DVUSD Governing Board Meeting, August 10, 2021

001good evening and Welcome to our regular governing board meeting um for August 10th I'm going to call the meeting to order at 7 pm. uh please let the record reflect that all governing board members are in attendance and if you'll please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and then join me in a moment of silence could I please have a motion to adopt the agenda mot make a motion that we adopt the agenda I second all those in favor please say I I I I oh there it came okay please record your vote I think she I think she HIIT it incorrectly okay agenda passes unanimously we will um start tonight with our district reports and we have a um report on summer programming for 2021 and that will be um Miss Dr Gail Galligan

002thank you president O'Brien governing board members Dr Finch this evening we bring you an update on deer Valley's summer programming this past June and July our summer programs were divided into three areas enrichment with those programs intervention and you see the two programs there and the get ahead or credit or grade recovery in the programs that are there I'll speak to each one of those this this evening the first one we'll talk about our our our enrichment programs Community Education provided a robust number of opportunities for students the infographic here you shows you uh the summer Adventure camps um the days the number of students we had 868 students who participated um you can see there were three schools that um hosted the summer adventure camp the number of instructors and the number of assistants

003we did want to show you the enrollment so we broke it into two different categories our covid-19 summers and our preco 19 Summers you can see that as as we had last year 750 children enrolled in our summer adventure camp that did increase this summer it is still below the number numbers that we had prior to covid but we're very encouraged that our parents um felt comfortable uh to bring their children to our summer program and then you can see some of our summer rocks camps and the number of students who participated in each of those also those numbers are a bit down from preco but they are actually um a bit better than they were last year in um 2020 so 33 students in science rocks um AC Ross two programs and 68 students

004in our uh theater um rocks we had a pretty good number for the first time offering it in our Mandarin program rocks and then 108 students in our gifted student rocks and then there were 95 students who successfully took driver's education this year so our our community ed program um really uh provided many opportunities for children um we offered our level up math for the second year to our middle school students and this would have been our incoming uh seventh 8th and ninth grade students uh the greatest outcome and you can see the objectives there but the greatest outcome for this program is to help students develop a positive belief about their ability to successfully be math-m minded and able to do math it is an amazing program as you can see from the infographic

005here the number of uh days um we had um two uh schools that participated uh 91 students um with six teachers um everyone uh that participated in Dr Finch was there at times I was there the kids were wholly engaged and whether they were separated into their about math differently we did did build that program around three different areas and thinking about math is everywhere so the first area was um in art and we had a guest teacher for art and the next one was movement in math and so all of this was combining math is in the world around us it's not just on a piece of paper and it's not in math problems math is all around us and the last one was cooking so we had a chef um from our culinary

006arts program come work with the kids and show the mathematics in um uh cooking uh you can see our enrollment last year was 23 students and it just jumped to 91 students and that was in um just two regions our our goal is to expand that minimally to three regions next summer and then potentially by the following summer across all five of our regions the reason it would take a little bit longer is that our teachers who teach in this actually go through a specific training um that is based on on Joe bowler's U math mindsets and we've had multiple teachers go through that last year and our continuing to go through it this year so our our Cadre of teachers um who will be able to teach here um is growing and this is

007for children across all grades now here's just um a a slide that shows one of the mindset shifts that um math is about creativity and making sense I think if you were to ask many children um is math creative do you have to think creatively most of them do uh problems on a piece of paper and they don't think about that so one of the goals of this program is really to shift children's thinking about what math is and what it is not the next one is that mistakes are actually very valuable and we know that when we make a mistake riding a bike we learn what we did and we are better the next time we try to ride a bike it's the same thing for mathematics making mistakes in math is okay because

008it helps us learn where we went wrong and what we can do the next time we have a similar problem and then the last mind mind shift was everyone can learn math at the highest levels again I don't know about you but I hear on television I hear from people that I don't like math I was never good at math math was hard for me but that's not true we can all learn math at the highest levels it's just a matter of how we think about math and how our teachers teach Math and how we can go about changing that mindset that I love math and I can do it and that's what this program does for kids the next enrichment program we had was for our our elel students this is a new summer

009program that we offered this year and we know that for English language Learners the best indicator of their acquired language and cementing skills is demonstrated actually through their writing writing is the last set of skills that an eel student will actually acquire it must be directly taught just like any other language skill but many times as as we know in our gen Ed classes writing is glanced over as it takes a great deal of time to teach any student much less our English language learner students to write proficiently in order to write proficiently a student needs to be able to synthesize and apply those are those higher order thinking skills um at the language skills of listening speaking and reading the overall goal for the three-week session was to use grade level content to write

010an informational opinion or argumentative five paragraph essay differentiated for the students language level and grade level we had our first grade students work on a five paragraph essay now of course there paragraphs for itty bitty little sentences but we still worked on that goal students were first introduced to key grade level vocabulary then they viewed a graphic organizer input chart that gave them an overview of the learning that would happen within the unit from there they reviewed a pictorial input that zoomed in on one part of that topic which included key vocabulary again students read passages formatted to teach annotation summarization and identifying key details this was at all grade levels from first grade all the way up students took the information from the passages into a mind map to organize their learning which is

011the essential learning for that topic from there there they took the information and put it into a process grid for the entire unit which allowed them to visually compare topics and learning and help guide the structure of their essays in this infographic you can see the number of days um our programs are really intensely focused and short um 12 days 82 students um five teachers two schools at Mountain Shadows and Barry Goldwater High School seven buses provided um transportation for students uh I wanted to share with you our our classified folks who support our programs during the summer are as valuable as our teachers and our administrators 1,84 meals were served over that amount of time we did have two writing topics and focus areas for grades uh 1 through eight we use science as

012the foundation of the writing um topics and learning and in 9912 the topic was career exploration so the writing focused around careers that students were interested in and then we did use the the seven actually six glad strategies and glad is short for guided language acquisition um design and and so that infographic just gives you a bit more information many of the students came into the writer's workshop with enormous Gap gaps in their writing skills and that is typical also for gened students but it is just a a larger Gap with our English language Learners especially for our first through third grade children many could not copy sentences or words from the board um in the class we supported them in the first few days going slowly and helping to get everyone to the same

013starting point as soon as they were able to figure out how to copy from the board they were able to move confidently into sharing ideas at their table and taking risks to write something they didn't have to copy and risk-taking for English language Learners is a huge skill each grade band group showed incredible growth in their confidence and understanding of what they were learning seven-year-old children could tell the teacher the four stages of a mosquito's life cycle using the correct terminology first graders could describe the habitat of the clownish and use the word anemone correctly and said it correctly it was really amazing to see these students who are learning English take on the challenge of grade level words in 1 through 12th grade even though some of the less profession students those newly to

014um English uh at the early grades did not quite reach their goal of a five paragraph essay the growth with all of them was truly incredible it is hard to measure the success of the students as a whole because skills were so varied across grade bands we had new to Country high school students who spoke very little English and children entering the first grade who were orally proficient but could not read or write the English language what we did see through each of these was that every student grew in their skill set and their confidence most importantly through the three weeks grew while they were in this summer program in the background of this picture you can see some of the language that the students learned in how the Glad strategies support students through the

015visual learning to make meaning of complex ideas these charts stay up through the entire unit of study in order for students to reference the information and cite their Source it is also used to help demonstrate to struggling Learners that smart kids use their resources to be smart and that information does not just live in your head you can use your resources that are around you and that you can always go back and review and that's something as students and adults we do ourselves moving students from dependent to Independent Learners was one of the goals of this particular program so now we'll go into intervention extended school year was once again provided at Vista Peak school and you can see what um we have quotes here um from parents teachers PA professionals um Who provided that

016support for students you can see that we did have 90 uh extended school year students attend this year 100% %% of them worked on maintenance of skills which is the whole ref reason for having extended school year or esy you can see here um parent quotes and um our parents are just very thankful that we have offerings for their children during the summer and this is just one other example of that I would like to say that we sincerely appreciate our pair of professionals and bus drivers who helped our teachers at esy and St successfully support students um through the time period and this program was about 6 weeks long we offered jumpstart intervention again this year and we are so very happy to be able to offer it in person so last year it

017was an online program this year we had eight in-person schools with some online offerings at grades 4 through eight so we we did have um a bit of both but the the main impetus was in person as you can see here um we had 13 schools uh that worked with children for eight days and in a bit I'm going to show you some academic data and I want you to keep in mind that we met with kids for eight days for grades 1 through three for 3 hours and grades 4 through n an hour and a half you can see the number of students that we um were very glad to welcome 15 00 just over 1500 all 39 of our schools had children attend in jump start this year we had 84 amazing teachers

018and we are so appreciative that they gave some of their time this summer to to help us with um jump intervention and eight amazing administrators I again wanted to showcase our our support staff who really helped make our programs successful we had 10,510 meals provided over over those eight days we had 19 bus routes that ran every day with a total of 10,499 miles over the eight days so across all of those campuses picking up students um our our food services and our transportation were a huge part of this summer program uh you can see that the way we built this program is every grade level for each content area had three specific standards skills that the kids worked on over those eight days um and that included um a total of 36 different standards

019those were provided to our teachers along with the specific um strategies to teach the teachers themselves built the lessons because this is an Intervention Program which means at the end of each day teachers would go back and look at student data and make adjustments to meet the needs of those individual students the next day here's the information that I am so very excited to share with you what you will see here uh is the pre and post data for math from 1 through 9th grade now you'll see the pre-test data in green and the post- test data in uh blue now these are average scores for our students across those grade levels but in eight days I think you can see that our students made incredible gains in those three standards and skills this shows

020it even better what you'll see here is the percentage of students who showed growth on um that particular learning across those skills in just eight days uh I think we can say that the Intervention Program was uh pretty successful for our kids who joined us for math I would be remiss if I didn't share with you reading so we did have reading um literacy skills in first second and third grade so what you'll see here based on our Dibbles data is that first grade letter sounds and words read correctly our kids knocked it out of the park for 8 Days uh the teachers again this was Intervention which meant that they worked with students on those specific skills used formative assessment made adjustments for the next day and continued on second grade had pretty good

021scores uh you'll see that words read correctly I had just under 53% gains uh second grade oral fluency was in area that was was was hard but we still had almost 40% of our students show gains in in just those eight days and in third grade um words read correctly was a pretty even split but they again knocked it out of the par in our oral reading fluency um so at the end of eight days of intense focused intervention our jump start students are far better prepared entering this school year than they would have been without that opportunity this is just one quote from a parent um our administrators and teachers had multiple parents email them and and send their appreciation and thanks um this one was just one that had a child that um

022was very reticent about learning and uh just fell in love with learning here next we'll go to our get ahead credit and grade recovery courses the first one is our high school course extension this is the first year that all five of our high schools offered course extension at the end of this second semester to students who had not successfully passed identified courses they identified students who met a specific grade criteria to participate in course extension for either the first or second week of the summer break as you can see here each of the high schools had great success with helping students recapture lost credits we will offer course extension at the end of the first semester this year and again at the end of the second semester this year um when you take a

023look at the number of students who participated and we didn't have all of the credits from all of the schools and we'll get that information and included in another uh Friday update but you can see Mountain Ridge um students um recaptured 158 credits Barry Goldwater 49 credits on Deer Valley High School between their uh course extension and accelerate 190 students recaptured credit so the the two weeks that our teachers worked with students just to um ensure that the skills they had missed or were not able to show that they knew and were able to do were able to be met um and assessed uh this was a true celebration I do want to celebrate um Aspire uh they had both our our Middle School summer school program and our summer High School online program and

024you can see here that for our middle school program uh we we had 70 students who completed successfully um and 56 total promotions um and again this program is for students who had not successfully been promoted or reassigned to the next grade level um so pretty good here too with an 80% passing rate for our middle school students who who participated in this our our online high school program was just as robust as any other year we had approximately 970 students engage in those online courses we had 86 unique courses offered and and here's a cool thing this isn't this is a huge number 1,317 credits were earned by students participating in our Online High School having that opportunity for students gives them um both uh the ability to open up their schedule the following

025year and add courses that they may be interested in or recapturing credit that they may have lost helping keeping all of them on their progress for graduation and then the last program that I'm going to share with you is our dbsd Pathways course which is our our afternoon evening program um it did run in mostly the afternoon in our summer program but we wanted to show you here and you can see in the graph um the numbers of students that participated and we wanted to give you uh some trend data based on where we were in 2019 2020 2021 uh you can see that specifically for this this school year we had over 300 students participate 36 courses were offered and 580 credits were earned by our students participating in Pathways U we also offered

026this year um algebra one two and geometry honors and and we are very happy to offer that through Pathways which typically pathway ways is our uh Credit Recovery course although it does have children who participate because they want to get ahead and open up their schedule during the school year but you can see here for those two honors courses we did have uh 11 middle school campuses represented with students 16 students participated in Algebra 1 two honors and 37 students participated in our geometry honors course and with that um I just want to share that uh you can tell that we were very very busy this past summer offering programs for students that spanned all grade levels and interests with both academic and enrichment programs offered overall approximately 4,48 give or take a few uh

027students took advantage of dbd's summer programs this past year we could not have accomplished a summer of such amazing opportunities for students and families without each of the dedicated teachers and program administrators and and host campuses who made each summer offering possible also as important as I've stated before um we want to give a huge shout out to our classified staff including our food services folks our bus drivers our custodians and the community ad lead instructors and assistants for their service to students this summer we truly do have extraordinary teachers and staff in our district thank you thank you Dr Galligan do we have any um questions board members Mrs paperman I am amazed uh watching the presentation teacher is just amazing that you know our dear Valley students you know summer curriculum uh it's

028you know it's geared for them to learning and growth uh yes one of the questions I have is is the summer program free to all students or uh or of tuition p uh president O'Brien and Miss paperman um the high school online course is a fee based course and it always has been and it was again this year every other program was non-tuition non-fee based that's amazing thank you thank you for all all the hard work thank you you're welcome Mrs Reed um I just wanted to say thank you and thank you to our um classified staff who worked so hard to support um all of the different programs that we had we know that we couldn't do it without without them and um especially our our bus drivers and our food service workers who

029were um working extra hard to meet the needs of um our our kids in our community um just two quick little comments stories for you Dr gallagan um I happen to mention to my H fourth grader that there was math over the summer and he looked at me shocked and said why didn't you sign me up and I said what I didn't think you wanted to go to school he goes I love math that sounded like so much fun I would have loved to go and I said well you're sold you're going next year so you'll have a you'll have a read kid enrolled um and then the second just um I think I I I shared with you but I I wanted to share it with um the rest of the teachers who might

030be um listening in um I was able to share um our summer programming with um a high schooler who um I help support and um who's who's close to our family and because we were offering some of those programs um for free he was able to take advantage of it so he could have room in his schedule to complete the CNA program um this year and um he's self-supporting himself um so he This was um a huge thing for him so he could work full-time while he was going to school and and cover all of his needs so thank you so much for um making ways for our students that might be um non-traditional we appreciate it Mrs fer I've always loved the summer program um especially the esa now I know that is funded

031um because of the esa because they have IEPs um and we have the classes that they can sign up we've had that it's how my daughter graduated a year early but um and I'm assuming we used eser funds to pay for some of these programs is that correct uh president O'Brien Miss Fischer that would be correct okay um moving forward do we have a plan to ensure that we do have some more funds or can we I mean I know that sr3 can go out a ways how we need to get the kids caught up um anyone who's behind and just enhance the education it's really wonderful what you all have done over the summer but do we have a plan on um how we can sustain that and for how long we can sustain

032it so that we kind of know we're at least catching the ones who maybe have fallen through and get them caught up president O'Brien Miss Fischer our goal is to accelerate learning and um we were just meeting actually this afternoon and our intent is to offer very similar and expanded programming in the summer in the 22 school year the 23 school year and in June of the 24 school year that's still in the plans but we believe um our Esser funds will allow us to provide uh these types of accelerating student learning um over those three Summers Mrs Ry all questions were answered I knew we were going to continue this um we'll be getting some data possibly at the end of the first semester to see um where we sit with the children that

033um took these classes make sure that we're keeping up president O'Brien Miss Ordway specifically we will do that with uh jump start students and then we will also pull information um for our El Learners and um the math level up remember those two were more enrichment whereas the jump start was an Intervention Program specific to academics well thank you excellent job for the um students thank you so much Dr gallagan and I do just all my questions got answered because of course my wonderful board members asked them first uh but I do want to again Echo the thanks to um all of the staff from De Valley that helped make this possible because obviously we need our teachers in the classroom but without um our bus drivers and Food Service workers and custodians and everyone

034else the administrators so thank you uh for helping to provide these extraord ordinary learning opportunities to our students all righty we will move on to um call to the public okay so the board invites public comment on the district's business in general and on any agenda item in specific all speakers must observe the rules of decorum speakers must fill out the cardless name address topic and hand to the board secretary prior to the president calling the meeting to order speakers must make their comments in no more than 3 minutes in this evening we have 10 speakers that would be 3 minutes each if necessary to accommodate uh speakers within the 30 minutes the president May shorten each speaker's time constructive criticism is in order rudess vulgarity disruptive conduct or remarks disrespecting personal dignity are not

035in order and will not be allowed under the Arizona open meeting law the board cannot discuss any or discuss or act on any items not listed on the agenda board members May respond to criticism made by a speaker ask staff to review a matter or ask that a matter be put on a future agenda uh president O'Brien did you want to um remind everyone about uh specific names um yes when you make your comments please make sure you do not um say any staff's uh name specifically so if the first um speaker would step up to the microphone okay I do have the first Speaker as uh Miss Portwood but you did say that you wanted to speak at the agenda item do you want to speak now or do you want to wait until

0366C comes up okay just wanted to check we'll come back to you then so next would if we could get in line Dr sander McGowan um Larry you're after your wife I guess she handed hers in first um Erin gney and Brett Rosen Bal and then we'll start with the next group okay please state your name for the record and then your time will begin I am Dr Sandra maau can you stand speak step a little bit closer to the microphone is that possible I am Dr Sandra ma ars1 15102 provides parents the opportunity to preview all instructional materials Aris ARS 15102 explains the role of the governing board in this process on July the 12th we submitted a request to preview all instructional material for 6th and e8th grade curriculum on July 26 we

037attended a meeting at Diamond Canyon we received Sixth and eighth grade instructional standards language arts textbooks and novels we received the approved list of ela materials we were told that we were required to check check canvas each Monday morning to preview the science and social studies resources that would be used we did this on Monday uh Neil watched videos about archaeology and Audrey copied four definitions about feudalism from the teacher then Audrey was required to cut and paste information from ducksters.com and worldhistory do org to complete her assignment the eighth grade dvusd textbook discovering our past history of the US was not referenced do you know what duckers is duers is wholly owned by techn ological Solutions Incorporated Jeff Kenny the author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid is worth over $110 million he made

038his fortune selling advertisements on duxter and the sale of his books do note duckers wholly owned by TSI makes no claims as to the accuracy of their information on our websites all information data software Services used from this website are used at the owner's own risk we do not provide or claim to provide any professional advice on this website I visited ducker's website and researched CRT anti-fascism woke BLM and racial topics ads popped up for each search ads marketed the user to buy a hand handbook on becoming an anti-fascist I didn't buy that handbook I received an email from the assistant principal at Diamond Canyon on Friday and was told to preview all social studies materials through canvas I forwarded this message to each governing board member the and curriculum department on Monday I finally

039received an email identifying the board approved textbooks for 67th and eighth grade studies it is McGraw Hill the title is discovering our past in history of the world 8ighth grade title discovering our past A History of the United States I was informed I can access these textbooks books through dbsd through a program called clever obviously am not I never got there did the governing board approve these textbooks then those are the DB USD resources that are approved to teach social studies where supplemental materials approved did the Govern thank you for your [Applause] [Music] comments please state your name for the record and then your time will begin my name Larry maccau ARS 15102 requires that DB USD has procedures by which parents May learn about the entire course of study for their children and review

040Learning Materials including the source of any Supplemental Educational materials I can obtain these materials 10 days after I request them and I could either preview them and I can or and I can opt out of them however I've been told that I can only get these materials on Monday in canvas in fact the resources are uploaded or identified in canvas on Monday I won't have the opportunity to preview the materials and my point is I need these materials in advance so we can preview them and approve them I forward to you all a uh some questions the from an assignment our granddaughter got last year about hatred uh that she completed last year and one of some of the questions were have have we seen hatred prior to 2021 answer segregation savy racism politics other

041questions have you felt hatred is hatred is hating another person a learned behavior what is the source my question is what is the source of the instructional instructional resource for these questions and and answers is is it isn't this the goal of CRT uh man in fact this is really just Mis information that that's being pushed at us slavery segre segregation racism and politics were not caused were not caused by hatred point is Teachers not qualified to discuss hatred and they have no right to teach their values we're concerned that the principal of Diamond Canyon can approve books and resources for the teachers a teacher completes a dvusd novel submission form then the principal can approve the novel a question is is is the principal on this board uh on the governing board if she's

042not then according to AR ARS 15102 how can she approve the books of the supplemental materials as a matter of fact uh we have to ask that the governing board approve uh the book the refugee the book Chains the book bronze Bo I don't think you did but the principal did possibly you should review all the materials that have been submitted by teachers and approved by principles we just need a process in place here because ARS 15102 holds you responsible please put a system in place to ensure the materials approved by the governing board are utilized to teach our children other materials cannot be used unless they've been provided provided to us and approved by us as you know Governor duy signed House Bill 2906 prohibiting the teaching of acrt in Arizona the e8th grade

043Arizona standard citizens ship and Civic engagement in today's society is an area that must be taught using DB usd's governing board approved materials the eth grade approved text is MCR thank you for your comments the next speaker stand [Applause] forward my name is Aaron gettting I'm a parent of students at Highland Lakes and I'm here to speak on behalf of parents who are disturbed by the lack of leadership that this board has shown regarding Mitigation Of efforts for covid-19 and the poor boilerplate nonresponse provided to other friends as well as to me it's telling that last year's slogan was Return to learning and this year's slogan is remain in school it's also telling that the messaging received from multiple administrators and teachers is that the goal is to make things like preco days if the

044district goal is to have kids remain in school why is the district taking no steps to ensure that this happens instead of mitigation the messaging on your campuses is that everything is back to normal this is not going to magically disappear and this school year is going to be massively stunted because so many kids are going to be in and out of school as of today according to Maricopa County the positivity rate is 16% which is deemed highly transmissible the latest numbers from Arizona Department of Health show that 27% of new cases in Arizona are for people under the age of 20 this is only going to get worse according to Steve Irvin of abc5 Avendale has quarantined 14 class 14 classrooms with over 400 students and staff are out if you do nothing to

045help mitigate this you will be looking at the same thing this district is not showing any leadership whatsoever in helping to prevent the spread of covid in fact the inaction is detrimental to the health of these kids and their families the fact that the covid dashboard is only updated monthly is appalling and smacks of trying to obstruct valuable information from parents children are already being told on or before the seventh day of school that they may have been exposed and should quarantine this is only going to get worse as the younger kids who can't be vaccinated or kids whose parents won't vaccinate are infected as cases continue to spike your job is to educate and protect the children within the district and I can't believe that you are engaging in political posturing because you clearly

046don't want to take mitigation steps recommended by the CDC you lack the character that you claim students should show at school and in life school should be a place where kids can feel safe and it is far from safe with the fact that literally nothing is being done step up and protect the children of this District stand up to the governor and require masks thank you next har Bieber Becky Smith and Ros Mary Spalding hello my name is Carrie Bieber I want to thank the board for letting me speak before you today my concern is with Kinder arrival procedures my daughter um Friday was scared to leave me at the sign which reads stop no parents Beyond this point I explained to her that I could not walk her to her classroom as she had

047requested me doing in tears at that time another staff member approached my daughter took her by the arm asked me what class she belonged in in which I informed her she took my daughter crying by the arm to her class I am deeply Disturbed that I cannot take my kindergarten student a 5-year-old to her class where she is never been before she's never been in school she was not in preschool I am requesting that you take into consideration that these students do not understand why their parents cannot welome them to school neither does your staff when asked why this was going on I was told by the teacher it was due to covid restrictions however I was then told by the principal that these procedures have been in place prior to covid if I cannot

048explain to my daughter why these procedures are in place and your staff cannot explain to me why they're in place why should I honor them and not walk my students to her classroom the sign in which I can stop at does not allow me to see that my daughter has made it into her classroom safely on Friday after this incident she cried all weekend about not wanting to return to school when asked why she noted that she was scared when the teacher grabbed her by the arm no student should have to feel that way please take into consideration that at a kindergarten level students are not capable of walking themselves to their classrooms they are scared Co hysteria is scaring them so I hope you take into consideration what I've said today also covid is

049not going anywhere the flu and other cold V viruses are not going anywhere if this is because of covid it needs to stop also we should be able to volunteer in our students classrooms and observe now not in the second quarter thank you uh yeah I'm going to I I just wanted to real quick uh Brent I called you in the first part but I didn't call you the second part so I'm going to call you after I didn't forget about you sorry next speaker please state your name for the record and then your time will start my name is Becky Smith um first and foremost I would like to thank you for supporting our children to breathe freely smile at their friends and see their teachers faces many teachers that I personally talked to

050have expressed the huge difference in this year versus last year in their children's happiness and overall climate at school and are actually loving it um I know there are some people pushing to mandate masks again and this is very concerning not only will this have a huge social and emotional impact on our kids and as we all know suicide rates were High um but kids are just beginning to feel normal again and you can clearly see that that is not what the majority wants if you visit schools I know teachers at Las press they said about 8 to 10 teachers on whole campus wear masks and maybe estimated 12% of students Sarah verie two staff members are wearing masks and very few students so if you guys go and visit your schools you will see

051that the majority is silently speaking they're not here because they don't want the backlash but they are silently speaking by going to school and making the choice that we are given As Americans to not wear a mask um uh this data is um the staff and the families that you're supposed to serve and support so I hope that you look at that seriously we can go round around on the effectiveness of mass but ultimately it's a choice and and we live in America that should be a choice vaccine should always be a choice if you are unaware of the name Patrick King from Alberta Canada you need to look it up to summarize he was being fined and challenged by the court for violating protocols he um subpoena the court to prove that they have

052isolated the SARS covid 2 virus and they could not prove this to him so his case was immediately dropped and now all testing masking quarantining and other mitigations in Alberta are be coming to an end because they could not prove that I don't know why this hasn't changed how we function worldwide it's beyond me um there are many doctors who have been attending board meetings around our country one of those is Dr Dan stock from Indiana he's an immunologist and he States like the common colder flu covid will never go away because it is a Corona virus there's nothing you can do with a mask or a vaccine it's going to be something we learn to live with just like the cold or the flu so why aren't people live listening to individual doctors rather

053than the giant money and power hungry entities that keep changing their advice every few weeks we need to stop living in fear and start moving forward as a country um we have also become divided and mean and this is sad including teachers you guys have a fifth grade teacher who decided to thank and give Awards to the kids who are wearing masks in his class that is disgusting discriminatory and downright bullying I would expect a teacher to keep their thoughts whether they're Pro or against masks or vaccines to themselves and simply teach their subject matter these blatant pushes of personal or political opinion need to dealt with with disciplinary action kids are not supposed to be bullied and a absolutely not by their teachers thank you for your comments please state your name for the

054record and then your time will begin hi my name is Rose Spalding and I just want to um remind you of the affidavits that we served you that state that you can't segregate our children you can't quarantine our children you can't mask our children you can't CTR seal or any other sex education our children without our permission and if we are aware of this we will be taking you to mediation and that's $30,000 per case so if you want to continue to do what you're doing and take our children and teach them things that they shouldn't be being taught in the school then we will make sure that we take further action against you and take you to mediation so that we can actually get charged for what you're doing Brent rosenbom um let's see

055I can't read that what is that Rachel yeah Rachel white and Rachel Stewart I think is that right yes it is I got please state your name for the record and then your time will begin Bren Rosen bomb so I had a whole thing written up about the amount of disinformation that's being shared in here about Co So Co is real 600,000 Americans have died of Co and that is far and above what happens with the flu no that is accurate go tell that to the please address your comments to the board so we need to actually protect our students there are 43,000 kids in the Deer Valley District over half of them I know how many kids it's online there are 43,000 kids in Deer Valley District half of them are not allowed to

056get a vaccine that means and then the other half are not enabled themselves and empowered themselves to go get the vaccine if they want to which means that actually we have likely 75% of the students over 30,000 kids that you guys are responsible for that are at risk and we're in here saying I just heard that I am a that the people not wearing masks are not the ones in here the people yelling at me and the loudest voices are the ones that are spreading disinformation in here so let's just be clear we should be masking our students because please let him speak the mask does not protect the person wearing it it protects the people around them so this is a public safety measure it is a public safety measure and it is just

057like drunk driving we have a law against drunk driving not because we care about the person driving drunk but because of all the people they may injure sir you need to stop speaking speaking or leave please let him speak everyone El extra time interr you will get your time so let me go on to critical race Theory I have a feeling that people speaking of it do not know what it is critical race theory is a legal theory that says the laws of the United States were put in place which is a fact during segregation or slavery and as a result there are there is a uh history and an embedded unfairness in our legal system that in facts people and minorities today that is the reality of what critical race theory is what I'm

058hearing people accuse are teachers who are doing the best they can to educate our kids to be good upstanding citizens to look Beyond color but also to understand that people of color have faced things that me as a white guy have not faced that's okay that's good our kids should have empathy for others and it's absurd that a bunch of people who haven't faced that whatever challenges I've faced the one thing I have not faced is being black or being a woman or many other things and that's okay I can understand that people have faced other challenges that I have faced that does not discredit the hard work or anything that I've earned so just in conclusion we should take care of our kids we should stand up to Doug duy and the people who

059are spreading misinformation hey you know you got he didn't you guys need to stop please finish your comments please finish your comments sir and I think my point is proven that the loudest voices are the people lying and spreading misinformation that they heard on Facebook me mhm she can go too I when I W when I was in the Air Force and served this country okay thank you sir for your comments All right so maybe we could stop talking sir thank you for your [Music] comments is he the last one sir please thank you for your comments please have a seat thank you are you ready we are go ahead okay just as a reminder before you begin speaking this person has signed up for public comments they have three minutes please do not interrupt

060them everybody that signs up gets there 3 minutes we want to listen to them if you would like to speak and address the board please do do so by attending the coming to the meeting prior to 7:00 and filling out the appropriate form and turning it into our lovely board secretary Mrs Taylor otherwise please do not interrupt our speakers thank you please state your name for the record and then your time will begin my name is Rachel white I wanted to um thank you guys for being here and letting us speak um last time I was here I was wearing a mask so I think that things are improving and I appreciate being able to talk um something struck me I didn't want to speak my my heart beats out of my shirt but um

061my son has a friend at school that's so afraid of covid they wear their mask all day at school and at home um they sleep in a mask and wake up with panic attacks when they wake wake up when it's not on their face this child's parents are bewildered and have started to seek counseling for their child that's now the panic attacks are happening more frequently the tragedy of this story is I feel like for the powers that be this is kind of a mission accomplished scenario and I'm not um you know it may not be applicable to all of you but uh certainly worth noting kids are very vulnerable to adult leadership it seems to be the driving force sometimes as to why their rights are singled out and attacked um how do I

062make sense of this to my son he comes with me with so many questions and I don't want to deflate um my idea of freedom and the American dream um so wishing that his education revolved just around the three hours I have to help him reconcile he learns that the adults he interacts with that school care bottom very very much but most of their bosses don't he learns that wearing masks is mostly about control and power unless you're in an operating room and uh in a doctor's office and it's not really about safety at school he also learns that he has to be very careful to trust our government because they're allowed to lie to him and the grown-ups let them lie he's learned that manipulation means or what manipulation means what brainwashing means also

063the importance of voting so there's an upside um he said last year during the school year that we should pray for the bosses and ask Jesus to help them tell the truth I'm full of sin I'm not virtue signaling um it it made me cry it kind of still does talking about it but it was totally his idea every night we have prayed for you guys U we pray for the leadership in this country and for the parents um that we continue to um act and conduct ourselves with our kids U best interests at heart he's got a lot of faith in you guys he has a lot of faith in his school we love statson Hills um and we do we continue to pray every day um he also prays every night for his

064friend to not be scared anymore so his friend won't have to cough so much in the mask that they wear and uh we just we'll keep praying thank you so much for your comments and prayers please state your name for the record and your time will begin um hi my name is Rachel Stewart um I have a child at Highland Lakes and Green Brier um I want to thank the board I know um it's a volunteer position um it's um a long um um appointment and I know that you get um difficulty from either side and from parents um and trying to make everybody happy so um my question is um my husband and I are fairly new to U Public School in the Deer Valley District um and trying to be more involved especially

065since last year there's been a lot of questions that have come up um that we don't really know the answers to so my question for the board um is really on guidance how parents um can make comments input um answer questions um for items that are discussed at the meetings um that are on the agenda items for the meetings um I understand that there is a lot covered in the meetings this is my second one that I've been to and I've listened to two more online um and and that being a um an involved parent is really what our children need um obviously so that we can make an impact on their education and make sure that they're getting what they need but um I my question for you is um how how can a

066parent get involved in some of the the discussions um on things that are discussed you know prior as far as some of the agenda items um that we feel that we would like to get more information on or um discussions on items that are um on the subject matter um the construction of the Innovative um Center Pro or Innovation Center project for the online schools um I guess I questioned on why we need a building for the online students to go to uh when they choose to be online and not actually go to a school um I know this was um started discussion in November of last year uh so that is obviously I know it's being voted on next uh board meeting um the Arizona School Board Association 2022 political agenda um there are

067some concerning items that are put in the agenda um I'm curious on how those came about I want to believe that some of those are existing um and there are some additional items in red that were put in there but how is parents because I know it's being voted on next um the next meeting but how can we put our input on that because there's a lot there there are several items in there that I feel are concerning that um are directly affecting um the student so um I want to thank you I know it's uh been a difficult you know year for everybody and we just want what's best for our students and our um and our kids thank you is that all of our speakers except for the one at the agenda item

068okay so I'm going to move to just one second thank you for your comments and um we will have someone try to address the your questions Mrs Stewart and um get back to you via email okay thank you Brian I I would like to request that um uh maybe we have a I don't know study session or a public session with our with our community um to discuss when the classroom plans are available and the supplemental materials I know that we've heard from um Miss uh mcgaan and and and her family several times over the last few years um and I just want I we can't respond to them in public comments and but I just think it would be a good idea if we had a discussion as a board in public where people

069can get the information um for what they need um and then I also wanted to know that I would like for us to possibly have some type of um site or I mean I've mentioned it before but something where we are getting the information um maybe a feedback there's parent groups that do their own talking behind locked sites but we don't really have anything where our parents can weigh in um other than when they email us directly because we can't talk to each other and I think a lot of them don't understand that we can't talk to each other outside of here um so I'm just asking that we perhaps in the future look for an alternative or a way we could um have that service for our parents okay I'll have Mrs Taylor follow

070up with you on that idea so we can get further [Music] clarification Mrs Reed um so last board me board sorry excuse me last board meeting um when the maau were here and they spoke um I had made a request that that we were able to to do a study session on what Mrs fiser mentioned um regarding um literature adoption and how um how that happens go over textbook and curriculum adoption again um we can go through the the process for committees and and all of that um so parents who are um just joining the district or who are um more actively engaged um last year year and this year have that information readily available um so if we could yes I believe that we talked about getting that scheduled here in the next um

071two or three board meetings given what we have all planned out so we will follow back up yep okay um our a motion ready to move yes I would make a motion that the governing board approv consent agenda items 5A through 550 I second all those in favor I I I hi is that a unanimous vote Mrs Taylor if I just can I tell that's the only way I okay was that an i motion um passes unanimously no problem appreciate it um item 6 a order all right I'll make a motion that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation to pre-approve the agenda as presented I second all oh is there any discussion Mrs Fischer again we have not had an opportunity to have a meeting and I know it's just been a short time

072but this agenda is virtually all district office um and I I'm sorry could you answer that what did you you say Miss Fisher knows that it's uh that's where it's coded that doesn't necessarily mean it comes from my office no I'm not saying it comes from your office drch right I said the district office yeah that's where I work no but what is sorry could you clarify Mrs fiser Right so when I look at it when I look at something that's happening at a school and we see that it's coded to the school generally it's something that's at the school now when it's coded at the district office it may be that it that person may be at the school but it's a an agenda for something that's at the district office we have not

073had the discussion of what some of this means some of it we know obviously we know if it's a football coach he's coaching football somewhere it is what it is we don't have that Clarity when we see a lot of them that are at the do and I am just concerned that every single agenda that we see is very district office heavy or do heavy and I am concerned that we are not um our principles are awesome they are so smart they can definitely manage their sites so I'm I'm concerned have we cut funding to them and they so that's why we're doing it to the do they're not getting the additional F we had that happen in the past was not during your time here Dr Finch but so without having that background and

074knowledge um I'm just concerned that we have so much coded this way so Mr mcino can I ask a question regarding you know I'm looking at the chart that you provide us that is and maybe it's not you is it Mrs mock sorry I always ask the wrong person is it you Mrs mock for coding for coding for the budget if I can defer to her that's perfect I well I always ask the wrong person then you guys defer to whoever is the right person so I'm just going to say Mrs or Mr miglino the the when we have like a title one coordinator on here is that a spe a can a campus specific position but is paid out of additional funds that come from district office the answer to that could be yes

075okay uh or it could be coded at the school level uh title budgets there's a lot of that that comes directly from the school level and the School principles work directly with our grant program manager um to develop their plans and determine what supports they need at their school and that determines what agenda that are brought forward on their behalf okay and then another funding source I see here is Community Schools um uh Deer Valley online program I develop right so again is that um and those are from Aspire CT internships there's a variety of different um agenda position there president O'Brien yes those are part of the school Aspire so those are the part-time teachers who teach at High School in Aspire okay so again they're they're attached to a school but their funding

076is coming from district office and can you or from the a district line item can you help us understand that Mrs mock uh president O'Brien um absolutely it is a combination and and part of what you're seeing is part of the growth of aspire over the last two years previously most of the students who were attending Aspire uh were obviously high school we had not extended to the kindergarten through sixth grade uh as we did last year and most of them for were for most of the enrollments were for credit advancement or credit recovery and so when you see Community Schools fund 520 means that most of those were then paid by the tuition paid by those students to enroll in those courses uh during the school year or during the summer and we are

077working on um this year we worked with human resources to make sure that there was a specific uh cost center specifically for aspire to place their full-time teachers in addition to these high school teachers and there's going to be a little bit of um you know if you look at yeah there's a little bit of both there are teachers who are uh funded and coded fulltime to the school and then there are those teachers who are teaching those um course recovery or credit advancement courses and students are still paying tuition for those and so we first go to that tuition fund to fund those teachers as opposed to District directly so it it's a little bit of both but anytime you see that agenda it's typically going to be those tuition kiddos and so we're

078charging that tuition fund okay excellent thank you for that um additional information so um having said that I do know that you did request some additional inform uh a work work study I also confuse these two Mrs fiser and I believe that's also um coming up in the calendar in the next couple of meetings so if there are no more questions or comments I will call for the vote all those in favor please say I I I any oppose say nay motion passes 4 to one all right moving on to 6B I would motion that the governing board approve all employee out of state travel per governing board policy GCC I second any discussion or questions hearing none I call for the vote all those in favor please say I I I I I any

079opposed please say nay no I'm I've got that under control so do we have um sorry was that a did you vote I or I'm sorry I'll vote I that motion passes unanimously um item 6C please okay this is where we're going to have a public comment after we do the motion right I'm going to make a motion that the governing board approve professional travel for superintendent to attend aasa National Conference on education in Nashville Tennessee February 15 through the 19th 2022 I second okay we have a speaker Mara this is your your agenda item please state your name for the record then your time will begin hold on one second let us get that she was she was here for the admonishment originally okay awesome state your name hello my name is Marcia Portwood

080and I just want to thank you all I know that what you do here is a volunteer position many people think you get paid and you don't so I appreciate the work that you do on behalf of our kids and I hope that you will listen to what I have to say the reason I'm speaking against um the uh approval of professional travel for the superintendent at this conference it is by the aasa school superintendent Association and in investigating what it is that they're going to be covering and what it is they generally do cover and push it is 15 pages right here that I printed out if anybody wants to see it mainly on equity and Justice and education and some of there and there isn't a single page on any of these 15

081that aren't talking about Equity education which we all know just basically is a lead to CRT which could also put us in legal trouble because we're not supposed to be teaching CRT so why we would send our superintendent there to be do uh indoctrinated um some of the things on here that it's talking about is what is the role of superintendent and Equity outcomes teacher hiring and recruitment Equity contracts awarded what about systemic barriers in achievement um if you're not focused on Equity this role is not for you um program and policy ideas to improve outcomes for children of color uh so that's just a little bit right there of what this is based on um so to quote Daniel Dominic who's the executive director of aasa the school superintendent Association and just please forgive

082me I'm not going to read the whole thing because I only have three minutes but some key points here he says our mission clearly states our commitment to equity a core element of all work that we do Equity is Central to the work of superintendents and the school systems they lead I didn't know that Equity was the core now is the time for all educational leaders to intensify our commitment to address inequities and work to dismantle the systemic racism I would like to say how can we judge someone's economic worth as it assumes s people like me people of color you may not know that are less than as if our parents didn't know how to make sure we got a good education you will often hear it said that Equity is not about serving

083one group to the detriment of another this of course is a lie it is UT utterly about group equality which requires individual Injustice America was rooted in equality and freedom Equity requires freedom to be curbed it's therefore a national tragedy to watch equality of Rights abandoned in favor of equity if freedom is discarded to achieve equality of outcome we no longer live in America as defined by the Declaration of Independence we live in America defined by tribalism and leveling and in short order tyranny what will your legacy be in your roles are you going to stand by and be the ones that open the door to this thank you thank you so much for your comments are there any questions or comments by the board Mrs I understand where individuals come from when they see

084some of these conferences um and I have attended many asba conferences um both uh local and National and I do agree sometimes what they are pushing is counter to what most parents would want for their kids um but I really struggle with telling Dr Finch that he can't go because when I've gone I have attended some of these courses and I have openly called BS on some of it I have been able to to notice when things are it's like you okay you're telling us this but this is what's factual and I don't know what Dr Finch would do at the conference maybe he would suck it all up and enjoy it but maybe he won't maybe he will look at what they're saying and say okay but this is how that is impacting kids

085in my district maybe he could Inspire another superintendent to not support the divisive Parts because honoring all Races does not mean you have to be divisive you know I I get all the time that what would I know I'm a stupid white girl or I'm a Ginga or I'm whatever they don't know that I'm Hispanic because I don't have the right color um but unless we we give him the opportunity to at least find out what is happening on the national level um and then bring it back and and share it with us he may share it and we may say that's total Bull and we support that but he may not and um and contractually we are required to allow him to have professional development I don't know that there is any other professional

086development for him um available and so I want the public to realize that um and and I would hope that as the board approves him to go to this that there is an expectation that he will bring back materials from whatever he attends and we'll send them out to the board because we ourselves need to know what's happening on a national level a lot of the stuff that is um offensive to many any of the parents in our district they didn't start during covid they didn't start even a year before Co I've been watching them go in since 2014 and nobody was speaking up so I really feel we need him to go because we need him to bring the information back if you want to do something honestly about it get on your knees

087and pray that his heart is open for truth that's it Mrs paperman as an educator of 18 years of superintendent principls teachers uh we uh have attended professional development training at the superintendent level uh first of all I know if their parents were concern of the of any training that superintendent May attend but the reality is the governing board is the one that makes the decision involded uh what is going to be passed uh within the district uh so so I just wanted to clarify that that uh that we are the ones that that have have to vote for anything to be passed Mrs Reed um during my um tenure on the board I've had the opportunity to attend um a handful of different conferences either online or in person and I can't tell you

088that I've been to one conference where I've um agreed with a 100% of everything that I've heard um when I go to conferences I go to look and see what breakout sessions um are applicable to our district um to our the students that are um in our demographic um you know whether it's sometimes um it's it's specific to title students and if I don't know a lot of information about title funding I might go to that um to that breakout session um sometimes I go to breakout sessions specifically to find out information on um an opposing Viewpoint because I think for me it's important um when I'm up here considering policy to understand what both sides have to say and so if I view it just from My Lens I'm not um taking into consideration

089what um what some other parents and teachers and students um might be viewing it from so I can't speak for how Dr Finch attends conferences but I wanted to put that out there that I don't think any of us have gone to conferences and and we agree you know 100% but my my viewpoint is I take what I can and I bring it back and I leave the rest um but I think it's important for Dr Finch to to weigh in on on why he might want to go why that's important to him Dr Finch everything that everyone has said is true uh yes you don't um go to every session because you can't so you pick and choose the the ones that help your District but yes you you also look for opposing viewpoints

090and why they are thinking that way this is my 23rd year as a superintendent and I've been to 23 conferences that are the same uh type of conference the superintendent conference it is the national scale the national perspective and uh it's important for your superintendent to be plugged in at the national level to know uh where things are heading because obviously as one gentleman said we have a lot of students a lot of Staff 32,000 and 4,000 uh staff and so it's an important job to be a connected be uh not only to your legislature and your legislative branches but also um your community there's many parts of the job one part that needs um is important is that I stay in tune so what is happening and you learn a lot of this from

091your from your conferences thank you Dr fch Mrs Ordway are you good all right um we will call for a vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed please say nay that byb passes unanimously next item that the governing board approve the superintendent's 2021 2022 performance pay goals I second any um discussion Mrs Fischer I um I remain concerned that this board has not held a meeting to to elect to take an alternative to what is in statute and um I know that the belief is because the prior contract had information about it that we don't have to um I still disagree I also believe that it is very concerning that the presentation and the discussion about all this um was done in an executive session um because I don't believe it

092is something that should have been done in an executive session um per the Attorney General's opinion um that was provided that's that is my take on it um I will seek further Clarity but um I am concerned um I've said it before that I'm concerned that there are no deliverables for the superintendent himself um and I am um concern because I mean this is a large amount of money we don't you know teachers don't get to just say hey I'm going to pick my top 10 students and what their grades are that's mine it doesn't happen anywhere else and I'm very concerned about these I'm concerned that the law is not being followed um I will follow up but I cannot support goals um you know perhaps had we had that large discussion in public

093and our public could have been a part of that uh strategic planning session um maybe the community would have expressed that we should support that um but without transparency I just can't support these goals any other comment um so I'm going to say that we um did approve in a public meeting with his contract an attachment that says we follow um followed our a an alternative strategic um or performance plan for a superintendent additionally um upon legal advice we did hold the previous session in um an executive session regarding these uh performance PL plan goals um we are here in a public meeting as we have been um in the past years not just with this superintendent but in previous superintendant um to approve these goals where the public could provide feedback to them uh

094in addition all board members had an opportunity to review the uh materials prior to the previous meeting and also provide input if they um wanted some changes to these uh Dr Finch did we receive any feedback on these after the last meeting none after the last meeting okay so if there do you have any comments no it's um standard um again this is my 23rd year of doing this um this is very common I actually appreciate this format this remember this came out of uh Jenny Frank former board member this uh format and approach and was a nice team effort our strategic plan is built on community input and this comes from that so we're in the fifth year of our um strategic plan we'll be starting a new one uh the following year yes

095I do appreciate you um reminding me of that because these are built off of our strategic plan and in my first uh few years as a school board member um the performance pay goals uh were not what I would call smart goals they they didn't have um specific deliverables always uh that we could measure so I think that is important that we did change to that format and this um is a nice way to look at different aspects of our strategic plan including uh assisting our students in in their learning especially those who we don't normally um haven't focused on in a goal so with that I will call for the vote Mrs Reed um I just wanted to clarify um something that my previous board members had had said um in this meeting and

096in previous meetings Mrs Fischer has brought up concerns that we were violating um Statute in having um the performance pay goals like this and so tonight we did have an executive session with legal counsel to bring up Mrs Fischer's questions and the legal council that was provided to us said that we are not violating statute so miss Reed you're violating open me you're violating an executive session by coming out here and discussing what was in the executive session I if we want to discuss it we can discuss the whole thing but I don't think that's legal I would prefer this whole discussion be done in public and that's what I've said um we received legal advice prior to this evening that was not an executive session that said we were following um the statute there

097is I'm happy to Dr Finch will provide you the legal advice we Pro that we received prior to that I have it it has the AG opinion attached to it and it talks about transparency I will be seeking additional clarification from the attorney general that's fine you can thank you okay all those in favor please say I I I any opposed please say the motion passes 4 to one is that correct thank you item e uh I would move that we approve the guaranteed maximum price for construction of the Innovation Center project I second Mr mcino uh president O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch um I will uh attempt to be somewhat brief but I I do want to share some information about this because this is a unique project for us um and

098we have shared a great deal of information about it but it's been over a long period of time uh we did provide some additional information for the board uh just to give you that historical perspective uh it is in uh board docs if you um need to reference any of the previous information that we have shared with you um the purpose of the Innovation Center and just kind of a little bit of History uh this was actually formulated um with the 2019 Bond committee so that committee started in year 2018 um and came up with an idea of having an innovation Center um I will tell you uh because I was I I led that committee um they did not uh predict a pandemic they did not predict uh the growth of our online uh

099program back in 2018 uh so what was um conceived at that point was really u a much smaller uh project than what we are bringing forward to you uh this evening but it is a place um for because we have been an online provider um originally called Arizona inline provider or actually originally called tappy um you know you know years of acronyms but essentially uh we were one of the seven initial districts in the state providing online services or online coursework for students and so um this was a place for that program to kind of Blossom um again never was it uh considered that it would be the size that were uh uh projecting with this particular uh project um but it was part of that uh Bond initiative um this gives us a little

100bit of the rationale for why uh we have uh nearly 500 full-time students that have elected for uh what we now call Aspire and so um if you take into account our part-time students that number would be an excess of 700 students uh so this has become its own School uh again that was not part of what was in initially envisioned um but that is what it has become um it also part of the original uh thoughts of an innovation Center was was to be able to provide some space to um to be able to innovate uh to to be able to have opportunities for uh Gatherings whether that's professional development whether it's Gatherings for students in a hybrid model where they may be taking classes online and need to congregate on occasion uh for

101certain Project based learning uh things of that nature uh so that was what that part of the of of the project was originally uh envisioned um so kind of what is the project so we have a building that's located here at the district office um so this is kind of a map that shows the district office here I kind of blew up the um in in the cloud there the area that actually uh we're talking about it's what we refer to as our old Warehouse or our old Annex um that represents about uh the large space or the large square that you see there is about just over 14,000 sare ft um the the small area to the left of that um or actually to the West is uh just about 200 ft U that

102would be some office space so in total about 16,500 ft a little more than that um being envisioned this space was being underutilized um well actually it was probably being over utilized but for the some of the wrong reasons it became what I refer to affectionately as our junk drawer uh so we had we were using it for storage um and you can kind of see what this uh what this looked like it does not look like this today um so the area has been cleaned up we we did there was a great deal of effort from many people uh to be able to uh clear out this and basically there was a lot of um a lot of neglect you know things were taken out there U nobody followed up with them they just

103stayed out there for years and so it just really forced us to kind of go through that junk drawer and throw out those coupons that had expired or maybe that's what happens at my junk door in my house but uh uh so this is what the architect that we partnered with um has kind of envisioned for us so that's this uh same space that I was showing before um some large open areas uh for um you know flexible space to be able to be used for multiple um um multiple functions multiple events uh a large learning stair kind of in the center that you see off at an angle um we'll show some pictures of that there are some additional restrooms to uh that'll be required for for the code that are behind the stairs

104uh some learning Labs or collaboration space uh as I'm working my way around um and then a lot of open office areas uh with the 700 students that we're serving with as Spire we have about 43 staff members uh that are working full-time at that school now uh so they need they need a home they need a place to be able to uh perform the the the work that they're doing we are proposing this to be a open Office Space so um not necessarily a designated office for each of those uh staff members um depending on their role in the Aspire school but a place where they can hang a hat come in um take care of some of the work that they need to do uh and then uh do the work that we're

105uh assigning to them uh there will be uh this kind of just a overview of the uh reflective ceiling plan um basically the large open area that you see here um is going to be up to the roof uh the the existing uh ceiling height um then there's some a lower ceiling uh that is part of the you know to accentuate the learning stairs and to uh uh finish off the office areas we are expanding uh the mezzanine the there is a second floor if you will to this uh building and we originally thought we would build this out for uh various needs um but due to some budget constraints we're we're uh considering to add the additional uh second floor but not necessarily build it out so it'll be available for us uh in

106in a future phase one of the things that we had to consider uh with this project as we had to do likewise with Elementary 32 is that we will be uh considering that this will be um part of what we call phase one which would probably be the major phase uh uh improvements for this uh for this particular project uh phase two would include uh potentially building out the the second floor the mezzanine it's not a super high um ceiling height on the second floor uh so there's some of that is reserved for storage because some of our junk drawer stuff has to go back um you know required by uh by uh the uh library of archives um retention requirement ments um but the uh part of the area in the center of the

107building because of the pitch of the roof um does provide for an opportunity for us to have some usable space up there as well for for other purposes um this just kind of the what the floor is going to look like most of the floor is going to be uh polished concrete um with a carpet in the office areas just for uh um acoustical reasons um and just gives you kind of a flavor for how the spaces could be broken up the dark line that you see uh kind of uh it it's it's actually going from east to west or west to east um that it adjoins the learning stairs that's an operable wall that uh would allow for kind of a visual um uh barrier between uh the two spaces if it needed to

108be partitioned in in some way for more than one activity happening at the same time uh this just give you a sense of some of the finishes that the architect is suggesting uh this does not mean that this is what the carpet will look like um as a reminder I don't pick colors for the district uh thankfully um because I'm effectively colorblind so um I couldn't even tell you what those colors really look like um these are some of the finishes on the uh the other devices uh the pendant lights things of that nature again more conceptual but just to give you some ideas uh brilliant colors um trying to bring some life to uh what is really a giant you know square box um here are some I think the next two pictures are

109just conceptual renderings of of the space this is as you would be walking in um we're showing two options here uh the colored picture in the center of the screen actually has like a reception desk uh potential so if there wasn't a event somebody could man that desk we're not really uh thinking that it would be a position that we would fill um but if there was an event that we could uh then have that be the host station if you will the alternative is the black and white image uh to the right which is kind of a uh just an information um I don't know cubby uh where you know you would be able to U present a sign to be able to tell people direct people which which way to go um and

110then that would just allow a little more space for uh the other offices uh in the actual building itself this is kind of a conceptual rendering of the uh learning stairs that I mentioned so you actually would uh go up the stairs on the on the far right um You can see it's two steps for each of those stairs so these this a large area for people to kind of congregate um and watch presentation without having to set up and take down uh lots of furniture um and you can see the reflective ceiling here kind of then helping with some of the Acoustics as as well not shown in this picture in front of the stairs is a display wall uh where we would expect that you know a lot of the images would be

111displayed for whatever activity was happening uh there's some furniture off to the side again that's not part of the construction uh the projects that are what I refer to as instruction related projects in the 2019 Bond are listed here um so you can see the Innovation Center listed at the um um the last item there at a million dollar um that is not enough to be able to renovate that building um just in today's market and basically because again the scope has changed dramatically from when this was first envisioned in 2018 so what we are uh proposing this evening and asking for the board to formally consider is uh a $2.5 million GMP or guaranteed maximum price uh with uh Chase Building team being the the the partner to build this um in order to

112uh to effectively get that $2.5 million um the virtual reality lab money that uh is included in the bond would be actually reapportioned to uh this particular project and then $1 million of the um Library uh Media Center improvements you can see there's a $10 million line item uh for that would be reapportioned to uh this project to be able to account for the $2.5 million again that that's the construction dollars for this particular uh project itself uh on the far right is the detail of all of the costs associated with this uh this just lists the timeline and just kind of I think what's more important here just the the history I wanted to recognize Dr gallagan and her team for helping uh kind of create this Vision uh when we first listed the

113innovation Center I really wasn't sure what that meant um and you know it was more of a name than than the functionality but through her efforts uh with the committee they have really refined what the expectations are for this space I think the most important part on this slide is kind of the next steps pending the board's decision this evening uh we would begin Construction in early September and we are targeting to have the work completed by um January I normally don't like to put the year just the month that way I get some flexibility about 12 months or so um but somehow I think maybe Dr gallan got a hold of the slide and uh it actually has a year on there so we'll be bound to uh try and finish this on a

114pretty short time frame uh to be able to get it completed by um by this coming January um one of the things that I wanted to mention uh I touched on it earlier U this is kind of a phased approach uh again due to the the climate um that we're seeing in the marketplace when it comes to Construction uh this is what we consider phase one uh we only have a very small allowance for exterior improvements to the building so most of what's going to be um visually improved will be on the inside of the building uh where the functionality will be um most important uh but we do anticipate that there will be additional needs based on how we see the program grow remember uh we weren't expecting the growth this fast so we're

115not also quite sure what to expect um for um you know the upcoming year or years uh for our Aspire school but as it grows uh we do anticipate that there will be additional phases uh to make improvements um and refine this uh but not on the same scale that we're talking about with this phase one being the the largest uh phase at $2.5 million so with that I'll be happy to answer any questions the board have before you decide Mrs rway Mrs paperman so uh this campus for online students is it for a particular grade level uh for all grade levels uh president O'Brien Miss paperman yes it would serve all grade levels uh kindergarten through 12th grade okay and with parents uh parents that have concern with students uh to be in person

116in a classroom with x amount of students would it be different if they had the op to put them online if I understand your question the uh this would allow the continued option that exists uh this year for uh um parents to choose a fulltime online program for their child Beyond just even this year or a decision that they made okay so that's great that that they will have the option to thank you and I think I just want to add just uh to give credit to to Dr Gan and and her team that's thanks to the fact that we have been creating our own online curriculum to be able to uh continue to offer that to our students and as a choice for parents Mrs fer what happens if enrollment tanks do we have

117an alternative purpose are we going to maybe have an alternative school if it would um so if I heard your question and what happens if Aspire Tanks is that what you said because we never know I mean parents love something one moment and then they decide they don't we don't really know so if do we have an alternative purpose for the building is there a program that we could use it for or put in there um I personally think Aspire will do great um online is kind of the future it's what colleges do but um these are taxpayer dollars I just want to know if we have a contingent plan uh yeah president O'Brien Miss Fischer um that's a great question um so the majority of the space is kind of reserved as uh being

118flexible open space again the the large Square about 14,000 square square feet so that could always be used for professional development um for um even for smaller gatherings in some of the collaboration space um that's not really our intended purpose again because we've had an online presence for for decades now um there will be some small need for uh for that program to have a home uh even if it's not on the scale that we see today um at uh with nearly 700 students combined full-time and part-time students uh but even in a year that was not a pandemic I think we've had several hundred part-time students um that have uh participated in in our online program so there's going to be some of the office space that's going to be necessary um and I

119think uh I think our career in technical education folks um are slated to also move out to this a particular facility because of some of the needs that they have uh for a large space to be able to do some of we're putting CTE in there also because CTE is going to be in my opinion our future it's going to grow I mean I don't know why it stopped growing it was very popular in the 80s and somehow it died and now it's going to become popular again but at least I I just wanted to make sure we had uh you know because we never know what the trends are going to be point we take it Mrs Reed um I know we haven't discussed it yet um but soft costs for furniture and things

120like that do we have an idea of where that's coming from and what that might cost uh so I I I'm sorry and and I'm president O'Brien Miss Reed thank you for bringing that bringing me back to this slide uh so we did make a note here um I think we'll have a good uh sense of what the soft cost would be because we already have the contract with uh the architect but in terms of special systems um uh we do Envision that there will probably be some uh specific special U systems audio visual sound things um display boards and things of that nature that are going to be unique to this space uh we are looking at an alternative funding source so that would not be funded from the bond uh for uh the

121special systems as well as for the furniture uh we have not uh made any decisions regarding the furniture the architect has provided some ideas uh that they have in mind uh and I'll be honest with you I think that they're unaffordable um so uh I think we're looking for more function than some of the flare um but nonetheless uh we do think that there are alternative funding sources that would not come from the 2019 Bond so would no so we're not looking to make any other adjustments to the the bond allocation that's here uh and and then this does um because I was remiss in in uh sharing this the committee that helped formulate what the Innovation Center looks at and is also helping us with the instruction related projects did actually um see this

122same presentation and vote uh in an we're in agreement with the adjustments to the bond allocations that that would be necessary to be able to for the $2.5 million uh but no additional Bond allocation changes are necessary to be able to fund this uh because those soft costs or the special systems and Furniture needs are going to be funded from a source outside of the bond thank you any other seeing no other discussion or questions then I will call for the vote all those in favor please say I I I any oos please say nay hearing none that passed unanimously wonderful item um 7A is the proposed political agenda for uh school year 2022 this will come before the board um for a vote at our next meeting the Arizona school boards Association is made

123up of member school districts across the state each uh governing board or sorry each School District um elects or assigns one of their board members as the district's uh delegate to attend this meeting and vote on behalf of their school School District as a member so collectively the members the school district members from all over the state come together um in September at the delegate assembly to vote on the uh 2022 political agenda each item is voted on individually and this board uh at the next meeting will discuss and vote um how to uh give our board member who is Mrs Julie Reed Direction um and voting at those at the delegate assembly um generally speaking in the past I know that Mrs fiser has served as the delegate as have um Mrs Ordway and

124myself uh served in that capacity um we generally allow them to vote on the items uh for the district as they come up um unless there are something you know we've specifically addressed ahead of time are there any items that board members wish to specifically discuss this evening or would you like to wait until um next week when we vote or sorry next meeting not next week can I just make a quick comment yes Mrs Reed Rachel are you you're here okay so um we the way that the um political agenda gets made so um a few I can't remember how many board meetings ago it was but several board meetings back we um came up with a list of what deer Valley's board thought were the most important things um when it came to

125um submitting these to um asba and then asba has a legislative Council made up of um member districts representatives of member districts from all over the state and they take all of the input from from um the individual school school districts or school boards and they come up with the draft political agenda and then at the um meeting in September we'll vote um and the things that pass go on the actual political agenda and then the um uh Arizona School Board Association will Lobby on behalf of the school districts in the state for those important things um so that's that's what what this whole document thank you for that further explanation Mrs Reed is correct in I believe it was in may we voted on the top five items with a couple of alternates to

126send to the legislative committee which is made up of um member districts that represent uh all the districts across the state um large small up north from south east to west so that um we have a wide variety of representations at that meeting uh in addition Mrs Fischer has sat on that committee as have I um and that political agenda the draft political agenda is decided there by a majority of the committee members um voting for it so are there any other comments okay this will be back in um discuss it on when it comes back item by item there's no point in talking about them now if we're going to discuss them next time item by item or line by line we've never done that to go item by item I would um in

127the past we oh sorry then the only one I want to you know just bring up well there's several I I think little by little I've watched over the years is this agenda has no longer really become the voice of most School boards it's become the voice of a few Schoolboard members um in each district um you know they when I was first elected in 2014 I I kind of thought Ron was being a little bit of a turd just always talking about the need for the three for having the three um but it's not just having the three for the superintendent it goes all the way up into um asba and there are uh governing boards in Arizona that are currently looking to bring an alternative to asba um move away from asba because

128the agenda has completely changed um over even just the last four years it's changed significantly um I did serve on that committee um and and I resigned from that committee um because it was clear I was the token conservative um and my voice really had no bearing um at the time I am a little concerned about some of these issues that are um counter to what our public would want um and that our public really has no input what soever on this agenda um I mean I you know everybody I'm sure reads to this and expects me to pick on items that are specific to certain individuals or whatever but that that serves no real purpose um what does serve purpose is that taxpayers pay money and they taxes to fund schools and that money

129um is used to pay our membership into asba and I know we don't none of us get paid for what we do and there are some really good classes that we've had at asba there really are some good things but that agenda is really changing and I'm concerned that we have no way to get public input on these items um it's not in the committee it's not in in the future and and it's tax dollars that are being paid to go to asba and that's what ends up becoming the money even though it goes through four or five however many different stages it originated as a tax dollar and it ends up becoming lobbying money against our public so I'm I'm just a little concerned um I don't know that we have a way to

130solve it but that's my concern as we bring It Forward if we're not going to go through um the items um but I I I don't know what the answer to that is it just certainly um I we could go through item by item I think that it would probably be more time worthy for you know members who have issues with certain items to bring those um forward to the meeting when we're voting if there are items that you disagree with that we need to have a separate discussion on then I would recommend you um bring those to discuss when we vote um can we post this on our personal Pages or whatever I would like public input and if if no public has input I won't bring them back if they do I will

131so this isn't is it available in boarddocs for the public to see so is so it is already available for them to see so if somebody um wants to read this so I I do want to um uh disagree with the statement that just a couple of boards have input into this there are 2133 I believe that's number approximately sometime 23 216 sometimes I mess that number up school districts in the state of Arizona um and off the top of my head I don't remember this year how many are represented on this committee but it is not two or three or four and there is great effort made to ensure that there as representation from like I said large districts small districts districts from all across the state um rural districts Suburban districts and that

132members um that participate in that committee have all kinds of lenses including um conservatives uh I happen to know that you weren't just the token conservative on that committee because we serve together as well as other Republicans did so it is um an unfair characteristic to say that this agenda is decided by just a couple of board me boards in addition at the delegate assembly where each and every district is invited to send their delegate to it again that would be approximately 213 School boards that could send their delegate and while not all 2133 attend it is not again three or four vot voting to decide what this agenda is so with that we will bring back whatever items are of concern um to discuss we will not go line item by line item if

133you have something as a board member that you have concerns about I please bring it to the next meeting when we will vote on it the next board item is governing board reports and we will start with Mrs paperman first I would like to welcome uh the Dear Valley uh Educators coming back uh the first week last week uh I attended my first week uh this week so I was kind of nervous on Monday receiving my students but now excited I'm getting to know them uh I also would like to say uh as a parent and even as a teacher uh I know um you know we have have parents 50% you know of or parents uh mask on you know we we need to focus on our kids education our students feel what we

134feel uh we need to make sure that we move forward for the future because I truly believe that uh Co is probably not going to be the first and it's not going to so it's going to depend on the education that we give our kids in order for them uh to to to you know to become uh grownups and make good decisions uh because I know of with our experience dealing with Co it just has divided our community so I just pray that the community parents and everyone uh to come together for student sake thank you thank you Mrs paperman Mrs Fischer yeah I'm hoping I don't lose my voice and I'll apologize in advance because I have allergies um first I want to welcome everyone um to the 2122 school year um it is

135it has been wonderful to see the pictures of the first day um I did them with my kids um and I love seeing the parents at do them even cuter there was a few teachers who put their first day um picture out and that that was kind of cute too um it gives hope that there can be a very successful year of course uh with the start of school also um comes issues and concerns um specifically regarding um two companies Panorama and Castle um and I would have sent this concerning advance but um the response I got back uh from someone was that it uh it isn't CRT we don't teach CRT shut up about CRT you're spreading misinformation uh in a nutshell um ironically the question that the parents have had nothing to do

136with CRT um but that made me look at these two companies and I hope we have a conversation about these companies in in uh the future um the question that was brought by the parents to me is there concern that they're being asked to sign a blanket permission for surveys that are being done without knowing what's on the survey they're not comfortable with that and I don't know that they anything bad has ever come out of a Deer Valley survey um I know other districts posted questions that were like do your parents have alcohol in the house do they have uh guns do they have stuff like that and I don't know that we would ask those questions I I don't know um but the the I think parents from other areas scare our parents

137and they want to know why would I sign a blanket you can ask my kids a survey so I I would like to know for the parents sake um is there a way that they can see what questions are being asked in advance um do we have input does Dear Valley have input on what questions are asked and if so um can we make that to where the parents are more aware um because that was the big concern with the parents and these surveys C can I just clarify I I just a survey or the worksheet because there were two things that emails came in on surveys and work no see this has nothing to do with the emails there you know the public is not aware we have received a ton of emails from

138one parent group that sent out send emails okay this has nothing to do with those emails these are parents who brought direct concerns to me about um their concern was signing a permission slip for their student to receive a survey when they did not know what would be on the survey um and and I don't have an answer for them do we do we have input is there someplace they can get the survey so they're more comfortable signing It Is by signing that they're allowing any survey and these are answers that I would have sent to the district had I been able to um so I think that's it pretty much what control do we have and and can they find it um secondly is uh concern that was brought and this is probably what

139spurred all the emails so um take it for what it is um there is a concern about the blanket asking of pronouns um I understand that some may wish to be addressed differently but putting it in in for everyone is just and I do believe it's a form of grooming or normalizing a belief that not everybody shares um this does this push started a long time ago uh um and it's been kind of coming um through aspa um I was asked to what my pronouns were back in 2015 I was like whatever not appropriate um but one of the concerns um which I don't actually have written here so I can just say is as I I received all the emails of oh my God you're horrible that why would you be upset that a

140teacher would ask a child for their pronoun and and how you're your lgbtq um Prejudice or whatever you don't know anything about my life but shame on anyone who wants to ask a sixth grader that question on a survey in a class and I'm going to tell you why and I and I'm speaking specifically to the sixth grader um class that did it because when a lot of the parents that came to me with questions they found out about it because their kids came home and they said oh my God we got this paper and you know yeah we we circled both and we were laughing at it or I put teddy bear and I was laughing and and so these kids you're in a classroom full of kids and when there is a child

141in that class classroom that really does have a concern about gender identity gender dysphoria or or whatever they are going to hear all these other kids making fun of this survey and they are not going to speak up they are going to wither because as the other kids are joking around they don't want to say hey wait a minute that's me hey wait a minute so I think it's more damaging in the sixth grade the concern that the parents brought long before the broadcast to email the board how horrible Miss Fisher is for listening to the other parents their concern was mostly that it was in a high school document that was required and that all students students were required to answer it they didn't have an option of just saying I choose not to

142answer and and regardless of what you think of the issue the fact is that to respect our children they should be able to opt out of answering that question and they should not have it publicly done dear Valley has never as far as I know discriminated against a child for anything in their life whether it's their orientation or their color or their disability or I have never seen Dear Valley discriminate against a child and to say that we're discriminatory by not um asking this question I think we're more it's problematic we're not teaching proper English for one you have he she and they as a mult is a plural of of of of who they are every time we have had a student who needed Arrangements at whatever school at whatever level to provide all

143supports possible to that student without calling them out without exposing them without making this about an adult's wish to make it an open thing I don't know that some of the people who want to support this have ever met a transgender person or or stood by them as they have gone through a hell of a lot and some may change their mind they may hit puberty and things will change but we this is a parent conversation not a district conversation and so I'm requesting that we discuss this with our community and and adjust if if the community really thinks this is appropriate to ask all kids well then we need to armor our parents the ones that don't think it's appropriate and if nothing else they need to tell their kids whatever you do don't

144laugh at this don't make fun of this don't joke around like any sixth grader does because that one kid who really does identify differently they don't need all the other kids joking about it so we need to talk to our parents whichever group but we need to talk to them um additionally I received concerns uh that parents are uh asked to sign the acceptance of the handbook but there is a potential for it to be updated specifically with covid procedures um will the parents be asked to acknowledge the changes and if not what is the plan since the acceptance uh was prior to the changes that's direct question so however that can be answered um uh I got a question about records where can a parent get a record of their medical exemption being denied

145um they have gone to the school um which sent them to the district office they were told that the records were at the school by the district office um not sure I understand the reason for the runaround um but I do believe we need to be transparent and there should be some sort of a paper trail if a paper was submitted um so if we can get to our parent who can the parent be directed to um is there one individual or one department or something that where they can be directed to um and is there uh one area that all the forms for exceptions were submitted and is that where they would be now if they are to be at the school um the parents would like to know that um I am trying

146to make sense of the masking in our transportation um I know we've all received emails regarding um the transportation we were told it was Federal by the Department of Transportation um but as I've been looking into it um it says executive order 13998 dis uh directs the heads of agencies to require masks to the ENT appropriate and consistent with the applicable law in or on all forms of public transportation defined in 49 USC 5302 School Bus operations are specifically accepted from this statutory definition of public transportation the TSA security directive likewise does not include School Bus operations in The Mask mandate um however they refer you to the C CDC order that applies to school buses so I followed the trail to the CDC which is not a lawmaking body it's an agency it's a

147government agency um and it said when you look at our our masks required on the bus it says passengers and drivers must wear a mask on a school bus including on bus buses operated by public and private schools subject to the exclusion an exemption in the CDC order operators of school buses should refer to the Department of Education um for guidance and it gives you a link to go to the Department of Education when you're looking at the Department of Education um it says other than statutory regulatory requirements referred to in this document the contents of this guidance do not have force and effect of Law and do not bind the public this document is intended only to provide Clarity to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policy well then we

148look at the state budget that passed and it says under covid policies prohibits Rector active and that's the key word retroactive to July 1 2021 a County City Town School District governing board or Charter School governing body from requiring student staff to use face coverings during school hours on and on school property prohibit school districts or Charters from requiring student teachers to receive the vaccine or wear face coverings to participate in imp person instruction so now we've come full circle um the fact is that the school bus is District property just like when our teachers want to put a sign on their car we can't stop them it's their property the school bus is the district's property and I am seeking an explanation from our Administration on how we are not following the law that

149was passed and is retroactive to July 1 when all the agencies that they say we should be following say something different um so I would like clarification on that we do have students who um and I don't know that this is necessarily regarding the law but one of the major complaints was that the kids can't breathe on the bus it does not have adequate air conditioning when Arizona is hotter than snot in the afternoon I I know sometimes we can't stop the buses from being hot um so I don't know if that's necessarily a mask portion but it's that openly my concerns about open meeting violations I believe that we should be operating as transparent as possible unfortunately transparency doesn't seem to be a priority I believe this is me this is not the board

150as a whole I am speaking for my belief I believe that our parents deserve full transparency to the greatest extent possible I will be seeking to add Clarity to this topic from sources not internal to the district and I think that it is very important that we do start honoring our parents and transparency finally in our meeting in January I noted the closed parent groups um that was the sole voice being listened to in the district and I ask that we have our own site of full open information um the other parent group um as well has since become a private group and um and it's closed also the division in the district and sadly in our community is growing I want to encourage the district to please listen to all parents these children are

151theirs and we are privileged to have them in our district they don't have to choose us but Public Schools offer a lot and sometimes that's why parents choose us we have to find some way to reunite our communities and I I don't know what the answer is um anything I say is automatically uh I don't know one group or another um but I'm not staying and I know people are going to laugh well she's not staying silent anymore I'm not years ago I put up with you know uh tethering back what I said a little bit because of you know I said BS in public and it went postal Across the Nation and so I kind of hushed up a little bit as others formed friendships with that individual and I regret doing it I

152should have I did St I sat in a board meeting and I said there's problems with an individual having students on their on their social media and then I backed off out of fear of retaliation I I don't care retaliate but this District belongs to these parents and I just think that we need to start honoring our parents no more backd door conversations no more behind the scenes and if there's something that's valid then we inform them as to why it's valid because I I don't believe that individuals come to work to do something wrong our teachers are awesome 99.9% of the time our are awesome but when they get that pressure they're subject to peer pressure too and when they cave because of it it's our fault because we allowed it that's just my

153opinion thanks Mrs Reed thank you um I just like to welcome back all of our staff and our students for the 2122 school year I know my kids um had a great first week of school and um you know almost halfway through the second week um the best thing that my fourth grader said was he loved switching classes because it made the day go by a lot faster um so he he's enjoying being departmentalized um so we have some some good wins in our house um I did send Dr Finch a couple of emails um regarding some um concerns and questions that parents had had and so I just want to address them because one of them was similar to um what Mrs Fischer said but um the Panorama survey um form on there um

154it linked back to AR um um sorry I have it up here um it linked back to statute um and in that statute it had a list of 14 different topics that um school districts could survey parents on and it was very Broad and um in my opinion really outside of the scope of what any school district should be or could be asking parents and so um my request um was that we um clarify to parents what the survey types are going to be that we're sending um and that also prior to the surveys going out that they're sent to the board um so the board can look over the questions um and then in section J of ars1 15-17 um there's six um six points that um parents can um email and ask for

155clarification from the distri on and and I would just ask that um the district be proactive and just provide that information um beforehand um in an email to parents prior to those surveys being sent out it's um very basic stuff the dates on which they'll be administered the name of the survey um how much time is going to take to administer it the type of information that's collected and the reasons for administrating the survey um um Mrs Moffet would you be willing to um provide how many teachers are teaching 6 fths this year I know there were quite a few um in the Staffing update but I I'm I think we have already um approved some of those so if you wouldn't mind doing that um and then I did also send um Dr Finch

156um an email asking about how many classes we've closed so far with Co I think there's there there's a lot of information that's going out on social media um and people are concerned about um the exposure of covid and how we're handling it and I think there's a misconception that all of the safety precautions that we put in place last year are suddenly out the door and so I don't know how to um disseminate that information any clearer to parents um but another maybe in in a parent update it might be wise to to list all of the mitigation efforts that we are currently using one more time um I do know that there have been some questions regarding contract tracing um that the district may or may not be doing and the partnership between

157um County Health and the district um and I think Dr zerbach a few board meetings ago you had specifically mentioned that and um the the county had said that they would take over that and that they were they were going to be fully staffed and their program would be up and so it would be helpful to know if if that's happening um I did have a parent say that they were notified that they had an exposure but by the time they got notified um they would have already been on day five of their quarantine and had they' been notified um sooner they would have chosen to quarantine their their student in their home and so um I know that we aren't um mandating quarantines but I do want to make sure that the families that

158do wish to quarantine have that information as soon as possible so they feel like they are um protecting their family and making the best choice for themselves um and we did we did get quite a few emails I would say upwards of in the hundreds about masks either way um they want masks or they don't want masks mandated um and masking is um it is a it is a choice and I know that somebody had referenced Washington Elementary School that they did a a mask mandate with an opt out form which I think is similar to what we're doing right now with making masks optional for my family personally my kids are wearing masks in school because we're taking their brother to college next week and we can't afford to get any type of illness

159um prior to taking him to school because if he comes to school showing symptoms he'll be quarantined and so that's something that's um you know unique to Unique to our family and that our family has bought into and and we've decided that's a priority because that's our that's our choice um I know that that's not the choice for everybody and um there's been a lot of you're morally obligated um statements that have been made and and and I and I get that and I understand it I can't legislate people to care about a situ or circumstance as much as somebody else does and I know that there's a lot of different levels of of care and concern out there and I am not diminishing any of those but there's just not a way to do

160it if if there were then I would do it for a variety of different things like homelessness and poverty and and all of that so we could fix everything that's broken in our society um and the last thing um just as an Ask um in kind of piggybacking on what Mrs fiser said about our communities divided and treating treating each other with respect um I think that goes um for us too um that it's really important I've had a lot of emails over the last year and a half or two years that I've served on the board that have been really mean and that have been really negative but I didn't engage with those parents and I didn't um say anything inflammatory back to them that that's their right as um as a constituent to

161express whatever they feel about me in whatever form they want to um it's hard to read it's not pleasant but that's their opinion but I would just ask that um we just continue to treat our community members and our parents with respect regardless of um what regardless of how they may choose to engage with us um is that we just choose to rise above those those negative comments that's it thank you Mrs orway oh I don't know if I can do it that long but anyway just kidding so welcome back everybody um all the preparations for the welcome back the jump back days the camps um the extended school year getting all those fields in so I can't smell fresh gr cut grass anymore unless I go to a practice field uh the kids were

162very excited to get back even kids that don't like school like the first day of school so we've had um upticks in our covid-19 um Journey we have people that want to wear a mask people that don't we have children under the age of 12 that have uh zero choice to be vaccinated um they've been about two years without um being around a lot of kids they've been using a lot of uh hand sanitizers so their their immune systems are a little bit down I'm sure and they're bringing all those uh kid germs back to school like they should so with all of the information um that we have now um I'm going to ask for a special meeting next Tuesday if the boardrooms open and people are available so we can in depth go

163into what our updated mitigation [Music] um practices are the latest data from Maricopa County Health Department um I think that a a live stream meeting would meet uh the needs more than just not just I I shouldn't have said the word just but an email or or a text or whatever I think that if we have this um in-depth um detailed meeting the questions can be asked about what we're doing we can have crew unless of course you guys have or opposed to that or you're busy that um Tuesday so that would be the ask that I have would also ask that we treat each other whether we're mask not or not um with uh some Grace and some mercy you don't know why someone's wearing it you don't know why someone's not and we

164have uh we have it within ourselves to to do this because we're modeling our behavior for our students and that's all I have Mrs O'Brien and thank you for the rest of the board for hanging out um thank you everybody for your comments and I'll quickly reiterate a great big huge welcome back to all of our um staff and students it's exciting to um see our kiddos uh in schools and see all those great pictures that everybody's posting and I still get a first day of school picture because I have a daughter who's a teacher so that's fun um if you could uh if someone could please address Mrs um Miss Bieber's question regarding why we don't allow parents to walk our um to the classroom I I know that was a policy change a

165long time ago and I do believe that it was um founded in safety but I think it's helpful for our our folks to understand that and um and maybe a reminder to our kindergarten staff who who weren't there when that change was made it would be probably helpful as well um I think that it is important that to understand that many of the districts who did vote to have um masks did it with that parent opt out and so I highly encourage those who um want to wear masks student staff uh families please do so uh we respect everybody's choices and and there should be no bullying um in our schools surrounding that and I I don't believe there there is so um please do what is best for your family in addition um if

166we could please provide uh some the answers to the questions that you received to from our board members tonight in Friday's update that would be helpful um I have some questions regarding our exposure our covid exposure notification process but I'll send those to you in a an email um I agree with Mrs Reed that things are changing and we maybe need a remind Remer out to our our families and our staff um about what our policies are and how um they've changed or or differed from what we were doing last year to this year and how we're partner partnering with Maricopa County um public health department and with um that I we will get something out about your requests Mrs orway and check calendars as well as the other meeting requests we had this evening

167and with that Dr Finch your superintendent report sure thank you um as um many of you already know yes we are in a a new year with new challenges and Co has not gone away you are correct um we do have our hands full we have as you know three safety measures that really um have tied our hands mainly from the state level and so um we are doing our best and doing a great job and I want to thank my principals and teachers and staff and and my admin team here um working together with our County um working together as a team trying to do our best we uh as you know we are getting uh confusing and different information from the county and the State Health Department both of those uh entities are

168not uh answering our questions like we would like them to uh the good news is I think they're making progress as um you're seeing um different districts make different choices so um we have our safety plan on our website we actually do parent webinars we've done a one that was watched by uh thousands and so we're going to continue to do that that's a one way toh communicate with our parents we also do um staff webinars as well those are recorded so you can watch them again if you want to know um the different things that we're doing with our safety plan and and how we're uh trying to stay on top of of Co yes we have had a couple outbreaks last week and that those are um when two or more um cases

169are brought to a classroom so we've had to close some classrooms that's that is true much like our neic neighbors um that is also happening around us and remember Nik is a North Valley uh group that of superintendents that work together including Scott Ste Peoria PV Etc um our our immediate neighbors that we work with so they do nice job working together um I want also to thank um Dr gallagan on uh this long journey of bringing her idea to fruition of um The Innovation Center and and now the school has really exploded and we have a fullblown online uh one that can compete in the marketplace and so great job to you and your team um I also wanted to again thank the parents um or um staff members that let us know when

170we have an issue in our system U many of you go to uh call your school first or call your principal or email me before you go to Facebook or social media and we appreciate that uh because obviously there's a Deer Valley Way We handle situations and we have new staff we have 4,000 staff members and guess what we don't control every single one of them that's not how we're designed and so when we hear of an issue then we address it and when you can help us out we appreciate apprciate it and so um before you run to social media and say what you thought might have happened uh let us know um so we can um check into the situation take care of it that's what happens a lot at the first start

171of school U as we get new staff members and get them used to the Deer Valley Way of how we do our business we are um one of if not the top school district in all of Arizona we take great pride in that and uh we do that as a community so your help is is appreciated lastly but not least is masks on buses there was a couple of content references to that we are taking advice from our attorneys and it's on the ad website and so uh when my attorney says I can do it differently I will do it differently but right now to uh protect my federal funding I need to follow federal law so that's my um report uh again I want to thank um all staff students welcome back we've had

172a great first week starting second week and obviously the kids are super excited to be back in school thank you thank you Dr Finch and I'm going to um take one uh quick Liberty and wish Mrs Ordway a happy early birthday as she will celebrate tomorrow so I hope you have a very wonderful day and a fabulous year and with that I believe our future meetings are posted and I will entertain a motion to can I make a birthday motion to uh make a motion to conclude this meeting at 9:37 yes at 937 oh those are my lucky numbers we have a second for Mrs Reed all those in favor say I I any opposed motion carries