mountain has been a client for a long time and uh

231we've passed, you know, we've had some wins and losses, but ultimately we've been able to renew the override. We did a bond, I want to say four years ago for about $48 million. This year, we went out in 24 to go from 10 to 15. We lost, you know, it was 300 votes, but we lost. We went back out this year for aund $150 million bond and to again go from 10 to 15. And rarely do I say in 30, you know, my 30 plus years, money wasn't the issue. Money was not the issue in that campaign. We raised over $100,000 for a district with 10,000 voters, 15,000 voters, and we got beat by the same 300 votes. And APS, I mean, it used to be called Ruth Fischer, if you, you know, if you

232remember, APS and a couple of the other smaller uh plants pay about 90% of that tax. And part of that we told you know like you're getting a you're you know you they have the lowest tax rate if not the lowest in the state one of the lowest that p like Cape Creek might have a lower tax rate they can't pass bond and overrides they that community is very divided it's and it's really sort of two communities soon to be three and they like I don't care I don't want to pay the 10%. So, it's not always, you know, it's not always money. And I get and I would argue like you look at Wikcinberg, which is probably just as red as as Saddle Mountain, okay? [snorts] And I've done those elections 20 years. We've

233not lost, knock on wood, a bond or an override. And and they have very diverse communities, but they're, you know, especially Wikcinberg, we value we value our schools. We know what that means. So it it you know it's easy to say and and I I'm I agree with you. Like you look at the tax rate and you say, "Man, you're getting a deal." And I'm like, "But I'm still paying. I don't want to pay." So that's and we have you have that challenge in breast. I don't care how much it is. I don't want to pay. And you and we have a percentage of the electorate that is part of that. And you know that I don't need to you don't know. You don't need to pay me a dime or anyone a dime to

234tell you that. You know, you have a tough cell. Regardless of 5 percent, 10 or 8% or 15 or$25 million, you have a tough cell. Your community has not supported education over the last 10, 15 years. So again, just some thought. True. That's just a nice thought for us to have right now. Yeah. I our community doesn't support it now. All right. Any other discussion? Well, if if we can get a sample B scale between now and then, I'll get it to individually for sure. Thank you. That'd be great. All right. So, uh request for future items. We got the consulting. We got phonics. Well, phonics I don't think we need to put on the front burner. I don't know. What do you think? I would say if I could wait until at least February,

235that would be ideal. Okay. I'm thinking as well you can make that one. Go a little we get this going. I had to look over at Jane's paper to spell phonics. [laughter] Keep keep in mind that starting in about February, we're going to start to get into budget discussions as well. So, we're talking about that's a tough one. New policy, everything else normal plus budget. So, and and bonding over things. We're going to be looking at some longish meetings. The more that we put off for later. We had long meetings last year and I don't remember those issues [laughter] being just knew. And then what changed the time to so our next meeting will be at 4:30 4:30 study session and a 5:30 board study voting session. Okay. Okay. Any other items? We just need

236to be sure our January meeting has the organizational aspect to it where we elect a board president. Oh yes. So that's all that has to happen in Absolutely. How does that does someone get nominated for that? Yeah. Have to and then Yeah. So a nomination goes forward. If it's seconded then we go for a vote like any other uh first and second. There's room there's time for discussion. Gotcha. About that and it either passes or not and if it doesn't pass it be but we need to come out of that with a president. As long as there's not a lot of discussion. Our our board has as you know long followed a pattern of of you know um t typically rotating the the presidency among the people who seem to be pretty involved. Two years.

237You had a bad first. We had Yeah, we had an unusual situation there. So Stan stepped up and said, "Hey, I'll do this a couple of times." But yeah, and oftentimes, this doesn't have to be the case. I'm not, you know, trying to to uh mold your vote here, but oftentimes the person who's been serving as the vice president receives the nomination as the next president and then somebody who's had some experience on the board for at least a year and seems to often be in the majority of votes gets nominated as the vice president, etc. So, but that'll that'll be pretty easy. We've got pretty much everybody in this group fits that description. So, and sometimes people are, hey, I did it once, not interested in doing it again. We've certainly had people who

238have done it a couple of times. They've been on the board for more than one term and they've done it a couple of times. Steve Campbell did it, etc. So, if you've got individual questions about that as well, happy to answer what I've seen in the past and then you just need to determine how you want to go with that. I have enjoyed it, especially this year. Really, really have. the pre meetings agenda review. You like to enjoy it another year. [laughter] We can talk about that. Somebody is really nice. Picture. But you got to wear a tuxedo. [laughter] Andy's kind of raised the bar as far as the bar is high now. Hey, on that note, we uh merry Christmas everybody and um I'm sure we'll see you throughout December at the conference. Yeah.

239Yeah, the night is what I'm shooting for.