DVUSD Governing Board Meeting, March 2, 2021

001okay good good evening everyone it is 7 PM so I will call the um Regular meeting of the governing board to order at 7 o'clock roll call shows that um all members are present except for Mrs Julie Reed who had a family obligation this evening if you please stand and join me in the pledge of Alle I Pudge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and a moment of silence please thank you all Mrs Ordway yes I would move that we adopt the agenda as written do I have a second I second thank you Mrs paperman all in favor please say I I I I any NS hearing none the motion passes unanimously

002we have no public um comments this evening and we will move into our first item of um business which is discussion and that will be uh open meeting law training and discussion and tonight we have with us from Arizona School boards Association Mr Chris Thomas I'm an attorney and I'm going to let him uh tell him tell everyone a little bit about himself and then start us off with our um training and discussion well thank you president O'Brien and uh good to see everybody um I uh uh my name is Chris Thomas as as uh M uh Brian said um I Am The General Counsel and Associate executive director for uh the Arizona School boards Association I have uh um been with the Arizona School boards Association for about 21 and a half years I

003started as a lobbyist with them and then became their legal counsel and had that position for a little over 20 years so um been with the association for a long time uh my background is I'm a longtime Phoenician I uh uh grew up not too far away from Deer Valley School District um on the west side of uh Phoenix and um went off to Tucson for college and then off to Nebraska for law school and always knew I wanted to come back here in practice law and to do something in public policy and hopefully in education as well um so that uh it worked out uh terrific that um I got to work for Arizona School boards Association and do something that I'm very passionate about in in supporting public education because um without public

004education um you know I wouldn't be the first person in my family to go to college um or you know become an attorney so um I feel like uh anything any way we can give the opportunity for others um and and work to do that um that's uh uh what I'm all about and uh love to do that so um and I love to educate Schoolboard members because I have a lot of uh still to this day after all this time have a very soft spot for school board members I just I've known so many of them many have become friends uh I just have a lot of respect for what they do um the fact that they are you know giving of their time and are uh trying to make their communities better and

005trying to um strive for student achievement and their communities and uh support the hardworking staff that they have uh you know again I just think they're just the salt of the earth and among the best people that are out there so and uh getting a chance to educate them about things like open meeting law and um you know kind of the public governance side of things um legal issues um that's still a joy to me to do so before you start sorry real quick I forgot to talk a little bit about our format tonight we're going to um let Mr Thomas get through uh his presentation of this topic and then we will have questions and discussions so board members if you can write your questions down as you go um and then we'll hold

006them till the end and then we'll start over again with our board policies thank you Mr Thomas sure so with that um let's jump into it um and uh I um I do a lot of open me law trainings I think I've got three this week so uh it's uh not a a topic that I'm um you know not too I'm very familiar with so I am going to um share my screen I have to apologize hope I don't have any glitches I am a master I feel at this point after a year on Zoom um I'm less so on WebEx so hopefully it'll work with me as well so I will share my screen here and hopefully that'll work um where's my is there a way to share my screen I've got it pulled

007up on my screen you should be able to if you go into your settings at the bottom share your screen got it I found it and uh I'm looking to find it right now okay there we go everybody see that okay great it worked okay so um that's who you are and that's the date and that's who I am so let's get started so I always say to everybody when I uh and many of you I know have seen an open mean law presentation before but I always start by kind of give framing why we have this law in the first place because I think you understand why we have it you're going to understand a lot of the other stuff that follows and the biggest thing is that you know it's really intended as

008one of our two Sunshine laws to bring government out into the open so that the public can see the decisions and the discussions that are being done on their behalf um by their representatives and it's also there to protect individual board members so that nobody gets shut out of the process um it's an open process the discussions that happen amongst the board are in in public the decisions that are made are in public and uh everybody body gets to scrutinize that and and decide for themselves um how that board's doing and whether or not they agree with the decisions that are being made on their behalf um and so once you understand that it's there to protect the Public's interest um it's not the interest of the board members or the school district or School

009Employees although many many times they're um you know it's helpful some of the things that are in the law um for those individuals um really each um issue comes down to protecting the Public's interest and so um again framing the the law that way makes it easier to understand and that the public policy of the state is to favor open meetings and that's a really important one because it's actually baked into the law it's it's it's in the statute and if there's a question of application or interpretation of the law that's what the attorney general or a court will use to determine whether or not something should be in the open or how the open meeting law ought to be construed okay this is going to move right okay there we go so then when

010does an open the open reading law apply it applies when there's a quorum of board members of the public body and this includes uh what we call instrumentalities of the board and I'll get into what that is so um what's a quorum a quorum is basically a majority of your board as it's presently constituted in this state most boards are five member boards we do have some seven member boards we still have a few three- member boards so in your case you have five members and everybody is you don't have any vacancies so it's going to be three members will trigger uh the Quorum requirement of the open meeting law um instrumentalities as we said are subcommittees and we'll get to how u a subcommittee is created uh and and what the law is for

011for those as well but know that it's not just um when you count quorum to find out whether it's present at any one time it's not just three people in the same place at the same time obviously you all are not in the same place at the same time right now but this is an open meeting this is a law covered under the open meeting law why because we're meeting through technological means over a technological platform in which the public is allowed to watch therefore we have a quorum here and we're going to be discussing board business so this is a meeting that's covered under the open meeting wall um so couple of things just to keep in mind you can't vote by proxy so uh under the law if you were not able to

012make a meeting but it was an important vote you couldn't give your vote to another board member um a lot of corporate meetings and things like that that's not like that you can give your proxy to someone um and as we mentioned physical proximity is not required um you can trigger the open meeting law requirements even if you're not in the same place at the same time or even at the same you know you know uh where you're dealing with multiple conversations over a period of time and we'll get into that in terms of what a Serial conversation is and your policy references be that's uh your school board meetings are covered under there including the open un law there we go um so the second thing is you have a quorum and we know

013that uh it applies uh the open law applies when you have a quorum but it there's a second component that's also required and for for the open meeting law to apply if you had for instance a quorum of board members that were talking about something that had nothing to do with the school um if they were talking about you know uh families and and you know um personal issues that's still not under uh meeting under the open meeting law because you don't have the second component which is that you're discussing or or taking legal action or deliberating with respect to any legal action about something the board could do something about out that's within the jurisdiction of the school district um when you have that second component and you have a quorum you have a

014meeting under the open meeting law and that distinction is really important because what happens is we since we Define what a meeting is under the the law um the question is do you have a legal one or not because even if you haven't posted for a meeting or you know planned for a meeting if those two things are present the law defines you have a meeting um but because you haven't posted for an a meeting and the public hasn't been told this is happening you've got a violation of the open meeting law so a meeting could uh you know could also include um you know uh or at least the open meeting law could be triggered by a one one a single member of the public body proposing legal action to a quum of board

015members um this particularly comes up with an email so um so the say the superintendent sent uh you know a Friday update and a board member in reacting to that replied to the entire board saying um I think we ought to do something about this issue and um they essentially propose action by the board to a quum of board members now the rest of the board members don't have to respond to that they can understand that that's a violation of the open meeting law but it would be a violation for that individual board member that proposed legal action to a form of board members even if nobody responded um but email is really important because if you have an exchange of communication amongst a quarum of board members um which involves any discussion or deliberation

016uh about something that could come before the board then you've got a violation of the open meeting law so you want to really want to make sure that there's not Communication in a collective sense in any fashion over uh email and that new thing is I realize I'm dating Myself by the way when I when I say that um the big Focus now is text messaging if you've got a group chat with the board don't have a group chat with the board that's going to be a problem uh right away um first of all you know that it is a public record somebody's going to have to maintain that record and and produce that record if it's it's requested but also you know you've got a real easy open meeting law violation there we go

017so we talked about a series of uh communic uh discussions can lead uh that lead to an agreement can violate the open meeting law and this is our serial conversations uh uh problem where um you know you've got one board member that talks to a second board member and then you go the second board member then goes and talks to the third board member about the same issue um and that's what we call a walking Quorum and if there's deliberation there about that issue you've got a violation of the the open meeting law and so um what I tell people uh you know in interpreting the open meeting law it doesn't mean that board members can't talk to one another uh you just need to know if you have a conversation with one board member

018in a five- member board um you can't have a similar conversation with a second board member uh because that will create a v mean law violation and it also means that you should involve your superintendent um and there's good reasons to involve your superintendant anyway when when you're King with board business because they're part of the team um but the superintendent um can really serve as an information Hub so if you have information that you'd like to get out to the rest of the board um or the superintendent has information to they want the the board to get um you know that superintendent can make sure that the board gets that information um and then does it in the right way that we don't have an open me law violation sorry there's a delay in

019my thing there we go um and so that's the other thing is so if governing board uh members cannot direct staff uh to communicate with other board members if that commun you know uh if that communication wouldn't otherwise be allowed um you can have a problem where you know one board member goes to uh super the superintendent and says you know I I I really want to offer this amendment to this because I think it's a good consensus position but I don't want to offer it unless the other board members are invol on board so when you talk to the other board members could you see if they are and if they did that then it's a violation for those board members that are involved in that conversation it's also a violation uh for the

020uh staff member that's involved the superintendent that's involved in that so it's one thing to to share information and I certainly don't want to say that um you know it's not a great practice for superintendents to meet with with board members in ones or twos um but you want to make sure that you don't um relay the substance of those those conversations to other board members in a fashion that would would create a uh a collective conversation so another thing that uh and I don't think we have um uh a lot of new board members here so this should be familiar to you but it doesn't matter what you call your meetings with if you have a retreat or a work study or a regular meeting or a special meeting emergency meeting the open meeting

021law applies to all of them equally and so this is really when it comes to Retreats or work studies where you know you're not going to make any decisions the de you know the agenda is a little looser um you know you may have things that that come up that relate to the agendas at hand um but you need to make sure that you that that they do directly relate to the things on the agenda because if it does they don't um we got an open me law violation so just know the rules are the same no matter what you call your meeting it also applies to subcommittees and so I do want to mention what A subcommittee is for the purposes of the the open meeting law the subcommittee uh subcommittee for the purpose

022of open meeting law is one where the board has created the uh subcommittee by motion of the board um or by directing um the the you know or the presiding officer has created uh with authority from the board a subcommittee um or by policy if it's in policy um many boards um it's less common now but many boards used to have a sort of standing um uh you know uh thing on there uh where they they just they they had some standing committees then those standing committees in policy were also under the covered under the open meeting wall so um okay uh I'm collecting a lot of M you know what I've got I've got a fan on behind me and I bet you it's making some noise so there we go better I hope

023hope that's better um okay so uh just remember that it's anything that could come before the agenda uh and anything that could come before the board and then just watch appearances when I say watch the parking lot you want to make sure that um you know you even though you're not violating the open meeting law if you're having a personal conversation amongst the you know three board members if it's in a public place uh people will assume that you're violating the open meeting law and it's just better to just avoid those kinds of things uh those kind of appearances when you can um so um that's what we suggest to everybody and especially if you're going to all be going to District events if you're going to District events um you want to uh you

024know that's why many districts do what they call soft postings a list of events in which a quorum of board members B may be attending but no board business will be happening so just some logistical concerns to be concerned about with the open meeting law that you have to comply with um the the following you know your location of your meetings the notice of when your meetings are going to take place the agenda requirements and the minutes and I'll take one each one of these individually um your location should be at um any public facility in the district and these days of course we're we're doing a lot of meetings online um you know access is really defined in a different way um through you know doing live streaming on over a different platform or

025making sure that everybody understands how to use the technology or providing assistance to everybody to to use th that technology um you can have special meetings that are not in District uh location but you should um you should not take any legal action if you're not in a public facility in the district um there is uh now you can have a retreat where you have a discussion about things and and maybe some strategic planning and things like that but ultimately those those plans ought to be adopted at your next meeting in the district office uh at the district uh at the board meeting your notice is um where you're going uh there's two parts of your notice the first one is where you you're required under uh on your website to post where you will

026be posting your meetings when you're going to have a meeting and um it'll say we're going to post here on the website and we're also going to post it in some physical location in the district and here's where it is and then the other note part of notice of course is actually doing that when you're going to have a meeting which has to be posted at least 24 hours in advance um is it can everybody still hear me or am I wrestling I I will lose my headphones if that's a problem okay better okay um and then uh uh so the 24 hours in advance is important because again you're putting the public on notice hey we're going to have a meeting here's where it's going to be you know uh if you want to

027attend you can attend um and then you have to have written uh notice delivered to board members at least 24 hours in advance they law encourages you to give notice uh additionally um that's reasonable and practicable that that provides additional notice we just urge everybody not to make that part of their official notice because in a especially in a district the size of Deer Valley with how many schools you have probably 50 something like that um something like that 59 39 39 okay well you're get you're going to get there there's no question I've seen your growth uh you know projections but um 39 districts imagine if you said our official notice is going to be posting um at every School site um you know our agenda and our notice and you you know you

028you you have defective notice almost every time it's really really tough so do that if you want but don't make it part of your official notice um the agenda is is posted uh with the notice and that's where you talk about you know you list what you're going to talk about at the meeting what you're going to decide at that meeting and you have to be a uh specific and and you have to um describe that information in a way that a person off the street can understand um what the issue is going to be because you are you know limited to those items that are on the agenda and those that are directly related to those agenda items um so it's really important to get that that list right and get it uh uh

029fairly uh described and it's always good to have at least a second pair of eyes on that to make sure that you satisfied the legal requirements there and we'll talk about exec sessions when we get there uh you also have to have minutes and um most people kind of glossed over this everybody assume you have to have written minutes um and most districts do have written minutes it's a good practice but A- recording of your sessions can also serve as minutes and this was became a very helpful thing about this time last year when people realized that you know um it was uh we're doing uh you know virtual meetings and um it was not as easy to produce the minutes because staff was out of the office and things like that so you can

030record your meetings and have that suffice as your minutes um either permanently or temporarily while written minutes are being created and ultimately adopted uh but either way you've got to have one of the two either written for uh minutes U including in a draft form or recording of the minutes within three um uh working days of the meeting um these are the basic requirements of your minutes um you know it's basically the date time and place who was there who was not there a general description of everything that was considered and then a very accurate uh description of every motion that is made including who made it um what you know uh what was discussed about that and then um you know who second it and what the vote was and so also include the

031names of persons who make statements or present materials to the board there's no requirement for you to approve the minutes um but most districts do it's a good practice because um you know that's the best way to make sure that um it's accurate uh again I mentioned that they have to be available public inspection within three working days you have to keep a recording of your minutes um so most districts do a recording and then they do a draft written minutes and then the board adopts the written minutes and then you have to hold on to that recording for six months under the excuse me the retention requirements of the public records law um but your official minutes at that point once the board has adopted it are those written minutes um and we'll talk

032EXA minutes EXA session minutes in a minute so uh we're down to a fourth Rule and they go a little faster from here um you know the first one is just basically procedure um that there is you know a formal uh uh call uh calling the meeting to order um that you follow all your policies you cover all the items on the agenda and and you can change the order uh unless it's time specific so one of the things that we encourage folks to do is utilize that adoption of agenda um uh that most districts have most people kind of gloss over it but if you're going to change the order of things it's a great time to make a motion to say I move that we adopt the agenda with the following changes and

033say I would like to see item six be number item two um because lots of people have showed up for this discussion um or that uh we we've got word that the administration's not ready to move forward with item 8 so we want to table that item and you can do it on one motion um if you know what um you know if you've done your planning and you you've talked to the administration for updates and things like that um you obviously have to cover only those items on the agenda um and then anybody who speaks uh to the board uh whether it's staff or uh members of the public that they identify themselves and and spell their name if it's uh some unusual spelling um to make sure that they're accurately reflected in the

034minutes and then you formally adjourn your meeting so you sort of have a beginning and middle and an end um and then our fifth rule is what citizens rights uh are under the open meeting law and even though this is a public interest law um the the law does not require public participation under the open meeting law um most districts do allow public participation but it's under District policy which allows you some flexibility about how you shape that um and what that looks like so under the open meeting law the citizens do have a right to attend and to listen they have the right to record you uh and they have the right to expect you to follow your own rules um and they do have the right to address the public body if your

035policy allows for it but otherwise there's no right to participate and so also at this time of virtual meetings I think also embedded in there is the right of realtime access so initially when a lot of folks sort of grappling with the technology um many were considering recording their meetings and putting them up on YouTube and thinking that that would be suffice for Public Access but U I actually think that the open meeting log requires real time uh you know access for the public not to just see some recording of something that already happened um you can conduct an open call the public um but you need to understand if you have an open call the public which includes not only issues that are on the agenda but Al also issues that are within the

036jurisdiction of the district uh but may not be on the agenda that if it m matter is not on the agenda that you cannot take legal action or discuss the issue uh with the member of the public and that is kind of um a tough thing to do as as many of you have found out um you can always uh limit comments to items appearing on the agenda that's what we call limited call the public um and there are few districts still out there that do that um if somebody uh speaks into call the public and it does a uh and the item is on the agenda the board and the administration is allowed to engage with that individual legally you may decide for yourself uh that that's not a good idea just for the

037order of your meetings but legally you can but where we have the issue is when somebody raises an issue that's not on that night's agenda um where you basically have to say you know thank you for your you know you know uh for coming and we appreciate it and and unless they're you know uh you can have them you know uh get the have the staff review the issue uh or get with them to give them in more information or you can say you know this is a great issue we'd love to have put this on a future agenda for discussion um and then there's the provision that you can respond to criticism and generally we're talking about personal criticism um that's been made by those that the uh have addressed the board and you

038have to do that at the end of the call to public so here's here's an example of what I I suggest that people how to use this which is that somebody you know levels personal criticism against you um questions your motives questions your you know sincerity on an issue or something like that um questions the the process and makes some maybe factual mistakes along the way um at the end of the call the public um you can ask the chair can I please respond to you know this gentleman that made this comment because because I want to correct the record in the sense that um no my you know my my uh daughter does not go to that school um you got some bad information um or you know no uh this is not the

039first time we've dealt with this issue this is the fourth time we've dealing with this issue um those are the kind of things that you'd want to correct the record on and not let stand by those that that make comments um that are just you know not grounded in fact now I would not want to go into um utilizing this to um you know if people just say just kind of generally you know critical comments you know that's their that's their ENT they're entitled to do that it's really where they step over the line or they create a false impression that you want to correct um the board can enforce and and and adopt a reasonable time place of Mana restrictions uh and regulations and this is basically you know everybody gets two minutes so

040that we can get as many comments as possible or or that the full comment period will be an hour um or that we're not going to allow profanity um or any anything that's obscene or you know abusive um that's those are all fair um you know kinds of uh regulations um that have been not seen as an infringement on the First Amendment because that's one of the things you need to be understand is when you do create uh this called the public you you created a First Amendment Zone um you know a public forum for First Amendment analysis and so you can't block the comment because you don't like it um uh its Viewpoint so um you know this it just just keep in mind that you know um this is something that you want

041to be aware of because um we've had districts that have said or boards that have not wanted to hear negative comments about certain things um but they would entertain comments that were positive in those areas and th that likely would be seen as sort of a a a Content or Viewpoint restriction because if you allow content that's positive in one area but not negative um that's a Viewpoint uh kind of uh distinction um the next one is uh there's an exception to the open meeting law of requiring that everything that's on the you know that in order to be um suggested or discussed um has to be on the agenda and that's the superintendent or board member report um it's an intended to be a summary of current events related to um things that generally

042do not want gender discussion amongst the full board or amongst you know um the you know the staff or things like that uh for the superintendent it's it's sort of uh staff recognitions student recognitions um kind of an update about things that are you don't think the board's going to have a lot of questions about um you know especially recognitions if you have you know sports teams that that are successful or you've got some programs that you want to highlight um staff recognitions those kinds of things uh for board members um it may be um things that you did in um you know as a board member into between meetings that you want the rest of the board to know about um or information about a topic um and and letting them know that you

043learn something about something and they can get more information if they want to hear it but what's important is that the board not discuss those issues or you know um even if it's clarifying information um the it's a one-way communication if it Peaks an interest and you think it's something that you would like to discuss ask for it to be put on a future agenda and and and if you and particular superintendent I encourage you that if you know what you're going to talk about in this area you know and advance in in a timely way before the meeting uh agenda goes out you can always bullet um them under your uh report and that gives you the flexibility to answer questions and you know for the board to discuss them if they want to

044um so you just need to make sure that you use it for the right things um you know um and that you know there's no discussion and that uh you know only a board member or superintendent can do this and and there's essentially no handoffs you know the superintendent can't say um as part of my report I'm bringing up you know um principal Jones um to give a report from his school um you know that's something that ought to be on the agenda because you know those that are from that school may want to attend that meeting or hear that meeting um and it's really only the superintendent that has the authority to give that kind of report so if you're dealing with staff reports you know um this deals with just you know kind

045of what they ought to look like um and know that these kind of reports still um are not um these still need to be on the agenda in order to uh to be able to discuss them your executive sessions we'll get into that now um so uh the definition of an executive session is it's a gathering of quum of members for which the public body um of a public body for which the public has been excluded and it can occur if only one uh if it it meets only one or more of the nine authorized reasons in law and that all procedures are met and we'll go into the procedures first um procedurally um you have to uh call the meeting in order before making a motion to go in executive session and the notice

046that the board may go into an executive session uh for that legal basis has to be on that night's agenda if it's not on that night agenda you can't do it and that that statutory notice and I know you have a great you know board um secretary so you know she knows this really well it's got to be you know down to the letter it's you know if you're talking about Personnel it's uh you know 38-4 3103 A1 and if it's legal advice it's O you know 03- a A3 um so they've got to be that accurate and then they also have to include a description that um you know lets everybody know what it is but doesn't defeat the purpose and then there's a vote to go into executive session and then the majority

047um votes to go in executive session um during the executive session only those people who have a reason to be in the executive session ought to be there um typically this is a superintendent and board members um and it may be one or two other people that have a function in that particular executive session what's really critical is that all participants are reminded that there the discussions are confidential and um you can't take a straw poll or preliminary vote in executive session prior to deciding the matter in Open Session um after the executive session of course the final vote or decisions in Open Session there are three exceptions to this um one is that you can instruct a third party with regard to litigation or settlement discussions uh negotiations with the employee organizations or negotiations

048for the purchase sale or lease of real property and then you conclude with the remainder of your uh meeting after the executive session concludes and by the way the executive session concludes when you motion to go in reconvene open session so there should be no motions in executive session unless you're doing student discipline that's the only time other time you can do that so our nine authorized reasons for an executive session are to talk about certain employee matters to get legal advice uh to discuss records that are exempt from public inspection um are they're basically are you know they're not public record or they have to be confidential um if you're involved in any contract negotiations or litigation um or settlement um if you're if you're going to have a uh if you're involved in

049negotiations with your employee groups and things like that um you can you can do it for that if you're involved in any International Interstate negotiations uh purchase sale or lease of real property and then the two new ones that were added last year um school safety operations U or security plans or systems and I can I'll mention something about those excuse me so a couple things about some of these that you that are most likely to have the first one by far is the more the most common one is when you have an employee um you know authorization and keep in mind it's to to talk about an identified employee not a position so in your 39 schools if you were to you know you be in a unfortunate position of having to cut costs

050and you had to pass a um a new um position or a requirement that said that you know in elementary schools of less than this number of students we're no longer no longer going to have assistant principles okay that wouldn't be an employee matters exception under the open meeting law because you're you're talking about a position you're you're reclassifying um a a you know your organizational chart in other words um that's an open session discussion but if you had in mind a particular assistant principal who had you know uh some disciplinary problems then you could do that and um if that person was going to be discussed in executive session they're entitled to receive written notice that they're going to be discuss an executive session at least 24 hours in advance and then they can

051say uh no we want this discussion in public that's their right um and then they otherwise don't have a right to attend the meeting um though you might allow them to attend the meeting uh but I would only do so after you're getting legal advice from your attorney and then the employee otherwise has a right to review the minutes of the executive session for which they were discussed um if you're going to do a superintendent evaluation which are often done in the executive session make sure you're doing it um based on the personal performance of that uh uh superintendent and not having a long conversation about District goals or programs um which should be happening in an open session if you're going to get have a legal advice um uh executive session make sure your

052attorney is there or on the phone and make sure that the conversation is is is Flowing directly to the attorney asking them questions allowing them to give you your legal advice and then once that attorney is done done unless you've got another legal basis for having that executive session the executive session needs to end um if you do uh any kind of meet and confer process even an in formal one collective bargaining where you're going to give some um marching orders to the person um engaging on your behalf make sure that you're you know kind of limiting it to um just those salary infringe benefit issues and you're not having some broad discussion about the budget um which really needs to take place in an open session uh you have to have minutes in executive

053session just like the regular ones date time and lo location uh uh who was there who was not there and then a general description of all things that were considered uh including an accurate description of any instruction given and then finally your make sure that your executive session minutes are kept confidential uh only public body members um the employee that's subject of the discussion or um if there's some sort of law enforcement action um either by the auditor general or the Attorney General um is that allowed uh are those access to that those uh units allowed so the ninth Rule and you notice in the nine authorized reasons one of the ones that you deal with some from time to time was not in there and that's um you know dealing with student disciplinary matters

054uh including student promotion and retention so um uh that's because it's not under the open meeting law it's under title 15 but um it's very much like the open meeting law there's an executive session but just understand that the rules are different I mean it really is about um parent parental rights and student rights and protecting the privacy of the student and everything is done for the privacy of the student so if it's a pro promotion or retention issue um the hearing and the decisions in executive session unless the parent requests a public meeting meeting unless you're going to have a third party hearing and then then get the recommendation but even if it's done that way um the teacher has to be informed and have a they have a right to attend the executive

055session if in basically their decision is being challenged um but if it's a uh a disciplinary matter um serious uh you know disciplinary matter expulsion perhaps um you know and most of those are are being done by hearing officers these days um you know that recommendation does come to you and it goes in the executive session unless the uh the parent wants in an open session but unlike you know in the employee context if the parent um wants it um wants to be there in executive session they have a right to attend um and they need to be told when it's going to be and and give them I'd work with them to make sure that it can be done at a time when they can attend if possible um and they have the right

056to record the proceedings and review the minutes and since you are high you have high schools if the student is reached uh age 18 it's their right to decide that um you can have emergency meetings and we did have a few at this time last year um where you don't meet the regular notice requirements um you just need to make sure it's it's a real emergency um and you couldn't uh and basically say why you couldn't um uh make the regular notice requirements and put that in the um in your minutes and on the agenda and then um you know uh post the the the agenda or the the notice as soon as you can so what happens if the open meeting law is violated maybe you um you had an improper notice or or

057an agenda item wasn't sufficiently um described or you took legal action on something that you didn't properly notice well what happens is if somebody calls you on that um you uh it's as though that decision didn't have any legal effect okay um but if you find out hey we made a mistake here we didn't properly describe it on the agenda um the clock is ticking we can ratify that decision put it on a subsequent not uh agenda and say it was based on a prior action because we had been put on notice that U the open meeting law may have inadvertently um been um violated and then essentially you can ratify that decision um as long as you make sure that you um post the details in your minutes and say it's based on a

058prior action um so if you get to that point and you're trying to do that work with your attorney because it's very kind of prescriptive and you want to make sure that you do that right uh penalties for open meeting law violation can be substantial I think the the biggest uh penalty for open imun law violation I think you know is really just the the the scrutiny that goes on that board member and on that district and makes it difficult for you to accomplish what you're there for and what you hope to why you ran in the first place which is to support uh students and and to do good things for for your District um just because of the um I think the negative publicity that can happen but you should know that what

059you know kind of individual requirements are on um uh or liability that you may have uh it's a $500 fine per violation um for a knowing um violation um or agreeing to Aid or attempting to Aid another person in open law violation and this comes out of your own pocket there's no insurance that covers you and then a second offense is a $2,500 V for violation um there's a uh thing that's also put into the law in the last few years that says that you know if you're the one person on the board that raised an issue and said you know I think we're violating the open meeting law and you put it on the record and it turns out you were right um You will be treated with leniency um under the law um

060uh so you know if you believe the op me law is being violated it's always good to verbally say so or at least ask for a clarifying um you know opinion maybe of your attorney or of um uh you know ask for the superintendent to to weigh in um and then ask ask that it be put in the minutes and and your last resort of course is to to leave the meeting so you can lose your office um for violations of the open Med law we had board members um on the west side of Phoenix about 20 some years ago that um did leave um uh were removed from office because of violations of the open meeting law and uh the negative publicity certainly resounded around the state um so it's not a good thing

061to have happen so um make sure you're asking lots of questions um you know we uh at asba do an open law training pretty much every conference that we do just because it's so complicated and folks have so many questions about it and it's kind of the nuts and bolts of of of what you do so with that um I will take a break and take some some questions on what we've covered I'm not seeing any comments in the chat um Mrs I know Mrs paper and you're our newest board member and so I don't know if you have any questions at this point or I do have questions so do you want them to be put in the chat actually no we if you we just wanted to know if you have questions for

062you to just say I have questions you have questions I will let you go okay thank you an uh yes I have a question so District event so how many board members can attend a district event does it have to be Two Three or it doesn't matter as long you're not discussing anything that relates uh to any future topics on the agenda yeah great question um it can be as many as you want and as long as nobody uh you know engages any Collective discussion about board business you haven't violated the second part of the open meeting law but um because of appearances a lot of districts will post all their sort of activities on uh you know what we call a soft posting saying that you know uh a majority of board members May

063attend these things but no board business will be discussed and it's just a way of sort of letting the public know that um you know a majority of the board May attend but it's not a meeting um and then you just need to make sure that you don't you know congregate and talk about board business um because there you will be watched at some of those things and you just want to avoid it but certainly I don't want to dissuade um a majority of the board from attending any school function um just need to know what the rules are okay so another question uh I'm a new board member so yeah I would like to know if I want to attend let's say like the District parent parent organization or teacher Association or any other

064committee uh would I be able uh to be allowed to attend this committee or there's rules for that for board members well I mean there there's no it's not an open meeting law concern okay um it may be another concern in the sense that um and you'll learn this if you haven't learned it already it's it's one of the the first lessons you learn as a board member is that you realize that people will assume you speak for the district or the board even if you don't speak for the district and the board and you tell them so and so the in and that doesn't mean you can't engage in those kind of situations you just need to understand that that's how people are going to view you and and you need to be you

065know sort of careful that way in addition to that you may have your own um District policies or board protocols um that sort of either assign people to do that or um some sort of expectations those are the kind of things I think it's are best that the board have a conversation about and um just come to an understanding about and um so that everybody is on the same page thank you for the information that's all my questions thank you and thank you Chris you're welcome thank you Mrs paperman um so I think having not heard from or seen any other questions in the chat oh sorry Mrs Fisher does I apologize okay I just actually um thank you for sharing open meeting information with us Chris I really appreciate it um just a few

066things mostly um for Miss paperman's benefit or for the Public's benefit who's watching because um open meeting is well that District where those members lost their seats is a district I was very familiar with and very much uh remember that story um so simple actions can cause a violation whether you realize it or not and which is what happened in their case um kind of um so the superintendent um we do have to be cautious with the superintendent and three board members as well it is um you know in potential for daisy chain or um daisy chain meetings or like pulling of the board things of that nature which I you hit on but that does not prevent two board members from speaking with each other or um or even with the superintendent um for

067the purpose of understanding um so if you could just kind of you know correct me if I'm wrong in that statement and then um just a note um we do do soft posts when um we have events that there's going to be more than one board member you know for example we just had our golf event I'm sure there was a soft post for it um that type of stuff is always done um so for Miss paperman if you can kind of explain to her that it's well and I maybe maybe she does have an understanding but I want her to know that we do do soft posts um for those type of events um and and you don't have to avoid the other board members like they have the plague or something you just

068don't discuss business with them at those events so if you could kind of touch on that you don't have to avoid the other board members at a conference um you just don't discuss District business with them um and it is soft posted then um I just want to again reiterate that it is absolutely important that you work with at least one other board member or different board members uh you know Miss O'Brien is has history of being a real estate agent if I want to ask a real estate question I may say hey uh I don't know this topic can you um can I discuss this with you have you discussed it with other board members um and and I know she would say she has or has not and we would move forward um

069same thing with others I just want to make it clear to miss paperman that um it's okay to select a board member and then say um I need to talk to someone about this issue have you spoke to anyone can you be my one one um so if you could touch on that a little bit Chris I would appreciate it sure yeah it's not a violation of the open meeting law to talk to another board member on a five member board um you don't have a quorum you can talk about board business um you know you say you said you know you called another board member and say you know did you see this item on the agenda do you understand it um you know um that's totally fine you just need to understand both

070of you um that you can't have another conversation with a third board member about that um and so um that that that's all the open meeting law is concerned about um on the issue of you know events and things like that you know that's um that's going to happen and that's um you know it's encouraged that board members uh you know attend District events and show support for the district and I think that's important and we don't want to disuade people to do it and and really uh the open meeting law is only concerned about whether or not you talk about board business at those things um so just make sure you don't and um uh you're you're good thank you so much Mrs Fischer and Mr Thomas and I believe we're ready to move

071on to our next agenda item which is so I have a question yes Mrs zway um I would like uh Dr Finch uh to explain what our Friday update is so uh Chris you could give us some hints about um if there's any changes that we need and the other thing I just wanted to make a statement about uh going to events because I love going to events and sometimes we have three or five people and sometimes I don't even know how many people are there with the posting I just want want to say that even if there are five of us there and it's illegal that as long as we're not talking about business that that that's okay the Optics are terrible and if it if it comes around a time when there's some

072kind of a you know some kind of a vote um I I personally will say hello stick with one and and that's it I I just for me being on the for a few years um the uh the Optics of having three people at an event such as a sporting event or something like that just it's it's not a good look so I was just going to throw that out but if uh Dr Finch could go over the Friday update that would be awesome all right uh the Friday update um I've done Friday updates for years I superintendent um this one we have two board meetings um in Dear Valley a month and so we give two Friday updates the structure of them are is really a conduit piece for my executive cabinet to get

073information to the board what uh what kind of contents would be in there would be if a board member ask a question um I heard that there was a third grader that did this um and if I need to respond to that um what I will do tell the board member I'll put that in the Friday update so all the board members get the same information so that's probably principle number one the second part of it is um that all my cabinet gives information to the board um kind of like a as the word says update in their divisions so um if it's Mr mcino and Miss mock they deal with the finances and so it might be a finance update from the state uh again more information and maybe our role in it or

074deer Valley's uh place in that um discussion again um pretty much by their subject because they're all subject experts and so um that's the second part of it and then probably the third part of it is from my perspective I will talk about um where we're going um things that um that I've learned maybe I was at the legislature uh or listen to um a superintendent meeting and I learned information that said uh we need to move this direction to complete this task or this uh budget crunch is coming and so I will put updates legislative updates um staff recognition um things that actually I probably do a lot in my regular superintendent update um at a board meeting so it's more it's always informational uh um information for for board members to keep uh

075um up to date but again probably the most important function it does is make sure that all board members get the same information at the same time yes sorry do you have want me to respond to that can can I just uh you you left a part out which would be some of what is discussed in that board update is not for um public consumption for uh various reasons so if we could go over that because I just want to make sure there has been uh talk or comments about how uh that the Friday update is possibly breaking open meeting law and I just want to make sure that we are within the boundaries that we belong okay so um you know one- way communication from the superintendent about all the things that were mentioned

076is not a violation of the open meeting law I mean it's a great management practice just keeping everybody on the same page U so that's not an issue that I see um any any part of that um you know I assume this is going out over email so you know um just be aware of that's how it it goes out is that you know you know that there's a rest you know everybody understands what the rules are on something like that you know that's not forwarded there's no reply all there's no um reaction because it's one thing to say you know aort member asked me this question we researched it here's the answer uh we want you all to know what the answer is it's not an invitation to debate that or to ask other

077sort of follow-up questions by other board members um during that kind of thing now what you could say is that that's really interesting can we get that on a future agenda because I have some follow-up questions about that totally fine U but you wouldn't want to have that engage in that discussions about that and the other thing I would say is that um board members often get in these kind of uh updates you know information that is not intended to be for Publican uh consumption or or confidential now It ultimately may be public record but what I would suggest to any board member getting it that is not for you to decide or uh or anyone to decide that other than if there was a public records request and then it would have to go

078through some analysis because even things that on the base of them public records um they may not um be have to be disclosed certain information if it had you know student names or it had some private information about a some Personnel or um some proprietary information there's a number of categories um that would um warrant that it' be kept um from disclosure and it requires an legal analysis so just because it came over a public forum and it went to the board board um don't assume that it's a public record um you'd want to make sure that um and honor whatever confidentiality that you collectively as a board have agreed on okay and I just wanted to clarify and so when we get that um board update um we should not be forwarding that right

079if that is what the well again you shouldn't forward it to the rest of the board because that's an open meaning law issue you shouldn't forward it if it's been um you know uh deem to be confidential and that's your practice and understanding um you know if everybody has has already agreed to that in terms of your board protocols okay I appreciate that I just wanted to um have it cleared up again because I know that every few years we do go over um oh maybe it's when we get new superintendence we go oh not that you're new we go over this just to clarify it and I like that we have done this in a public setting um uh where I know there's thousands of people watching the live stream you're muted you're muted

080Mrs orway sorry NOP you're still muted try again cannot be muted now I am there you go all right goodness I just wanted to thank you for clarifying that that topic comes up every few years for those that lip read I'm repeating myself um possibly when we have new superintendents and or not you're not new anymore new board members um but it's good that it was in this very well watched public uh live stream so our um our constituents and members of the district can understand how that works thank you very much Mrs fiser um Chris I do have a followup just um on that and I don't I don't know that I've ever heard anybody say it's an open meeting violation for us to get the Friday update I think the concern I've always

081heard and and perhaps you can give some clarifying on this whether that is a meeting concern or not is often times we will be in a board meeting and something will come up and it's they say you know you a question that of the public has asked for or the question that a board member has asked regarding agenda items things of that nature and they are put into the Friday update um is that concerning when we bring it when it crosses over as a portion of our agendized board meeting and then the response is not brought back to a meeting but is rather put into a Friday update I think that's the concern I've heard more than anything um my you know as far as the Friday update I I it is important that we

082don't forward it but it is a public document and we need to be sure that the information and there is accurate um and so that is also a concern of mine but that's a topic that's not agendized um so if you could just answer whether the crossover from a board meeting to the Friday update has any bearing on um being an issue I I don't see it as an open meeting law issue I do think that you know you raised an interesting issue where um you know maybe an issue has come up in disc board discussion or maybe somebody member of the public raised an issue that you weren't able to engage on it um but the you know the Administration has done some further uh research and come come into uh and is informing

083the board about an issue that they were sort of um weren't ready for or whatever or didn't have all the information at the time um you know it's going to be a case- by case analysis depends on you know whether or not you know any of that information is is sensitive information or confidential information um and but I think you know you want to consider it sounds like there there's a lot in this Friday update some of which is just kind of basic and some is some of which is more sensitive particularly when you're dealing with staff or students for sure um and you might want to consider you know part of it is you know making clear that this part of the of the you know the update is confidential and this part is

084not and um just making it clear that uh you know not the whole thing is confidential but um when you deal with something sensitive that um that part is so but I don't see an open meaning law problem in just answering those kind of questions one way great thank you Mr Thomas and so I think um we are ready to move on to our the five DB USD board policies that we want wanted to discuss this evening okay all right so I pulled the policies that um you had given me that you wanted to talk about and uh hopefully um you know I'll be able to answer any questions you may have but I assume that you want to to talk about them also amongst yourselves and with the administration so um happy to bring

085those up for you and just so you know um I asked our policy staff to sort of pull these up for me they always um they're used to doing policy reviews so they generated for me something that um was slightly different which is only that um whenever we do a policy review um we uh we we pull the policies and we show what's different between what the asba model is and what the district policy is it doesn't mean one is you know your policy is wrong in any way it just means it it differs in some fashion from the model so that's what they gave me um so just keep take that with a green of salt because there's just a couple areas where there's different colors and I'll explain what those are so thank

086you yes so BBA is just your you know uh spelling out what the board uh powers and pol and responsibilities are they track very much um the the 15341 under Arizona revised statutes um this is just sort of a preamble to that giving you the authority um that basically you are under the authority um uh by Statute to create all you know policies and regulations that you need um and cover all the laws of the state um and it also spells out under uh BBA um uh that you know here what are your basic functions and they essentially say that you have um that boards are unique in the sense that you know we talk about you know the three branches of the federal government you know being you know uh the legislative the judicial

087and the executive one in a sense um you know a a school board can exercise all three of those functions um but what they do is typically um you know their legislative function is the policy-making function but they'll work with the administration to make sure that you know they're they they are good practices that there're something that are is attainable and that they cover the law um and you know part of what we do at asba and I know you're a policy Services subscriber is give you those changes in the law when they happen your executive function um is essentially um concerned with making sure that you know the operation follows the board policy so this is sort of your U your oversite function um and making sure and delegating um this power primarily um

088to the board uh to s to the superintendent um and his or her staff in carrying out these policies and then the appraisal function of course is not only your oversight function but um you know things like uh you know uh Mak sure the evaluation of your educational program is consistent with the policies and with what you know your goals and objectives are um so here's a couple things I think that uh the blue is our language um uh that you do not have and again it doesn't mean that yours is wrong but you've made a choice not to to have them in there um and so that's uh you know um in there as well so these are your your BBA board uh powers and responsibilities and these are your followed uh you know

089your follow all the laws you have a general knowledge of all the educational aims and objectives um and this is for an individual board member um that you'll work with other board members um without neglecting proper share of work or trying to dominate the board uh or to act in board members and partially for the good of the district to accept the will of the majority of the board and give support to the resulting uh policy again the blue is the asba language um and then uh to accept the uh responsibility for the confidentiality uh for appropriate matters uh to represent the board in the district um that promotes the the interest and support of the district uh and the board and to refer complaints to the proper authorities and refrain from Individual Council and

090action and there's a whole other uh that's a whole other training to talk about what your complaint procedures are and how best to channel those to the um the area you know the level that they can best re be resolved um and then to perform other duties that you may rise this is uh your uh the bsection policy and by the way okay I just realized I made a mistake the blue the blue is your language that you've added to the policy you've added those um in there okay um and here's your BCA the board ethics it's very close to what uh the asba model is you've just exchanged one word for another um and these are the things that we believe board members um and you you have uh are believe that board members

091ought to do by your adoption of the uh this policy um that you'll the board members will strive to improve public education if that's what they're there for and uh I think this is the most important policy frankly in your entire manual um that you'll attend all board meetings as far as possible and become informed about uh issues considered at those board meetings so you show up the meetings and you're ready to participate because you've you know learned about those issues as best you can you recognize that decisions can only be made after discussion so that you know you're not bound by a particular position you're ready to hear um new information ready to engage in discussion with the rest of your board and um uh then only then you make a decision um that

092you have uh you know you exercise your independent judgment and you don't surrender that judgment to other individuals and that you encourage the free expression of opinion by board members and seek systematic Communications with the board and students staff and other members other elements of the community that's your language um so it's there's a system in place so that we make sure that we're hearing all the voices of the community not just the loudest ones Mr Thomas I do want to correct you you were right the the first time I was right the first time yes I'm sorry the um blue is language that is recommended by asba and um and I think the red is what we have but is not necessarily language right okay I I I apologize that's okay I just wanted

093to make sure we got it worked out there yeah you can see I don't do actually do reviews I I do I over policy services but don't do the reviews so um yes okay and so and you have um you know this is provision that you have that that that asba does not recommend that uh you work with other board members to establish effective board policies and this is your language meet the requirements of ARS 15341 so when you see it stricken out it's not stricken out it's actually in your policy so um this is just the compare document that that we created um that you delegate The Authority for the administration of schools to the superintendent um you could and this is a really important reason why we have school boards you communicate to

094other board members in the superintendent um expressions of public reaction to board policies and superintendent and and school programs you are the eyes and the ears of the community and a conduit um to the administration for the community um that you are informed about current educational issues um and individual uh study through participation in programs providing needed information you guys didn't like our our uh our paid for public advertisement there but that's okay we we understand uh you know uh that you employ the be person's best qualified um and you insist on their impartial and fair and part uh evaluation you avoid being placed on a in a position of conflict of interest and refrain from using your board for personal or partisan gain um you take no private right of action that will compromise

095the board or the administration and you respect the confidentiality of information that you have and that you remember um that the board Member's First and greatest concern is always the educational welfare of the students attending the district uh and the schools um and that's why you're there any questions about that policy or do you want me to just take them at the at the end we'll go through all of them and come back to one everybody uh bhc is board member of communication um uh with sorry with staff members um this makes it clear that you know the that we don't muddy the the waters with um you know a studing the the chain of command um that you know that if an employee wants to talk about um you know uh an issue that

096relates to their job that they're first relating those concerns to at an administrative level and hopefully at the administrative level that's closest to you know what where the concern is um because that's best where it um is resolved um there's no Anonymous communication allowed uh that will be considered collectively by the board um because we do believe that that's a a question of fairness um that the employee that wishes to address the board um in the employees capacity um you know if they're they also happen to be a parent or a resident in the district um they can do so under um the general public participation policy but they need to understand that you know um they're participating as um not as an employee but one of those other categories and that uh official Communications

097and uh will be communicated to employees by the superintendent so not by by the board so the board will Express concerns collectively um when when it's appropriate and then that will be communicated to this uh to those employees by the superintendent this is the this red language again take a big grain of salt with the the stricken the fact the stricken this is your language it's in your policy and we make no judgment about um how uh how how good it is um the board welcomes the opinion and uh input from employees and the public in general in all matters and uh your structure uh is is noted for official specific business should not prevent uh prevent Communications between the board and all stakeholders but uh to Channel or such Communications must be made in

098compliance with open meeting law to the extent Poss possible uh applicable so that's just making it clear that you know um you know we we we value public input we value employee input um we just need to be aware of the open meeting law and they they need to understand that that's a restriction on uh the board and and their Communications with with those uh individuals um this is the the board BHD which is board member Communications with the public um and it basically says that uh it's sort of also a chain of a command issue which is that if somebody has a complaint um not not a not a concern about a general policy or um you know maybe an adoption or some that's something that's coming on the board agenda but something that

099they're they're um they have a complaint that in their engagement with the district at a particular level um that they can use the public participation policy at your board meetings um and that they should uh exhaust their opportunity uh or their their concern at the administrative level um but they if they if they don't once they've ex exhausted that they can communicate with the board in writing and again no Anonymous communication will be considered by the board and that uh official Communications from the board or or board action is imparted to the community by the superintendent the new board member and orientation handbook is Bia um and this basically uh is your protocol for sort of onboarding new board members and you do have um a couple new ones so um this is where it

100says that um you know we're going to try to get them up to speed um uh as quick asly as we can and we're going to meet with them to make sure that they you know have everything they need to be uh ready to go and it says that you know board member or any person designated for appointment to board member elect or the board is to be afforded the board and staff's fullest measure of courtesy and cooperation the board and staff will make every effort to assist the board member elect to become fully informed about the board's functions policies procedures and problem problems and um that there's a you know in the interim between your election and or appointment and actually assuming office uh again we have an onboarding system where you will receive

101Communications and reports um so that you are able to transition to being a fully engaged board member um uh that you have access to um you know your policy manual uh which is Republic anyway and you know um you know available uh do any regulations or any U Publications by school boards associations um you know the board president and other me members of administration uh will uh will confer uh on special issues or concerns and board members elect will be encouraged to attend meetings or workshops specifically designed for board members elect their expenses that these meetings can be re being revered if by the district if it's in accordance with the law and that's them that's that's the ones we're going to cover and um again happy to help with any discussion that you may

102have or answer any questions you may have which one just let me know which one you want me to go back to and I will okay are there I haven't seen anything in the chat so is there discussion okay Mrs Fischer is that you sorry I not showing up so I'm I yeah I'm not sure why it's not coming across I see him there but it looks weird to the side I'm not sure how you see it on yours um these Zoom things don't work for me at all either so um part of the reason I brought these policies home or to forward um is because I did want to verify if things have in fact changed um none of these policies have been followed um or or and to to the best of my

103knowledge I've been told that these policies are inaccurate or po portions of them are um and so my concern is um some of the things that we did and and um um Chris I'm not sure I mean you may or may not have but some of that red lettering is um because historically we did have concerns we did have issues where either staff or Community felt that they could not speak to the board could not um engage with the board um our board's been through a lot of different roller coasters as pretty much everyone at asba I'm sure is aware um and I'm sure majority of this board is aware however it all of us I think agreed at the time that we felt it was highly important that we be available to engage with

104our community and with our staff while also honoring um the system so it was very important that we um you know if if you come to me as a teacher and you tell me um you know my principal did X Y or Z to me my first response would be you need to speak with um administrative leadership or the superent or I would pass it on to the superintendent not respond at all say got this this is not it if it was in person I would direct him to go that path but the little extra red lettering at least on on one of them was because we wanted our community and our employees especially to feel that they have they had a voice that we are not just people who are going to ignore them

105who are going to disregard them we wanted to um make sure that they knew yeah this is the one specific um and so that's why we left that in there there was a lot of discussion um amongst the board at the time um when we adopted it with this um of the importance of of of communicating with staff not to direct them I I I can't assume what other board members um know or don't know but most of the board members are seasoned and and I don't think Miss paperman would either I don't believe any of these board members currently um have ever directed an employee to do something I think we all understand that's not in our Authority um and that's and that's kind of why I kind of just picked a few of

106these um to bring forward I think we all understand that but I do think we all I think it's important that this is my opinion I think it's important that as board members we are available to hear our staff um obviously if our staff wants to come to us for a complaint specifically on the superintendent then it is important that we we bring it to a board meeting and and then take a different route but I'm not talking about for punishment or for um really any of that type of stuff I'm talking about supports they need um historically in the past I've had teachers come to me and say you you know one of the things it's really difficult for me as an art teacher is I don't have enough supplies I don't have enough

107camera I don't have you know do you have any ideas and I've and and you know beyond budget items and I'll say something like well you know we could fund raise or we could see about donations or so those are the types of things that are really important they they aren't District business they aren't taking Authority they aren't serving as an administrator um and um without going into specific detail about Communications that have come to me um it's been communicated that that is not the case that is we no longer want that in our district and um so I brought these forward if that is true that we no longer want that in this District we as a board need to decide bring them back and remove the portions where we are um going to

108be open to communicate with our staff our community um we are no longer going to visit campuses we are no longer going to um unless there is a specific event we are no longer going to if that's the desire I I I don't um know that that is but if it is we need to correct the policies so that we don't have employees or uh um that violate the policies and so that was why I brought these forward um and so I guess the rest of the board would have to tell me if that is in fact um what we are looking to do as a board um so that is not my understanding of um how we are operating uh there is a chain of command and um there's official business but it if

109I have a conversation with a teacher at the grocery store that's not I mean that's not is that what your kind of conversation you're talking about Mrs Fischer no even think back when we first were elected in 2014 um the very first thing I did 2015 was I I contacted each of the principles and said I would like to just see your school I'd like to see you I visited every single one of our schools um and just spent a little bit of time how are you doing um engaged with them they showed me some programs sometimes they said oh look at this our new cool thing oh that's great that's interesting because I felt it was very important that we um and I think it's actually in statute that we are to be aware

110of what is happening on our campuses of our community we are to be available so that we can make sound decisions thank you thank you for it was communicated that that it was communicated to me that that is no longer the the case um so that was why I brought these forward so for for that in particular um prior to um the pandemic we actually have a board um we as a board sign up for different schools I I believe we did that before um your previous term um we were still doing that we had the list um obviously we are not doing it this school year for reasons um that are obvious obvious um it is not my it is my understanding that uh when things are opening back up to allow board members

111back on on campus and and we're able to relax um things that we would go back to that I there has been no discussion um amongst board members to to change that we um at one point that might have been some of our goals so I've never seen that official communication and um so I would have to I I would defer to other board members um but it's not my understanding that we will change how we do that going forward we the process though has changed a little bit from when you and I originally um were uh began serving together in 2015 and that is that we do go through the superintendent office to um schedule those or okay pay those visits uh first as opposed to what we did before and it may be

112that we need to just change the AMG or maybe change because the AMG still says that we will inform the superintendent's office um what I was what was communicated to me is that we are to speak to no employee whatsoever without explicit permission from the superintendent um and so again that's not in our policy so not in the AMG either however um if that is the direction that we are going to go I think it's important that we document it so we ensure that our employee or employees um are following um those policies accurately Mrs O'Brien can I ask a qu a clarifying question yes um Dr Finch I have have we received some information I I'm I'm I'm not understanding this and I I'm feeling like it might be perception but I don't know

113so if you could let us know if any of that has changed and what has changed uh due to um covid and special circumstances with that I'd be very interested yep thanks for asking Miss O'Brien is correct we um that's how we did it preco we we have uh we actually assigned board members to schools and we'll continue to do that worked great it's almost like adopt a school and we scheduled it was part of our goals if I remember right to be more active with our employees I think the um the other example Miss O'Brien said we're running into SP staff members at grocery stores that's obviously going to happen you're recognized you guys are rock stars so they're going to say hi to you that's going to be normal um the the from

114my perspective um that there might be some confusion and maybe Chris can add to this I think the first line of bhc is the key right it's an employee will first communicate on school related matters with Administration that's the key so often board members and again I've been a superintendent now for 20s something years that's a that's mistake number one that um board members make all the time and they do it because they're trying to help and so when a a staff member comes up to them and says a b and c happened to me can you comment on this or can you help me um and you say to them yeah I totally agree that that shouldn't have happened to you um keep me in the loop um I'll see what I can do

115that's my job and so um that and I always tell board members and I repeat I've been repeating for 2ome years your standard answer is listen first second is um say hey did you talk to that teacher about your student's grade go back to the the closest um connection where the problem can be solved and it's that chain of command concept so if they come to you with a um with a problem don't solve it for them punt them to the right uh level where they're supposed to go and then um as it climbs a chain of command and it gets to the superintendent um then uh you may become the judge and jury if that situation doesn't get resolved so you've if you've already commented on it or agreed with the book the staff

116member or set up a meeting and started solving the problem then you're going to have to recuse yourself because you've already tipped your hand so that um I don't know if I'm right here Chris but that's in general I don't have a problem with board members speaking to employees that's not a problem it's when we try to be helpful and we don't need six superintendant we only need one um yeah I I agree with what you're saying absolutely um you know the policies are there to to give fairness to all and to you know respect each other's roles U between the operation of the districts and and the governance of the district and um you know ultimately as as superintendent fit says is that you know ultimately if it becomes a um if it's a

117serious um you know matter between the employee and and the school and it becomes a disciplinary matter or something that the board has to resolve um you want to make sure that everything has been fair in terms of process before it gets there so that um when the board ultimately takes it up that um you know that they can make a fair determination um so I mean it is it's it's it's sort of common sense that you know uh that you know the you know the best decisions are made at the the closest level I mean that's why we by the way we support uh local control and school districts is that we don't think Washington not to be you know governing our local schools because we think that we do a better job because

118we're closer to the problem or or closer to the what we're trying to do um and so it's the same thing with with um staff issues um you know that that that they're best best resolved um at the the problem wherever the problem is at the the perceived problem is um before it ever gets to the board level and I know and I totally under I mean I was a board member myself in a district I got these kind of uh uh approaches and you really do want to um you know be approachable and um let people know that you care and um it's just you got to be you can it's it's an art and I know that some of you vetan board members have done this where you you you you just in

119a nice way say you know I really appreciate this but let me let me um find the person that you need to talk to and you can always ask for a followup from the administration directly saying just to make sure that it was resolved without you know taking on the problem yourself Mrs O'Brien um yes M already I know that I've already spoken I I didn't know if Miss paperman wanted to speak because I I can wait if she does paperman well I would like to thank uh Mr thas for the clarification because I have a better understanding being a new board member you know as long we're not violation of discussing anything that has to do with the agenda or topic that we're going to be speaking uh as board members so so I

120feel more confidence now you know to if I'm going to be meeting uh you know going to District event and I get nervous if I if I see three board members there that it is okay as long we don't make a discussion or if I sit in in a parent organization as long I'm not making those discussion so I thank you for the clarification welcome Mrs orway yes um so I I think when we uh go back to some of the um agreement and changes and or additions subtractions to the policy what that um especially if you've been in the district as a parent or a board member for a while you think in your head that oh I know who this question should go to I have this question so if it's curriculum I'm

121just going to shoot off question to Dr gallagan and say hey um whatever because I'm a board member she's going to most likely get this really cool response that has flowcharts and colors and and whatever and send that to me um because she feels like that's what you know you do to to to respect a board member as opposed to if I had that question send it to my you know send it to the superintendent um he would answer it and then send it uh the work to that person as as it it needed to be so I think that when we send the reason why we don't send the the questions um directly to staff is because we don't want to impede their work schedule and and knowing that because you're a board member

122um they're just going to do it so so I think that that was part of it the the other thing is we do have in place our Communications with the staff we have our ethics but m question is other than um if it is a a statute it is incumbent upon us to self-regulate because there's no one that's going to there there's nobody that has an authority unless it's a statute to say hey you're not doing you know what I'm saying so so we really have to be very responsible to to follow the policies that we're creating yes I I I agree with that do you have if you could explain how we don't have the we don't don't have that sure right yeah I mean you know these are governing board policies that are

123are agreed to by the board and they're all individual board members are bound by them you are correct in pointing out that you know um a board member that doesn't follow this um there may not be any specific um you know penalty for doing so it would seem however that doesn't mean that there aren't any consequences I mean there the consequences could flow from um let's say that again as as superintendent pitch mentioned that that a chain of command wasn't followed or that the board member was involved in an appropriate inappropriate way at you know a low level and ultimately got to the board yes there could be um a a real question of that board of member's impartiality um and um there also could be questions particularly if say the board member was out

124to get a particular employee fired and it turns out that this employee um you know turns around and sues the district once they're terminated or whatever um and the district is found to be liable but they can also um if the board member was acting out side this the scope um of their service um could be named in that lawsuit um on an individual basis for which they would not have uh protection by the you know by indemnification of the district's insurance policy um so that's another you know kind of risk that you are taking that may not result in your removal of your of your board seat but it is something that to be concerned about not to mention just putting the public um uh you know uh resources at risk by such a

125lawsuit so um you know the reason the worst thing that you can have in any kind of complaint um about fairness from somebody who's a staff member or or you know even a Community member is is for somebody to point out that you're not following your own policies because that that that's almost you know if I were you know uh being the attorney for that in that lawsuit that's what I first thing would point out here's what their policy says here's what they're doing and um you know it's pretty strong inference there that um something is happening here that's not fair thank you and thank you Miss yes ma'am um sorry trying to check the chat so are there and any other comments or questions all Mr Brian um so long as as nothing has

126changed then I I don't know that it's necessary for us to discuss them I brought them forward because I was told it had changed um and I'm not talking about um people bringing concerns forward I think we all are very good at um putting them to the superintendent um rather than to the individual employee um even if we've been here for a long time because we don't know the status of our of all the employees they could be gone they could be um they could be themselves uh a potential to come before us at some point um it was the the reference had nothing to do with anything of that nature it was more I was told specifically we were to talk to no employees without explicit permission from the superintendent um and that would

127then be a violation of our policies that was the only reason to bring them forward so um as long as as the policies um haven't changed nobody wishes to change them um I'm good with them how they are we we I believe that we very much took into consideration our employees and our community when we established these um a lot of thought and discussion went into them during a time when there was a lot of um volatility I don't know I don't know if that's the right word um to use a Ron bear word Shenanigans or whatever you want to say um and so I think that these were very thought out by the board members at the time um and uh I'm glad to hear that they are in fact still our policies so

128that was the reason they were brought forward thank you okay thank you very much thank you Mr Thomas for uh joining us this evening and sharing your expertise in open meeting law and reviewing a few of our um board member policies with us this evening so my pleasure and I will I'll turn your screen back over and thank you so much have a good rest of your evening thanks Chris thank you okay so um moving on to uh it we see is our trustable discussion and I believe um it looks like we have a a presentation for that Mr um migrino are you going to be helping us out with that yes uh president uh O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch um um just in the interest of time I'll try and be uh

129brief but wanted to go through uh some information uh regarding um our association with Valley Schools um and um the uh the presentation I have is kind of an adaptation of a presentation uh that was given to the board uh a different governing board obviously in 2017 um so with that I think I'll just jump right in um just talk about different ways that we can self-insure be a Valley Schools overview uh talk about self-insurance um in general uh the benefits of Self Insurance um the benefits of being a Valley Schools member um and uh we'll talk about reserves I won't spend a lot of time on reserves I didn't know if that was part of the uh interest in this topic or not U but there are some slides uh associated with that um

130so uh in the Arizona revised Statute 15382 it does provide for four options uh for a for a district to self-insure um the first option is to enter into intergovernmental agreement um uh to pool uh together with other entities and this actually is the option that Valley that created Valley Schools so um three the three founding districts uh so Paradise Valley uh Deer Valley and pora School District um uh opted to uh begin our self insurance with this option there are three other options one is to create uh a self- insurance tool um um this is uh through an association of school districts um sometimes referred to as the asbit option so asbit is an option for Self insurance for medical coverage um that's a different option than we elected um uh when we created

131Valley Schools um the third option is to just use use of Cooperative purchasing agreement um and uh the fourth option is to create our own self-insurance program and there are different requirements with each of the four options um but as I mentioned we opted for uh option one uh when we created the self- insurance school um so it that created Valley Schools um it started back in 1987 started with uh with the our prop liability coverage uh at the time was called Valley Schools Insurance trust is now called Valley Schools Insurance Group uh then in 1996 we created the workers comp trust now called the workers comp group in 2005 we created the employee benefit group and uh also created the Management Group in which the trust Administration uh was uh assigned at that time

132as well to Valley Schools Management Group and I know many members um that are actually on this board um will recall in 2017 Valley Schools uh we passed a resolution that actually created Valley Schools as a nonprofit uh public agency pool uh prior to that it was formed via an intergovernmental agreement um but um it is now a nonprofit organization uh and that was specifically done to limit the liability uh of the three founding districts um um to the reason that that was created um so self- Insurance um you know we basically pay we're at risk uh we 100% pay all the claims um that we receive in all of those um various aspects whether it's proper liability um or uh uh workman's comp or medical uh and dental claims and uh we kind of

133uh can mitigate some of that Risk by purchasing something called stoploss insurance so up to a certain threshold um we self-insure um beyond that we get reinsurance uh through a third party and um there are there is this concept of uh premium equivalency um that uh that we make uh so we we make a contribution each year uh that hopefully covers the the cost of the claims um and if the claims are not uh as great as the contribution um then that adds to our reserves if the claims are greater than our contribution then we subtract from uh the reserves so just the benefits of self- insurance um it eliminates uh you know any profit that the uh insurance companies might make especially in a fully insured model um they actually set the contribution rate

134um hoping that there will be uh a year or years in which the claims do not exceed those contributions and they get to retain all of that in a self-insured model we're actually able to uh to uh retain any of those um excess or uh unspent claim dollars uh each year also does create the risk um that uh we could have claims that exceed the contribution as well but investment earnings um help reduce the cost moving forward uh we can create these customized coverage plans um especially as being a member of the Valley Schools um program uh allows for that we do avoid a premium tax uh which is about 2% it's a little less than that in Arizona um it does help us uh create um in in those customized plans it does help

135us with Cost Containment and um it does help us with uh being able to um leverage this to be able to help with our operating budget um on an ongoing basis I mentioned the stop loss I'll just tell you what some of these sirs and deductibles are uh we're talking about $100,000 per property claim um uh $1.25 million on general liability and $1.5 million on auto liability so hence uh the need to have reserves is we are self-insuring so and one Auto liability claim can easily generate a $1.5 million uh claim uh we've seen that uh on a number of occasions um uh in in uh in our district on the workman's comp group uh the sir there is $750,000 so we're self-insuring up to $750,000 uh for any workman's comp claim and then we

136buy reinsurance above that as we do uh I failed to mention that on the Valley Schools Insurance Group and in the employee benefit group uh we are um covering the first $400,000 of an individual's claims there are some exclusions um um in all these uh policies but that's generally uh kind of where we're at uh and then just quickly I think the benefits of being a Valley School member um and this would be a way of differentiating between those four options that allow us to be able to create Self Insurance um this is I think the things that differentiate being um the option that we elected back in 1987 um and and why we continue to be uh a member of Valley Schools so there is accountability and oversight um there are required reviews of

137the Department of Insurance um and those are uh frequent um so they happen um every five years of of the these examinations um that the department of insurance does and we have to Valley schools have to actually file their uh Financial audits with them annually uh so ongoing reviews with the Department of Insurance and that does not happen with other trusts it's not a requirement um and we also because of how the uh Valley Schools was created we do have a member that sits on the Valley Schools Management Group board as does the other two founding districts um we pull the purchasing power together uh so right now on the medical side we're uh purchasing power is about um 35,000 lives 33,000 lives something like that um is the pool purchasing power where we're only

138covering about 3,500 lives uh for the the 4,000 employees uh in our district uh so that larger purchasing power allows us to negotiate uh better contracts with those providers um the accounting is maintained on an individual District basis so we have individualized uh accounting so we know exactly how much um is our reserves versus uh another District that that would be a member and the investment rates of return are much greater than any other way that we would be able to invest the money ourselves um part of that has to do with again the pooling of the Investments um but also the different investment policy uh formal investment policy that Valley schools has adopted uh and then I mentioned this previously but autonomy um so the employee Benefit Plan design is customized for Deer Valley

139um uh as is on the agenda for later tonight under old business a recommendation is made by a benefit committee um that is presented to our governing board and then the governing board ultimately approves uh what is um the benefit package for our employees and that can be different than any other member of Valley Schools um I mentioned the reserves um so uh they're they're basically needed because we are self-insured we can have good years and bad years and we've had both um in which uh we need to have the the means to be able to pay those claims remember we're 100% responsible for all the claims associated with us we just have to have a funding strategy to make sure that uh we can um pay for those claims and on the medical side

140uh it's really no different um that uh uh it's just larger amounts uh due to uh the amount uh related to um the the the cost of of that particular coverage uh this is just a minimum Target level um of 25 to 50% um of the annual cost at the beginning of this year we were between 42 and 44% depending on the incurred but not reported or what we call ibnr amount uh that has to be um actually uh uh projected and what that is is claims that happen uh During the period that somebody's covered but just the claims have not been adjudicated meaning they have not been processed completely so there's usually about two to three months worth of run out uh to be able to uh fully understand what the total cost is

141is during a plan year uh so uh about uh just to put that into a perspective uh about $1 million $156 million was the amount of the fund balance um adjusting for ibnr I would say that's going to be just below maybe $ 11 million uh to get to that 44 42 to 44% number um and that's basically it I mean so uh um we have reserves in both um the insurance group as well as the workman comp group um I told you what the deductibles were on the insurance group um the reserves they're about $5.7 million uh at the beginning of this year about $5.3 million on the workman's count pool and so I'd be happy to entertain any [Music] questions Mrs fiser um you know first I want to thank Dr Finch for

142getting us the document from valy schools there is a reason I asked for um I'm a little concerned that um he indicated there was difficulty um generally these things are fairly easy to access but um I wanted Mrs fiser I'm sorry to interrupt do you have another device on you have a terrible Echo I think right now just my iPad I can move it away my TV there you go much better I have a TV for other individuals to be able to watch problem it still getting the feedback nope that's much better thank you no we're good um the reason I had asked for the documents to be kind of provided to all of us is so that we could read through them I did take time to visit with um Tom Boone who was

143um guess he's the one who originally was one of the founders in this whole thing um he's very highly intelligent regarding uh self- insured trust and is the head of Valley Schools um as far as I know always has he's also the writer of the uh you suffer which a lot of people don't know um but the reason I I spent a lot of time talking with him and I asked about um because he had kind of asked you know well why would you want to bring this forward um there there is a difference between a self-insured trust and an insurance trust pool um and I was under the impression that Deer Valley had their own trust versus being part of a trust pool um I am still interested in having a group for oversight

144it would not be the same thing as a trust board um I want to make it clear that at no time have I ever did I ever um want Deer Valley to start their own new trust away from Valley Schools um I have worked with Valley Schools since 2011 um in various capacities and um they are by far the best um in my opinion um for this type of work um for this type of investment poll and they are very everything Mr Migo has said is very accurate they are very well audited reported um we do hold a seat on their board the concern has never been um Valley School schools um I survived through the the raid of everything um at another District um so and I have never lost faith in Valley schools

145in fact us getting out I want to point out um would require us to stay out for three years um before we could come back so I I don't even recommend that we consider moving our funds um I definitely don't ever recommend that we take a part our trusts uh number one when you take when you shut down a trust and go fully insured um we would all those resources what is it 20 Jim you would have to tell me um the amount we have in the three trusts but whatever that would would ultimately just be used to take down the tax de um there are very specific uh regulations into what we're doing with these trusts what I wanted to bring forward um because it's what we've had at every District I've ever worked

146for and everyone that I've seen is there is and it's always been called a trust board Deer Valley can call it whatever they want but it is essentially a committee of the board that does the oversight where where this information is reported a lot of people don't realize that the money we have at Valley Schools is not on our financials um we do get a reporting every year from Valley schools at the end of every um fiscal year we get a assessment of where we are we do get our financial reporting we also get monthly what our experiences are what our ibnr is whether or not we have high cost claims on the horizon um that type of thing and while I believe and again it's just my belief that we believe we have a

147great um business manager and in Mr mcino um I don't believe his intent is to work till he's 90 and never retire so there will come a point in time when our staff will change and I believe that we need to have um transparent systems in place for the public to see what originally it was originally um an individual from another District that brought to me as a board member why are you allowing x amount of money to be um unreported unsupervised un uh you have no idea where decisions are being made you have no idea what your experiences are you have no idea how can we trust your board and you as a board member when you look the other way um when in in reference to millions of dollars because it's not a

148small amount it is a large amount and depending on and I and I did explain to the individual that depending on when you pull those documents um if we just funded because we generally pre-fund a our trust our payments you're gonna have a lot more because our experiences haven't occurred um if you go to the end prior to our funding it's going to be much lower but it is still in the range of $25 million with these three so my concern is where do we have that transparency that reporting um you know when I when I talked with um you know I'm sure and and he's right you do have actuarials that'll come along whether they sit with Jim or they sit with a benefits administrator or they sit with Heather Mock and they will

149determine what our rates are going to be um who's reviewing you know we do have a committee for our um for our uh benefits but is that a transparent one of the the issues that we have all the time is we have and it hasn't happened since I've been on the board this time it happened continuously for the four years that I served where they say oh yeah we all had our secret meeting and everybody thumbed up and they'll go oh no I really did this or I I did this but nobody saw it and and we had a lot of controversy my concern is that we have a transparent clean process to review our experience to make sure that we are being um um honest and accurate with our public and with our employees

150um oftentimes I'll hear I don't get the district I don't know why they can't just um put us on the State Insurance because they've read it they can put us on the state insurance is that beneficial for Deer Valley absolutely not that is a that would be a fully insured equivalent for us um but those type of questions come when we're not transparent and and that is my concern um so and I don't know if Administration has an answer or a solution for how we could do that um I do want to make it clear my goal is not to leave Valley Schools is not to reestablish a new trust it's to have a process for appropriate transparent oversight of what we currently have from the Deer Valley perspective because nothing that any of our

151committees do would ever impact or oversee or have authority over Valley Schools um and so that is the purpose of Mr mcino Dr Finch um that's the purpose of what I'm looking for I'm not looking to reinvent the will or change our lives Mr migrino do you have some thoughts on providing some uh transparency that Mrs Fisher is requesting uh president O'Brien Miss Fischer yeah so um oversight does exist uh as I um kind of uh just really quickly went through uh in the actual presentation maybe at the not at the same level that Miss Fischer uh had described but there there is a oversight uh the Valley Schools management group meetings are open meetings um so and there are sometimes people that do attend those meetings they follow the open meeting law just as

152we had just covered with uh with M Thomas um but to add another um entity not a trust but uh some i i a committee of the board is what I think I wrote down uh is what I heard Miss fiser U mentioned that would do some oversight I I'm not sure what that structure would look like it's not one of the four approved structures uh in the statute not to say that we couldn't have a committee I'm I'm not trying to indicate that at all it just that we would continue to operate the way we are and have another um entity of some sort um that could provide whatever the board's wishes were we would just have to spell out what those responsibilities are because at this point um I think there are there

153is accountability and oversight uh it's just in a form than I think Miss fiser was looking for Mr Migo could you remind me um how often Valley Schools um Management Group how often their board meets uh president O'Brien uh we meet about four or five times a year okay do any of the the other board members have um any questions right now or sorry trying to open my chat I have a question so I I think everything comes down where the most saving is for the district and for the staff so yes so it will be interested to know what is the benefit package for the employee and how much you know like out of it or what the district is spending right and we we will be discussing that package that's specific to this

154year um coming up shortly and an old business item um and so Mrs fer I just want to be clear on what you're requesting is that there is just more transparent and clear process in what Valley Schools Management Group um is doing for us and for us to look at those finances is that aair um no miss miss miss O'Brien I I don't want it to and again I'm not trying it maybe just a reporting structure that we need to add in or just where the board is it's put in a report somewhere um is is it could be something as simple as that because I what what Valley Schools does how they invest what not we have that um but there's who is looking on our side who is determining on our side what

155our contribution is who is determining on our side what um reserves we're going to maintain um who is addressing when we have an ibnr that is just too high that's something that we always did in our trust board um so it may not be a board or a committee at all it may just be that we have a level of reporting that is transparent for the for the public it could be on the the finance page where we have this is our status obviously not releasing any confidential information these reports don't have confidential information um but having that transparency and it may be having our our benefits committee meetings be open to the public or be um zoomed or whatever it is so that if the public or if an individual employee is questioning hey

156wait a minute what's going on with this they can watch um one of the aspects that we had when when I've done this in the past they were always open meetings um we always had seats to the side people could watch could they speak and participate in the meeting no um but they could witness what was occurring um and it's it's not Valley Schools it's what's happening in our world in our control um what we are doing um once it goes to Valley Schools it's it's invested and what not and I'm sure Mr mcino is watching that and whatever other business manager um comes in would also be watching that but it's the other aspects of what is occurring at Deer Valley that I'm seeking um transparency in okay does that make sense it I

157believe that is much more clear to me yes so Mr M Ino Could you um in the interest of time because we are at um a quarter after 9 um maybe answer those questions um for us and initially I would say put them in in the next Friday update because we are going to have a period of time we're not going to meet again until uh March 23rd so not the next one because the next one is a couple of days but maybe the the one um after that sorry I realized my timing there and then um we can all read that and um evaluate from there what uh what that is looking like right now Mrs Fischer and and how we possibly uh improve upon that going forward does that work for you absolutely

158I I'm just looking for transparency and and if you have questions you're more than welcome to contact me okay awesome I appreciate you for appreciate you for verifying that and um Mr Migo are are you good with that or with those questions Mrs Fisher's questions uh president O'Brien I understand that uh you guys are asking me for a plan to increase the transparency actually I'd like I think what I'd like to know now is the answer to the questions on how it's done right now like what is the the question she asked who's doing that how is it done right now if you have suggestions about how we could improve that in the future that would be bonus icing on the cake understood okay wonderful thank you very much Mrs o yeah um are we

159the word transparency is used uh in so many different ways now are we looking for um access uh to the information um more more public access to the information um that has to do with dear Valley's um portion or active part in the trust I'm I'm just I believe yes that that is how I interpreted Mrs um Fischer's questions I think we want to well one understand what is happening right now and two yes I believe what she's striving to achieve is to to have some um more transparency than what we have right now because as we've said as was stated Valley schools has you know open meetings those documents are available I think we're looking for the the steps in between there and um how we got to our recommendation and some of the

160questions she asked so I think it would be helpful for us to understand the process that we currently have and then um determine exactly yes the goal for transparency or access from the the public okay because sometimes the word transparency has a connotation of I'm not being forthright or honest and I just want to make sure that we make that clarification that um it is more for Access of the information and understanding what the information how it pertains to us and what we do with it yes I would think that's a fair assessment okay thank you Mr migrino for that presentation and for answering our questions and now we are going to move on to four a in Old business and if I could have a motion Mrs Ordway sure I would move that the

161governing board approve the ad administration's recommendation to approve the 2021 2022 employee benefit committee recommendation do I have a second I second thank you Mrs paperman um Mr miglino it looks like we are going to hear from you again uh president O'Brien uh members of the board Dr Finch um this is the same information that we shared in a preview uh at last week's um uh meeting again very uh quickly just in the interest of time um a 0% uh increase is what uh we are U the actual is projecting for us for next year um the committee did want to incorporate a four tier option um for the medical benefit uh we only had two options employee plus um an employee plus family um the two uh new tiers would be employee plus spouse

162and employee plus CH child or children um those would be two more cost-effective options for employees to be able to uh pick up dependent uh if they so needed to do so um those are the really big changes uh uh just the the tier adoption um uh as I mentioned before uh slight increase on the life insurance um rate for the district sponsored plan the district paid plan I should say and then the um Wellness uh program again trying to Shore that up uh by providing an additional incentive so the recommendation has not changed from from last week uh and just would be willing to answer any questions just also wanted to recognize the committee that looked at all this information digested everything from loss ratio to uh uh annual um uh uh evaluation by

163United Healthcare um a lots of lots of information that that they went through over the the meetings that we had over the course of this year so I just wanted to recognize them thank you Mr miglino and yes thank you very much to um the committee members who spend all that time and work on um the benefits recommendation um as well as you Mr mcino who I is it you yep Mr mcino right there and Mrs Moffett all right Mrs paperman did you have some um I believe you had some questions on this topic yeah basically uh of uh what's the package uh what is the benefit package for employee like uh out of pocket or like uh and also even the district like how much is the district uh putting into this benefit um

164I don't know if I can share my screen I don't know how much we want to get into the details um so the the here are the especially the medical which is the um um I think the one of the most cost costly benefit that we have both for the employer and then for the employees that may pick up dependent care um and so we can share this information uh with the board because I did not include it in the in the package um that was uh uploaded uh but we can certainly provide this as well because it might take a little bit more time but just knowing that we're actually asking you to vote on it this evening I wanted to be able to at least share this um so there are um no

165cost options for our employees um and so I don't know if I can highlight this or not and you guys see this so there's uh a no cost option here for our high deductible Health Plan employee pays uh um the zero cost the employer plays $637 plus makes a contribution to their health savings account that's not included in these numbers uh if they make a contribution so it's uh voluntary and it's a two for one um amount so for every dollar they put in we put in $2 up to a maximum uh in their health savings account because this is a high deductible plan uh but there's also a traditional po plan uh and this is a different differentiated based on a higher date um so we grandfathered some some folks in um it's a

166a $20 monthly cost for our employees uh that were hired prior to 2012 so that cost for them on an annual basis is $240 the district pays uh $7,650 uh for a total of $789 combined um if an employee was hired after 2012 same plan but different cost structure um employee is paying $150 a month uh for this option the district uh paying uh just uh uh over $6,900 same cost for the plan again because the plan is the same dollar amount it's just a different in in the cost share and this is again a voluntary Choice um for the um for the employees if they want this particular plan um again there's a a free option for all employees that answer thank you yeah remember this review in my district I know the importance

167also uh you know like uh if we're going to go to the hospital and urgent care and that's one of the concerns that we educated our St St and glandel uh you know if you're going to go to the hospital in Urgent Care the money adds up for the district too so so I know that there's a lot involved with uh with Benefits wonderful thank you and I would just make a comment that so um um I'm sorry president O'Brien Miss paperman so that gets into plan design uh I thought you were uh specifically talking about cost uh for the the coverage itself but but in plan design um there were there have been no plan design changes uh in the in the in the plans themselves so no change in the deductible no change

168in the co-pays whether that's for uh urgent care or emergency room or seeing a specialist versus uh primary care physician all of those components are remaining the same in what's uh in the plan uh for consideration tonight thank you for the information Mrs Fischer you have a question is there I mean why are we differentiating by date of hire is there something in our language that says 10 years of service they pay less or is it going to drop at some point for our employees who were hired say in 2013 or or is there I'm just curious as to why we're because that's a significant difference for our employees and they don't make that a lot of money so I mean I'm just concerned uh president O'Brien Miss Fischer um that was a a previous

169decision made uh many years ago back around 2012 and we grandfathered in the um employees that were hired um prior to that date and uh to allow them to have the choice between either the high deductible plan or the PO plan um and at that time we made all the new hires the default plan was the high deductible plan uh what ended up happening is we had some adverse selection where we had you know our youngest population on the high deductible plan and some of our older population on the um on the the PO plan or the more expensive plan if you will and so the benefit committee uh re-evaluated that and said well there should be a cost for anybody that wants to the more expensive plan but we want it to be a

170lower cost for those of us that had the option at one point in time for either plan and so they differentiated it has nothing to do with years of service it had to do at the time that this was U put into place so that is the grandfathered date uh and we have this in several settings where when that decision is made we try and hold those people harmless or in this case differentiated uh they weren't hold completely held completely harmless um and that they still have the option all employees have the option for the high deductible plan uh at no cost do do we have um well I guess two things number one do we have an initial contribution to their hdhp to their HSA um president O'Brien Miss Fischer yes we have a

171a a strategy with our uh Health High deductible health plan or HSA payment on a two for one match so for every dollar they put in we put in $2 up to um I believe it's up to $1,200 of District contributions so if they put in 600 we would put in ,200 they would have $1,800 in there HSA per per year per year okay are we doing any education with employees to understand how to utilize that high deductible health care plan um for the purpose of of because it rolls a lot of them don't understand how it rolls and how they can build um build that cost do do we have education um regarding that plan for our employees uh president O'Brien Miss Fischer I would say yes we do um but um just to

172be completely honest it is still uh a difficult concept for people to grasp um because they're averse to the risk um the benefit of the PO plan is you have a you know a a definitive amount that you know every time doctor you're only going to pay X dollar um in a co-payment with a high deductible plan um most of the employees look at the that there's a lot more exposure that they have um and that is true but for the vast majority of our employees it's never realized and the the the of the of the contribution to their health savings account is to offset that uh over time and to promote consumerism so we do have education that we do regarding but I would say um if you're asking how effective that communication is

173I would say that is a challenge that we Face uh ongoing basis okay um I I I I guess I can know all I can say is I'm highly concerned after seeing um that um but it's gone through the appropriate committee and and uh I I but I do hope that we some point have a a more in-depth uh conversation about our benefits um that we offer um within your Valley Mrs zway no I'm ready to have you call the vote if you're done okay I just have one quick comment and then um we will call the boat and and I do appreciate all the work I I too would um like to have further discussions about the those differences between those that the employees pre 2012 and and post 2013 um for in the

174future so all right having said that I will call the vote all those in favor say I I [Music] I any again oh or okay four eyes and no Nays means it is approved unanimously may I please have a mo agenda yes I would uh move that the governing board approve 5 a through f is there a second all second thank you Mrs Fisher all those in favor say I I I I any Nays hearing none all right we are now into governing board reports Mrs um paperman do you have anything to report well I would like to say that uh I did attend uh the week of one of the students that had an accident and and uh I would like to say to the family of they are all in my prayers and

175and the pastor that he gave an amazing sermon uh so so uh so it was a very difficult uh just to be there and and I have the families in my prayers thank you thank you Mrs paperman Mrs um orway um I I too have our our students that have passed in the families that remain um it's always very heartbreaking as we've got those 32 35,000 kids that we care about um a little bit of a shout out to the flight team excellent I want to make sure that you guys look to see who's taking care of them because they always take care of us um I'd wish everyone a healthy and a happy safe spring break and we're coming back after this spring break it won't be the spring break that lasts till fall

176and again uh thank you to the employees the families and the community for supporting us on this very difficult sometimes challenging Journey with all the information that comes in we're bound to have some misinformation and there couple of glitches in the system but since we are continuous Improvement we Monitor and adjust as is necessary so um I miss Dr Sue yurtle the turtle will have to wait till next year and uh I look forward to listening to rest of the board members reports and Dr Finch thank you Mrs fer um I I I'm not going to speak about um the students that are have have that we have lost or or the um because I I don't I don't think I can keep composure however um I do appreciate the flight team as well [Music]

177um I do have a couple of requests that have come um there was one email that that we received um actually I don't know who all received it um I was I received it and and um I did keep Dr Finch on my replies um so he may or may not remember which one it is um but there has also been questions that have been brought to me since then um and I I don't know the answer I know I know where we were years ago but I don't know the answer now um so for um the superintendent or whomever um wants to um provide this I would prefer it be provided um in a way that it can be communicated to the public because it doesn't do any good to tell me the answer

178and then I can't provide it to them um so um the two questions that came following and it's wasn't just that one email or a couple of emails it was also stuff that's happening in Washington and other places um so do we have teachers that are teaching the 1619 project or critical race Theory regardless of what curriculums have been adopted and secondly um I know we always work with individuals who um may have different needs but are the district bathrooms open to be used based on gender identity versus biological gender and what steps can the parents take to ensure they have full information that they can verify and I don't expect that anybody would have the answer to those questions here um so U if you can just provide information that be appreciated secondly um

179I think we all received that the State financial report came out um there's a lot in that report I really hope everybody will download the data file I really appreciate that that the state has started to provide that data file um because some people are data junkies and we like to go through it and um review it on our own um one thing that was very concerning um because I know that we have made a great effort to push [Music] um raises to our staff to our employees um I was very very um and and and I haven't had a lot of time to digest it but I was very very concerned that our average teacher pay is not even up to the state average teacher pay and I know it's not far below it

180but we are one of the largest districts in this state um and with our administrative cost going up at least 3.5% um I don't see how we could Poss not be at least paying our teachers at the state average because if we're not paying our teachers I guarantee we're not paying our classified um and I know we're going to have a lot of discussions about this but I I just wanted to say that that is very concerning that we are not even average when we are one of the top districts um in this state um the final um point I want to make is I I really appreciate um uh Miss mcer Dr mcer um providing so much information in our Friday update um but I I don't think she understood um my comment my

181statement um and so it rather than putting forth so much work it would be so much easier if if they just asked for clarity um because that was a lot of work that that we were provided information um the point I made at the last board meeting is not that our district does not do a good job about partnering with others or um transition [Music] um Deer Valley has made does wonderful things with our special education students in many ways the point I was making is that right now one of the things that's very big is the esas and one of the areas that all school districts to the best of my knowledge Not Just DE Valley all school districts um there may be one in the west side of of the valley but I'm

182not positive I haven't had time to look is that we drop off our special needs students at seat time um the state allows a special needs students to attend school to age 22 um there are some comprehensive plans that have been shared um that is my concern is that is that there is some things that we could do and I think we need to have a meaningful discussion otherwise um parents like myself are forced to utilize esas to fill in that Gap um and it is a sign significant service that we could do um especially since we're transitioning these students we've had them like in the case of my son Dear Valley has had my son since he was three um you know Bill the bus driver who used to be the district office um

183custodian put my little guy in a car seat for years nobody knows my son better than many of the employees of Deer Valley um we can't go anywhere without Barry having his friends um and some of them are staff some of them are students but I find myself having to um piece out what could have been um something that dear Valley could offer I hope that we can have a meaningful discussion about options um for these students that are dropping off um so that they can have a successful life um not all of them will be able to do some of the stuff that some parents are able to do especially some of the kids whose parents had to step aside because special needs kids are difficult um so that thank Miss mcer for the

184information um but I do still believe that we need to have a very important conversation about what could be for our special needs students thank you very much to all of our board members for um their reports and I'd like to thank again once again uh Chris Thomas as well as um Mr miglino for um the information material provided this evening um we have had some tragic losses in our um our district recently um and we just like to remind our parents that that and Guardians and family members that there there are resources available um on our on our website and as well as um at your schools so um please reach out um and let us help let our staff help you again kudos to our our flight team as well um and and

185I wish all of our staff um uh I I hope it will be a time to relax and refresh over spring break I know it's still about another 10 days out but it it's important for everybody to recharge and we are um an extraordinary district and and we will continue to become even more extraordinary so um with that I will um turn it over to Dr Finch for the superintendent's report you're all right couple of things to remind you that's that are coming your way one is uh this Thursday um we have the uh Kindergarten Roundup in our at our district office here we'll have a bunch of uh cars zooming through our parking lots picking up packets and filling them out so um if you want to see that that's Thursday get on our

186website as we start to enroll kindergardeners for next year as Miss Ordway referenced I did have the chance to be uh read some Dr Seuss today did that a couple times and with zoom you can read to a lot of kids so I read to a lot of kids that I'm sure I couldn't hold their attention if they were in one room but they were in multiple rooms so worked out good I just had superintendent's uh divisional meeting here last week or earlier this week the again uh I think one of our roles in the many groups that we work with the lobbying groups is to knock down bad legislation so we spend a lot of time on that and then we obviously uh are worried about budget and and all the pie P that

187are coming from Washington and how it plays into our district so that's really one of the roles that we do in the superintendent's uh meetings and it's good to get that information but in general everyone's uh hurry up and waiting and obviously our budget clock is ticking and so Mr Li mcino is going to um lose more hair if we wait tillo much longer so he's uh he's wants the numbers but he's going to have to wait just like everybody else uh did have a great meeting with uh Kathy h and Kate Wright are her Chief of Staff here this week I'm talking about some concerns that we had we finally got a audience and it it was a great meeting so we're looking forward to what comes out of that and I'll keep you

188in the update on that reminder it's School breakfast week this week and it's athletic trainer month this month so make sure you tweet that out or say hi to those folks that are doing such a great job and then last but not least I just um a couple hours ago had a chance to be on the Dean's uh speaker tour for GCU and had an opportunity to encourage teachers to U Pick Deer Valley number one but also to stay in or go to the teaching profession so um again trying to maximize dear Val's influence in the neighborhood thank you awesome Dr Finch our next um board meeting is March 23d the other board meetings are posted and I would certainly entertain a motion I make a motion that we end our meeting at 9:44 second

189you all those in favor say I I I captain all right everybody have a wonderful um evening and week bye we're adjourned