001yeah you're slacking out right good evening welcome to the awards and recognitions president O'Brien members of the governing board superintendent Finch and special guests a lot of special guests this is exciting honores after I read about your award please come forward to superintendent Dr Finch to receive your certificate our governing board president will give you an EXT extraordinary dvusd logo pin and each of our governing board members will congratulate you on your extraordinary accomplishment and we have some really extraordinary accomplishments tonight uh we'll then take your photo and we will share your good news in local media and on social media we start tonight with DV usd's Flynn scholar finalists what began as a group of nearly 1100 talented Arizona high school seniors has been trimmed to 39 Flynn finalists including three extraordinary dvusd students
002they advance to the final round of interviews for the 20 Flynn scholarships valued at more than $130,000 which includes funding at one of Arizona's three public state universities for tuition housing meals and study abroad membership in a university Honors College with small classes guest lectures and research experiences intellectual cultural and social activities developed exclusively for Flynn Scholars and graduating without debt Flynn Scholars will join a powerful Alumni network to empower them to become agents of Discovery creativity and Leadership who will make a difference in the world the Flynn Scholars class of 2022 well it says will be announced later this month but I just learned who has become a scholarship recipient so that's coming uh and we certainly hope that our three Flynn scholar finalists become part of this extraordinary group and our first finalist
003has may I introduce Flynn scholar from Barry Goldwater High School naha [Applause] bedwar oh we're g to do individual and group yep oh there's more congratulations nahan next up from Mountain Ridge congratulations to CIA [Applause] knock Dr zerbach is encouraging the principles to join their [Applause] students and it's a really big night for Barry Goldwater because Desiree win is also going to be a Flynn scholar congratulations [Applause] Desiree get up [Applause] desire stay right there we're going to do a group photo n come on back up and did Cil leave oh he's here awesome we do a group photo with all of our Flynn scholar [Applause] finalists the mama Razzi Right [Applause] congratulations all right tonight we had planned to honor our five National Merit semifinalists we are not able to do that tonight because
004we recently learned they're all [Applause] finalists I'm not making that up we just like literally learned they're all finalists which is awesome the National Merit Scholarship program is an academic competition for recognition and college scholarships finalists represent the top 0.5% of the state's seniors students this these academically talented High School seniors have an opportunity to compete for some 7500 National Merit Scholarships worth about $35 million to be considered for a National Merit Scholarship our five students have fulfilled requirements to advance to finalist standing submitting a detailed scholarship application which includes essays and information about extracurricular achievements Awards and Leadership positions they also must have an outstanding academic record record be endorsed by a school official and earn SAT scores that confirm their qualifying test performance winners are the finalists judged to be the strongest combination
005of academic skills and achievements extracurricular accomplishments and potential for success in rigorous university studies past scholarship winners include Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates Amazon Jeff Bezos astronaut May jemson filmmaker ight shamalan and bestselling novel Stephanie Meyer let's introduce DV usd's National Merit Scholarship finalists first from Boulder Creek High School congratulations to Quinn [Applause] Robinson when your boss requests it you know [Applause] our next four students all hail from Mountain Ridge High School oh standby Grandma's coming pi [Applause] good luck with your injury all right now from Mountain Ridge High School please congratulate National Merit Scholarship finalist parth [Applause] batra yep [Applause] from Mountain Ridge congratulations to National Merit Scholarship finalist Aiden [Applause] Bowers we are gonna do a well we're gonna do a big group photo at the end okay okay he's going to get you
006on the grot congrat congratulations Aiden our next National Merit Scholarship finalist does know that he has received a National Merit Scholarship for ASU where he will attend next year congratulations kayen [Applause] Nichols [Applause] that's and unfortunately our last finalist cannot be here tonight because she's currently accepting award at another event but please help me congratulate National Merit Scholarship finalist Manali Shaw let's have all of our DB USD National Merit Scholarship finalist come back up for a one group photo actually a couple group photos you get one with Rich yep trip all right and Mountain Ridge students stay where you are we're going to do a principal picture you're free to go take Grandma to dinner okay all right congratulations [Applause] finalists all right our big night continues our next two Awards feature national champions from
007the USA Spirit competition first up is the 2022 Jazz National Championship the road to the championship was not easy for the Palm team from Mountain Ridge High School the team endured injuries illness quarantines and then came news of their head coach's D cancer diagnosis the girls were devastated but they immediately came together to support her and one another the team never gave up on expanding their performance abilities or their technique and pushed through until the end of a very long season they dedicated their touching Jazz routine to their coach here is Mountain Ridge Palm team's National Championship Jazz performance [Music] ch [Music] Chang [Music] my if you see reflection in the [Music] [Applause] C congratulations to the National Jazz champions from Mountain Ridge High School Avery Arnold Tatum Bondi Ali Brown Gian Brown Campbell burin
008Brooklyn Bustamante Tatum Lopez Lily notto Cammy ritzler and their coaches Diane mlan and Megan [Applause] Nolan TR come yeah there you go do you want to have them hold the certificate Kayla who who's got the certificate I'll just do [Applause] congratulations girl One National Championship is not enough for Dear Valley our second award from the USA Spirit competition features the national champion fan stunt team from Sandra de o Conor High School fiveman stunt is a volun AR part of spirit line where athletes come together and choose to do additional spirit line routines it's different from the team routine because fivan is very much driven by the athletes they get to check they get back uh what they put in their routines and practices are very collaborative um so not only are they working more stunting
009skills but also learning to be better as a team they make decisions together on what skills they would like to work on and what they think needs to be changed during their Nationals Finals performance their music stopped but they handled it like true professionals without skipping a beat take a [Music] look [Music] w 5 7 1 3 5 1 3 5 [Applause] 7 congratulations to the national champion fivem men stunt team from Sandra d o Conor High School Aaron Burns Piper Calhoun Morgan Merill Nicole Merill and Malia Samuels and their director Michelle Murphy and Coach Lindsay [Applause] Murphy that's congratulations good [Applause] job that concludes tonight's Awards and recognition the regular governing board meeting begins at [Applause] [Music] could you please register Mrs Fischer's vote okay if you'll just bear with me while we work
010through these technical difficulties okay we're back all right so ready excellent so motion um for 3A I would asked that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation for the principal of Mirage Elementary is Miss Bobby Sero a second I second we have a motion and a second I'll U Mrs Moffett Administration is pleased to recommend Bobby Sero as the candidate for principal of Mirage School Bobby currently is the assistant principal over at Union Park and has served in a variety of capacities at the school level and District level in dbos very long times so we're excited for you Bobby [Applause] okay and we appreciate the administration's recommendation now board members all those in favor please say I I any oppose please say nay hearing none the motion passes unanimously so now you clap and M
011Mrs Sarah if you'd like to um share a comment or two I would just like to thank you I am very honored and humbled for this opportunity I am exceptionally thrilled to become a Road Runner um and I am very much looking forward to next year so thank you wonderful congratulations all right we will move on to um 3B I would ask that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation for the principal of Copper Creek as Miss Christine Meyers I second we have a motion in a second Mrs Moffet Administration is pleased to recommend Miss Meyers she currently serves as the dean over at Copper Creek and now the recommended principal for Copper Creek she's also served in his special education capacity reading specialist capacity and she has been um a wonderful instructional coach to
012that staff and we are um excited to recommend her this evening as well wonderful thank you so much Mrs Moffett um board members all those in favor please say I I I any opposed please say nay hearing none you have been the motion passes unanimously and [Applause] congratulations [Music] [Applause] would would you like to please share a few words wow uh thank you for the opportunity um I'm super excited to serve as the principal of Copper Creek and you you won't find a better place thank you awesome [Applause] congratulations all right I would ask that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation for the principal of Hillcrest Middle School if you can hold your applause Brad bazelle I second we have a motion and a second Mrs Moffet or oh Dr zerbach I go ahead
013not sure fight it out Mrs O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch it is administration's recommendation for Brad brazelle to be the next principal at hrrest we believe he will do a wonderful job excellent board members um all those in favor please say I I I any opposed please say nay hearing none the motion passes unanimously congratulations Mr brazelle Mr brazelle would you please like to say a few words uh just thank you so much I'm really grateful for this opportunity I've got my new fan club over here so thank you guys for coming out um just really excited for the opportunity to serve Hill Crest um the best middle school in the district don't you agree Michelle howk you very much and for those off who are watching us from home who can't see
014he's sitting next to the recommended principal for Desert Sky Middle School so got a little jab in there isord way and when you're the last one to be asked to be approved you get the the last word Michelle anyway um the governing I would ask the governing board accept the administration's recommendation for principal of Desert Sky Middle School Michelle Martin and please don't hold your applause we have a motion and a second um Dr zerbach Mrs O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch again it is administration's recommendation of Michelle Martin to be the next principal at Desert Sky she has done a wonderful job where she has been at Mountain Ridge and we know she will continue doing a fabulous job at Desert Sky thank you excellent board me thank you for that recommendation Dr
015zerbach um board members all those in favor please say I I any opposed please say nay hearing none the motion passes unanimously congratulations Mrs Martin and and as Mrs Ordway says you get the last word Thunderbolts come on uh no uh I just want to thank you guys for the opportunity I super excited to serve Desert Sky it's an honor and um I will do right by you guys so thank you so much thank you so I'm going to take this um moment to ask or tell all of you that if you are here just to on behalf of one of these wonderful principales who's just been appr not staying for the entire meeting now would be the time to get up and leave and we'll applaud one more time for all of our new
016[Applause] principls oh that'll be perfect thank you I'll just put it in my b if you could please head out into the lobby that would be wonderful thank you so much okay actually I'm going to okay I really do need to ask everybody to please go to the lobby so we can continue with the otherwise I'm going to ask you to sit down and stay for the whole meeting I mean not that I wouldn't love to have you all here for the whole meeting wonderful thank you so much so excited exciting that we can have um start our evening off so well so we are going to move into um old business 6A which is I would ask that the governing board approve the 20 2020 21 certified performance pay plan as recommend I think
017you mean 2022-2023 performance pay plan I understand all right do we have a second I second right and I believe we're going to go to Dr Smith for that President O'Brien there are no changes to to the uh plan that we presented at the last meeting okay um Mrs Ordway has a question do not oh you do not I apologize I thought you said you had a question any other board members have questions um I just have uh some I'd like some quick background Dr Smith at one time uh our certified performance pay plan was on a per school basis correct president O'Brien and uh there were there was a component that was based on school level performance yes that's correct and did that provide for differentiated pay for teachers based on the school's letter
018grade uh president O'Brien yes it did and can you remind me approximately when we transitioned from uh the performance pay being at a per school basis to based on the number of school basically the the overall grade of our school district president O'Brien I could say it's been over the overall District distribution of letter grades I'm gonna I can't tell you exactly the date but five or six years okay thank you very much and and so based with that change the teachers now all receive the same amount based on the performance of all the schools in the district president O'Brien they received the same amount for that compon component of the plan they still there's still differentiation for the evaluation and the professional uh responsibility outers okay and that um portion is about oh sorry
019I can look here and is that 25% the payout for the school part okay excellent thank you so much any other questions or comments Mrs paperman so uh so to what degree is evalu ation uh uh for for a teacher to get full performance paid so what happens with evaluation if they do not meet uh that [Music] goal president excuse me president O'Brien paperman uh the evaluation component which is 50% of the plan is a function of how they perform on the first six standards of their evaluation okay and if they uh receive at least an um an effective or highly effective score on each of those six standards then then they are they will qualify for 100% if I will scroll down real quickly thank you Mr mler you know U here is how
020the evaluation works you can see they we just give them points for a highly effective effective developing or ineffective um and then based on the average score if they get two .8 or higher they get 100% of it if they get between 2.6 and 2.79 they get 85% so forth and so forth and basically here are some examples that will show you I'm going to look at teacher number two in the middle here uh here would be an example of a hypothetical teacher that had one developing and five effectives they would have a 2.83 average still receiving 100% uh teacher three you'd have to have at least two developing to not receive 100% of the evaluation portion okay so another question is so this is based just on one or two evaluation of coming into
021the classroom and observing a teacher the I might ask Miss mafa to step in here but the evaluation um is based on it could be one observation but in most cases two observations uh of the classroom for full lesson plan uh with a follow-up review uh of the of that valuation with the teacher so another question I have uh student data uh so they say if a teacher uh does not meet the evaluation and this growth on the student data can a teacher use student data to show prove that they're an Effective Teacher in their evaluation president O'Brien Miss paperman uh in the plan that has been presented no uh the student learning objective or the student goal which is standard number six so their evaluation is not a component of the plan okay thank
022you thank you Mrs paperman all those in favor please say I I I I I any opposed hearing none the motion passes unanimously sorry it's taking a little bit to get loaded has every been able to record their vote yeah it was delayed but it showed up okay great thank you item 6B um I would ask that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation to approve the fy2 or fiscal year 23 negotiated solution team salary recommendation I second we have a motion in a second Mr Murino uh president O'Brien members of the board bench um did want to uh comment uh quickly that the this recommendation was shared with the board at the previous meeting as a preview item it has changed uh since that preview uh the negotiation solution team did meet I wanted
023to recognize uh many members of the uh NST um that are even uh in the audience uh this evening um for their continuing efforts uh they're noted on this slide here uh which hasn't slide since which has not changed since the preview um as I mentioned little feedback from this Mike I apologize the uh uh the Govern the negotiation solution team did meet on April 4th which was a I'll say unscheduled meeting um because we typically meet the second Tuesday of the of the month and that was a result of the preview item and the comments that we received from the governing board uh which uh is was the Catalyst for the changes that we'll go over um the budget assumptions have not changed with the exception of on the second page here uh the
024classroom site fund so there's almost $6 million wor the classroom site fund additional dollars for uh for for next year uh and that uh created an $1,880 increase to the certified and other professional staff uh that was not included in what we previewed because we did not have the classroom site fund allocation um when we previewed this at the previous meeting the uh information regarding the salary increase um remains a 6% recommendation for the uh certified other professional and classified staff uh and a 5% uh increase for the admin and exempt group the uh that does not include the classroom site fund amount this is just the district's M portion um and that's that uh just over $1 million amount that you see um at the bottom of this page here um there's been a
025lot of discussion about how the money would be distributed and we'll get into that um on this page we actually have um the changes uh kind of uh maybe more in a numerical format and then we'll have it uh in a narrative format on the subsequent Pages um but the changes here is the admin exempt group um their increase remains at 5% uh their distribution of that 5% U um just under $700,000 was originally proposed to be a 550 uh split so 50% of it to be a percentage increase 50% of it to be a flat increase after some discussions um the de Valley uh building leadership team uh as well as NST had some conversations about this we did some some math on on the numbers uh they are now recommending that that change
026to a a 40% percentage increase and a 60% flat increase uh the net effect of that is this provides a slightly larger increase for those at the bottom of the schedule uh than those at the top of the schedule uh we did uh continue to show that the uh new higher increase would be um half of of the percentage and all of the flat this also will help the bottom or the starting pay uh for that group uh the certified Ops when we previewed this uh with you initially we had two options as the dve was uh uh conducting a survey um it is now uh recommended that it be a 100% percentage increase at 6% um and that uh um that the increase uh for the hiring amount be 70% of that 6% or
0274.2% with um an additional 1,00 of the classroom site fund um we'll get into some of those details uh so that's the same for the certified and the other professional staff uh in future years we might be able to collapse those two groups they were kept separately over the years there is a separate salary schedule for those two different groups um but uh before the classroom site fund was altered uh in the most uh or or in this year um they were not eligible for classroom side fund uh dollars uh classified group did not change from the uh from the preview remains a 4060 distribution 40% of their 6% being a percentage increase 60% being flat and half of that percentage and all of that flat being added to the starting rage plus an additional
028million dollars in classified compression uh which is also includes some reclassification of uh of our um uh positions that drive buses um uh for us so uh what this looks like in a more narrative form is the salary recommendation is to fund uh the professional growth that's been earned uh just over $67,000 and then provide increases uh in the following manner as I just described so 6% to the base contract for our certified teachers uh and then increasing the starting pay uh from the current rate of $4,750 to $444,500 um the way we get there is you take the 41750 that we're currently paying uh add the 4.2% which is 70% of the 6% increase and add ,000 of the uh classroom side fund increase uh so that gets us to the 445 uh as
029the projected increase for the uh uh certified teachers uh for next year uh pending the board's decision this evening then there are two trigger amounts um that are uh consistent with all the groups uh that that are based on a percentage increase um that would be if realized uh as we have talked about at length the aggregate expenditure limit if that is to get resolved for fiscal year 23 and just as a reminder it has or was resolved for fiscal year 22 uh and I know you've heard Miss mock speak about this uh at length um but the for fiscal year 23 it has not yet been uh resolved uh if it is to be resolved we do have some reserves uh that we are withholding to be able to make sure that we have
030uh some options in case the aggregate expenditure limit uh does not get resolved by the legislature and if that is if it does get resolved we would like to further reward our employees uh and that would be an additional 1.5% uh increase if the uh salary or if our uh average daily membership or enrollment increases because we are funded based on current year funding U we would also want to further um um recognize our employees for the their effort efor that would be an additional 1.5% if the average daily membership uh does exceed 32,500 uh by December 1st of 2022 which is uh just before um the uh the 100th day period for us uh further describes how that would be paid out just uh so there wouldn't be any question um the Ops staff
031which is next on the list um follows uh exactly in the same manner as the um as the certified uh teaching group and so I I won't go into detail with regarding that i' just be repeating myself the classified group again a 6% salary increase 40% of it as a uh percentage increase which would be 2.4% and then 60% is a flat dollar increase or 75 cents uh per hour in addition to that uh we do have um the chart that's off to the left is the um uh is our attempt to uh deal with classified uh compression salary compression due to minimum wage uh increases current minimum wage is $12.80 we have ranges uh 4 through 19 are all making $12.80 uh with this proposal and the increase that's in involved we would increase
032our lowest starting rate to $13.70 um again because of all the vacancies we have this would help us to attract uh people into into these positions um the uh uh in addition to the salary increases uh and the compression that I just tried to uh briefly describe uh there are some Transportation positions that were reclassifying from range 27 to 28 which ends up being a 36 Cent uh per hour increase for that group or 44 cents for our transportation supervisor uh positions the the five positions that we have in that uh classification and then this group also has the same trigger language of 1.5% again if the aggregate expenditure limit is reached or resolved and if the average daily membership uh is exceeded by 32,500 the final group is the admin exempt group um this
033percentage is lower than the other two uh those were uh at uh 6% this is at 5% and again uh this uh distribution change from the preview 40% is the percentage increase and 60% is the flat dollar uh or $2,442 so uh we would continue to have half of the percentage um and all of the flat dollar be added to the beginning wages for for this group and again they have the two trigger languages uh included as well new for this uh new since the this was previewed is the classroom site fund um this did go up considerably last year uh the actual uh dollar amount per weighted student count was $733 it actually went down to $78 uh for this year but we only allocated $522 of that $733 last year due to the
034fact that the joint legislative budget committee who creates these estimates indicated that only $522 of that um of the allocation for uh fiscal year 22 was sustainable um the rest of it was one-time funds so we took the onetime funds and we made a payment to our class side fund eligible people in December as a one-time payment it was not included in their salary this year the new allocation came out it's a sustainable $78 which is a considerable increase and so we're proposing that all of that be added into the uh salaries which would be a flat dollar increase for our certified and Ops staff uh which is just under 3.5% um on average and uh that would would be $1,880 and you can see the classroom side fund and fund 20 amounts that are
035totaling the 60 uh $ 6,620 uh so in a sense what ends up happening is even though I the I made the comment that the certified ns are getting a 6% percentage increase at 6% without it being uh distributed between a flat amount um in reality due to the classroom site fund increase 33% of the almost 99.5% that we'd be um um approving for the certified nops would be a flat dollar increase um with the classroom site fund this information is was not shared at the preview so I just want to make sure that I'm I'm clear about that so essentially we're talking about uh if you were to take all of the the funds um that are in the recommendation again about a 99.5% increase without the triggers for our certified in Ops uh
03633% of that would be a flat increase um if our take if you take all of the amount that the classified group uh including the compression uh would be about a 7.5% increase um and then a 5% increase for admin exemp group uh so there's been quite a bit of uh discussion about uh of the information uh that I just shared but I'll just briefly go over the process so we kind of know what the next steps are uh tonight is the formal consideration I think there uh may be some questions that I want to make sure that there's time for uh if it is approved tonight then we will bring back the salary schedules to approve at the April 26th board meeting uh we will then start the budget revision for next year um
037or excuse me the budget revision for the current year and then immediately following start to work on the proposed budget um the the formal budget uh and that is assuming that the legislature is at a point where they can uh let us know know exactly what our resources are going to look like for next year we understand that that could be a lengthy process uh this legislative session so uh with that I will answer any questions thank you Mr mcino we do have um three public speakers on this item oh four I apologize we have four so we'll be um taking those now all right so um if Miss fiser uh Mr Beckman uh Miss Smith and Mrs Keane could line up I'll read the admonishment uh the board invites public comment on the district's
038business in general and or on any agenda item in specific all speakers must observe the rule of decorum speakers must fill out a card listing name address and topic and hand it to the board secretary prior to the president calling the meeting to order speakers must make their comments in no more than three minutes if necessary to accommodate all speakers within the 30 minute overall time the board president May shorten the speaker's time constructive criticism is an order rudess vulgarity and disruptive conduct or remarks that are disrespecting personal dignity are not in order and will not be allowed under the Arizona open meeting law the governing board cannot discuss or act on any items that are not listed on the agenda board members May respond to criticism made by a speaker ask staff to review
039a matter or ask that a matter be put on a future agenda so with that miss fiser you please state your name for the um record and then your time will begin my name is Kelly Fischer I am a 21-year veteran teacher here in De Valley good evening president O'Brien governing board members Dr Finch colleagues and guests I am here tonight to talk to you about the NST salary recommendation as a leader on my campus in my community and in my union I understand the need to look to the future I am always thinking about who's going to replace me I know it's important but as an educator I also understand the importance of making those experienced teachers and certified employees feel valued and respected I stand before you tonight to ask you to honor
040the NST process and the voices of our certified employees and approve the NST salary recommendation for the 2022 2023 school year as written the certified employees are asking to be compensated for the amazing and important jobs they do every day let's just think about that for a second not only does every certified employee show up every day and do the job they're asked to do they're also mentoring supporting and preparing all those new Educators who are going to someday take our places so the ask is simple honor the work that the NST team has done and honor the voices of Educators like me thank thank you next speaker please step to the microphone Mr Beckman you're next please state your name for the record and then your time will begin the being [Music] tall uh
041my name is Craig Beckman uh esteemed members of the governing board I'm here to talk here tonight to talk about two things I'd like to start by showing my appreciation for your consideration of the increase in employee pay tonight our District transportation and School Employees are the most important Assets in our public education system and while money alone can never show how appreciative our community is for these people as a good start um I would implore that over the coming year the district and governing board members continue to find ways to increase employee pay and benefits to ensure that we have a chance at retaining and acquiring qualified staff that our children's education are so dependent on parents listening I would ask that you also reach out to your kids teachers and let them know
042how thankful you are for the time hard work and passion they put into our community's children for too long we've taken our School Employees for granted and it's more important than ever to show our appreciation secondly I'd like to talk about a student's right to freedom of speech Mr Beckman Mr Beck we can um stop your time here and you can come back at the end during regular public comments you will have 2 minutes at that time cuz that you still have that left thank you all right our next speaker is Katie all right please state state your name for the record and then your time will begin [Music] okay hi my name is Katie may I am here I actually would like to do another comment later too uh but as a parent I
043want to say thank you to the teachers and staff for all that they do and I know uh it's all about the kids if Co has taught us anything it's to appreciate the job that you guys do so I urge the school board in the district to give Focus to increasing the salary and the way that they are asking for um I would like to give a big thanks to my children's teacher they are part of the Renaissance program and they get to practice coming up and giving presentations in front of large groups just like this this year excuse me this year one of the kids did or one of my kids did a presentation on particle physicist and the other one did a presentation on astrophysicist they got to interview people that work in
044those fields uh and give presentations on the knowledge that they gained the district is only as good as its teachers and uh programs like that uh my kids are in school to do more than learn the basics of one 123 and ABCs and dvusd gets that so please consider our teachers thank you thank you you please state your name for the record and then your time will begin good evening my name is Allison Oswald Keane um I want to thank uh president O'Brien governing board Dr Finch my colleagues and community members for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight I stand here before you tonight um as not only the current DVA president and a longtime dve building representative and executive board member but also as a 28-year veteran of dear valy um I've had
045the honor and privilege of opening Desert Mountain School opening teramar and now opening dvoa Aspire and I have been thrilled with all of those opportunities I've always backed what was right for the collective good and whether that was necessarily right for me and my family the best choice I stand behind the voice of the collective however tonight I'd like to share with you more of a personal story I know there was discussion before for about the 60/40 split versus full percentage and benefits on one end or the other um I am someone that is on that upper end because of 20 by 2020 because of the the benefits that this district has brought as as good as we are with our community with our kids um and the funds that have been available my husband
046and I have both uh been employees here he had to retire a few years ago we were part of the group of teachers that had wages Frozen for several years part of The 500 Club when prop 123 came into existence and newer uh newer to the profession teachers received higher funds in some of those years than those of us that had been around longer um I hit my 25 years I was entitled then to a longevity agenda which I very much appreciated but I had to contact and ask for it it wasn't automatically p put and just so that you know it's a onetime one year not an ongoing addition to your salary but I appreciate being given that as a value for my service um my husband as I said was a longtime certified
047employee of the district he retired about 5 years ago due to medical reasons we continue to face those medical costs and we'll do so for the foreseeable future um I know that having this raise coming this year being a full percentage will help us to be able to pay those costs that his chemotherapy and all of the other tests that he has to go through so for that reason I I ask you to please honor the presentation that was given the ratification that was taken and for once I'm looking at being selfish but it's the first time in 28 years so thank you for your time thank you for your comments okay board members questions Mrs paperman well I would like to say um glad to see the 6% salary increase on the base uh
048contract uh even myself as a scho school teacher especially seeing the way the economy is gas prices Foods going up this is going to make a big difference uh to support our staff certified and classified uh we need also to value our veterans teacher yeah we understand that we need to bring up the salary uh for new teachers uh but the reality is we have teachers that have committed to our district for many years uh and also having a salary increase for retirement that also helps uh at in the long run uh as your Sal salary goes up uh so so we need to find ways uh to to make life better for our community within Deer Valley within our staff uh if it's health insurance uh anything that we can do with salary because
049right now I I hear teachers say this percentage is going to help even to pay for gas they they have to drive uh is going to support in many ways of as the of the as the economy you know prices go up so so we need to match we need to match our salary to what's happening in our society thank you thank you Mrs paperman Mrs Fischer I actually have a couple [Music] um Mr mcino did we have we looked again back in I think I think it was 2015 maybe 16 when we um looked at the uh compression of our staff and specifically at our teachers um I believe Mike gregar had put together a spreadsheet have we done any kind of an analysis like that to see are we getting back in that
050same situation where our teachers are are having those kind of issues um that we need to address that again and and find a way to address that uh president O'Brien uh Miss Fischer uh we have not done the formal scatter plot analysis that we did um back in that year that you're referencing um but we did make uh major adjustments in that year uh to be able to align people more to um to the the uh uh progression line uh on that scatter plot and so um but we haven't looked at it since would it be difficult for us to do something like that again I mean drop down the data and since we already have the model uh it would not be difficult to do I think one of the things that we learned
051from the exercise uh is that uh as with any data set there there are anomalies that aren't captured in just the numerical or quantifiable things of you know somebody's salary um or their years of service which is how we uh develop that scattered plot uh when we did that exercise so there are there are going to be uh nuances to uh the data that we have that uh probably would need to be taken into consideration in more detail than it was in the year that we did it and are we doing uh total comp statements now I think it passed a couple years ago uh yes passed last year so to Total compensation statements will be published uh likely in July okay so it may be a benefit I don't know if the rest the
052board's interested but I would just like to make sure somehow whether we look at data from the total comp statements or we look at something similar to that scatter plot that we did in the past um just make sure that we're not um we don't have a certain set of of teachers that are are um either being missed or bypassed or you know just make sure that we're we're not creating the mess that was there before um a lot of changes were made to fix that because we did want honor our our teachers long before 2020 you know the 20 by 2020 ever occurred um and we made great strides but if we don't monitor it and we go backwards it won't do any good um the second question I had um and I know
053we've received emails from from various individuals and and the association sent out their surveys um but one of the one of the things I did was kind of run the numbers into um what that that uh jump would be from benefit one group versus benefit the other um and we 46% of our 44% of our teachers will benefit greater from the flat 6% and 56% of our teachers would have benefited by the 20 or the 6040 split um did did we in any way engage with our our um with those teachers that will be impacted the other direction just to know I mean there is a point to be made that our our longest serving teachers um there's something to be said for that longevity for honoring them but there's also something to be said
054for not again creating the mess we were in before um I've always been in proponent of of percentage increases into their base so they don't go backwards every year but did we look at that uh president O'Brien Miss Fischer uh the so the DVA uh Association did uh send out a survey to all of their representatives uh and received information regarding uh the option for a 60/40 split over a um straight percentage increase and then and that information was shared uh at the last board meeting as part of the preview um and I think if I remember correctly I believe it was 80% of those responses were in favor of a straight percentage increase uh and then uh DVA went back out as we altered the salary recommendation as I just uh with and um
055then uh received a ratification vote uh again of all uh um uh all of the people in that in in those positions not just members of their Association and I think there were only 11 no votes of the uh almost 1,200 votes that were cast so there's 1,00 is how many responded uh yeah 1187 was the number of respondents uh so 1,187 and 11 of those were no votes 1176 were in favor of the recommendation as we have presented it this evening so less than 50% participation is that correct uh a little over 50% a little over 50 over 50 21 okay yeah a little over 50 um do we know of those well I guess we wouldn't we wouldn't okay thank you Mrs orway um my question is when the negotiations were going on
056and and we um have talked about uh new teachers coming in newer teachers staying um as we discussed all teachers staying but certainly the newer ones um how how was it addressed or was it addressed um that these negotiations would um attract keep and value the new or newer to the profession H how was that addressed uh president O'Brien Miss Hardway one of the objectives that we talked about at NST and um at the beginning of the presentation we shared we start early in the year right so before we even know a lot of information that's valuable to even starting to craft a cber recommendation we talk about where we stand financially as a district and and we talk about some of the challenges that we're faced as an organization so one of the objectives
057uh that we set out for NST to address was to uh to work on on trying to come up with a strategy or strategies uh to be able to help uh with the vacancies U because it's it's being felt across the district um and so that's why there was a commitment over a million dollars with the classified group to try and fill uh some of those so the NST agreed that uh there need to be a disproportionate amount of money um provided to the classified group not only this year but maybe in future years plural um kind of a initial uh initial uh start to that with the recommendation that's before you this evening but also uh an effort to be able to make sure that we have um increased the starting pay for our
058certified other professional staff and even our admin exempt group um that's why there was a larger commitment for adding to the uh starting salary amount um which uh includes an addition of the classroom site fund uh which I don't recall in my history that we've added classroom site fund to the starting pay but again to to make sure that we have a competitive offer uh to be able to attract more people into positions throughout the district not just uh in any one particular group and then if you could go over again for our beginning salary what is the percentage that that has gone up in in this um iteration of the um ask um uh president O'Brien Miss Ordway so the uh current starting salary for teachers $417 for this year uh in what's being
059proposed we would increase that to 44,500 that's a little over 6 and a half% increase to the starting salary and that starting salary is um competitive with our districts that we normally want to be competitive with yes or no um it depends on which salary you're referring to the current one or the proposed one um talking about the proposed one I already know what the current one where that one um we we believe that the proposed salary would be more in alignment with or closer in alignment with uh some of our neighboring districts and what they are offering um uh currently we are I think only um if the race was to who who is starting the lowest I think we're second only to the Poria School District uh currently this would move us up
060in that ranking it would move us up to what place um we would probably be uh from the adjacent districts for uh to us we'd probably be of the adjacent four districts we would probably be second I don't know what they're and the reason I I was going to say they haven't done theirs yet correct we we have we do not have all the information uh from the other districts what they're doing with their s Rec recommendation but I believe it'll make a second okay and and I don't know that this belongs here but if it doesn't then answer at some other point in time when we have a teacher from another District come and they've been teaching for 26 years um how do we compensate our district for having that experience come into our
061district what percentage of their years do they get so I won't be ignoring you but I'm going to make sure I'm getting some positive confirmation from my peripheral here uh we we provide them for up to five years of credit for service um and at $800 per year $700 per year as I said $700 okay and it at some other point in time we'll just need to understand the rationale for that but anyway for now that's all I have actually to that point I'd like to understand that rationale now um the year that Miss Fischer is referencing um the year when we were working with prop one 123 money previous to that um in the certified manual outlined up to five years of experience at $800 a year the year that we um adjusted salaries
062and I believe differentiated it by $700 that's what caused the seven it to drop $700 so that there would at least be a $700 differential between years and that those people wouldn't Leap Frog over anyone in our system so uh the manual is what says five years it it would be a board approved change for us to add any additional years or it would be a board approved change for us to Value it any differently the thing to consider um anytime that you're going to do that is if you're going to pay years of service on the outside and you're uh going to Value it at a certain rate will it cause that person to make more than someone in your system with the same amount of service so those are the things that we
063consider um in making those decisions and we certainly have been talking about that a lot lately so just so I make sure I understand what you're saying is if we hire somebody from a neighboring District who has 10 years of service we limit the amount we give them in a Pere experience so that we can ensure they don't make more money than somebody who's making here that's been here 10 years that really is not not the number five five is pretty consistent when you go from District to District they will honor five you might sometimes see a district that will go a little bit higher or only in an area like special education or speech they might um honor more years of experience but um to answer your question specifically it's the value that we
064give for each of those years that matters the most um because they may Leap Frog over people in the system with the same amount of service so um I'll also remind the board if you were on the board at this the same point in time the prop one 12 three year we had a different hard-to-fill structure we had a hardto fill structure that I believe when it was created a very long time ago the intent was people from the outside that had years of experience and so we honored five years of service at $800 and beyond that up to 20 years we gave them $1200 so we did have um many people in our system um in special education that had $188,000 hard to fill a dendas and they so pulling someone in from the
065outside they were making a lot more money than teachers working on the inside and so at that point in time we we shifted The hardto Fill structure to be 200 for everyone in the system and outside the system later the board approved a $3,000 um hard to fill but that was why the board made that decision was because we people from the outside at a much higher rate than anyone inside the system that was doing the same job that was doing the same job so if we're doing Apples to Apples a special education teacher that was coming from outside could not just Leap Frog but Superman building jump over okay that's right I appreciate that um clarification Mrs Fischer to that same point um we also I believe had an issue with individuals being hired
066in with a specialty but then it would they would change jobs and it would stay with them the pay would stay even though they were no longer doing that did we address that or that was the concern I don't know if it was accurate or not but did did was that addressed it's possible that it was brought up as a concern but they once a a person transfers out of a hard-to-fill category they do lose the agenda attached to it and that would have been true at that time as well they would forfeit that $188,000 agenda okay so we was but but we did resolve those issues so that our teachers are not yeah um being subjected to the same things because I know it was a significant concern for our our certified staff okay
067thank you are you Mrs Reed um it would be really helpful to have some more information about that in our Friday update um because I was not on the board during that time so some more historical data and information and reasoning behind that would be very helpful to myself and I'm assuming Mrs paperman as well um and what would make sense to me and I'm just throwing it out there is that if we had a teacher who came from another school district who wanted to work at Deer Valley and was taking a $10,000 pay cut it would make sense to me that if we wanted that that person we would be able to figure out a way to match the salary that they were at before um however that's just that's in the business world
068that's what you do um and I understand that that's not always what we do in the education world but um that would make that would make sense to me um a couple of questions I know that in um some of the information that we had received um and and it may have been a figure that was thrown out in the last board meeting we had um a 52,500 or something around that dollar point that was kind of the break even Point am I remembering that figure correctly that um there was a specific dollar point that if a teacher made over that then the 6% they would earn more money that that way and if they made under that then they would not be receiving as much money is that correct is that dollar amount yeah
069president O'Brien uh Miss Reed the uh so basically at the average uh for the calculation uh which ends up being $ 52,2 um an annual base salary um it would make no difference if it was a 6% increase or if it was a 6040 uh split uh in the distribution the the the amount of the funds that the teacher earning $ 52,2 would be exactly the same okay thank you and then um you know we've we've talked quite a bit about um veteran teachers um as compared to um beginning teachers newer teachers um and I know that when we have done um these previously we had a lot of concerns about um raising the starting teacher salary and then um teachers in year three between three and five you know they they weren't making um
070very minimal compared to what a starting teacher had and and so there were some issues and problems with that um so and and I know that I this is um a question that I didn't ask and it you might not have the information um to share right away but do we know um what the turnover rate is for our fiveyear and under teachers [Music] we do um and that's something we can provide to you on Friday it is not something I know off the top of my head but that's something we can share with okay that would be helpful to see what um what percentage um based upon maybe fiveyear brackets of of teachers aren't choosing to return to the district and sign their contract um and then can you also kind of give me
071a ballpark figure when we look at the average salary of that $52,000 how many years of service is that about um president O'Brian Miss Reed if I drag my feet long enough to log on to the auditor general site um it's um if you want to test my memory which I think you should um the uh I think it's 12.3 is um maybe 11 I'll stop guessing as soon as I get to the document 12.3 not bad so if I can make an assumption that that break even point if you are a teacher in our district that has worked under 12.3 years going with a flat 6% raise you wouldn't you would be leaving money on the table as opposed to um getting that 6040 split is that correct um president O'Brien Miss readed yeah
072I I I think it gets confusing at least to me when we say flat 6% um because I think we're mixing the word flat in if it's only a 6% increase and I was here for 12 years and and making the average um then it would make no difference at all um 60 40 or otherwise but if I was here less than 12 years and made less than the $52,000 then I would be making more if the distribution included a flat amount a straight dollar amount the 64 split right the 6040 split that includes a flat amount correct I'm sorry if I was I just wanted to clarify that that's what you were saying as opposed to receiving the full 6% correct so um 6% and again it depends on well if you make more
073than the $52,000 regardless of how many years you've been here you're you're going to get more um with a 6% increase than if we carve out a portion of that as a flat dollar increase as what was one of the options that we shared uh when we previewed this to with you and I'm sorry Mrs Moffet one more question and and if you don't have this information now that's okay too do we have a do we have information on what the turnover rate is in our district for let's use that 12E number is it a higher turnover rate for teachers that have been with our district Under 12 years or a higher tune over rate for teach in our district for over 12 years um that that certainly could be something that we would find
074for you my guess would be um we are we tend to be on Trend um with the state and nationally and that's that you lose around years three to five if they make it past year five they stick they um a teacher will tend to stay with you longer thank you that's all the question question I have right now I have comments to add later but okay um so when this was presented last um meeting I I had expressed as well as some my fellow governing board members that there would be um more surveying of the teachers I received the emails as did my fellow board members and I reached out to those teachers as well as teachers um that I know and what is perplexing and troubling to me is that some of the
075teachers who emailed me and asked me to vote for the 6% raise um when we talked and had a discussion about what their salary is and what that decision meant to them um it was concerning that they expressed that they didn't understand that the 6% would not give them as much as the 3.6 plus um 1249 as a flat rate and in those discussions two of them had voted for ratification and told me they wished they could have had their votes back so and when I look further at the information provided that about our salaries for certified the in 2017 or I should say for the 2018 year we approved a percentage increase and those starting salaries and I'm just going to give you the top and the bottom so those starting salaries for that
076year were 40,100 that's employee a and employee D on the higher end was 70,000 they so there's about a 30,000 difference between the top and the bottom and as that progresses over the last years with all all the raises being in a percent format so everybody got a 1.5 or they got a 5% or they got a 5% the next year and then a 1% um what you come to in fiscal year 22 is that the sorry it it is continuing to get larger and larger the differentiation so now in fiscal year 22 that employee a is making 50,500 and employee D is making 88,000 and now we have a $38,000 Delta between those two employees because we have done a percentage increase over year over year over year which compounds those dollars [Music] um
077and we need to Value all of our teachers we need to value our teachers who have been here for 25 plus years and we need to value our new teachers who come into the system and have been here for three five seven I mean we value all of our teachers um I I don't understand um and and I am going to uh I guess accept responsibility because I know in years past in talking about raises uh I believe we've talked about having um the ability for teachers to you know plug numbers in so they can see the what that impact is and and I don't want it to come from an association for any of the employee groups I want that I want an employee to be able to go to the district website and
078click on the link and then punch in their salary so that if there's two options option A and option b they can plug in their salary number so there is no more confusion these teachers have a lot going on our staff has a lot going on I understand how we get lost in that and so I would ask with the support or support from my fellow board members that going forward from here on out that that is a directive to staff that that become something we make available so when NST is happening those options that are being considered are available on the website so they can plug in their salary and they can understand exactly what that impact Financial impact is to them um too many teachers and the few that I spoke to you
079know enough of them I talked to and and and and heard through talking to others said they didn't understand the impact to them that it's 6% sounded better to them that they didn't understand that 3.6% plus 12249 was going to be more financially impactful to their um salary so you know I'd like to hear from my fellow governing board members Mrs Fischer you know I have to say that I agree with Vince O'Brien that that I don't believe individuals necessarily understood um because I you know I did run the numbers and i' and I ran the numbers with several teachers who who didn't really understand well how do those numbers line up what does that look like and why they have this flat dollar Mount how do they get it and the information was all
080there in your presentation but unless you are a numbers person that's going to toss them into a spreadsheet and go this is what it looks like which is part of why I sent in um my inquiry earlier today of how many of our teachers are above the 52 and how many are below and I just did a straight 52 um and that's where I came out with 56% are below that 52 threshold um and 44% are above because my concern is I don't I don't I'm really worried that we are going to and I know that we went through a lot with that whole scatter plot and people everywhere and and it's it's trying to fix an old problem that caused that 500 Club that teachers talk about and and it really um hurt the
081morale for some of those employees and it was never the intention and then we had a whole other set of of our teachers that said um you know oh my God thank you I I never thought I've been here since I graduated college and I'm almost at retirement and I never thought I would actually get a real raise and they were very pleased that they were one of the ones that was fixed I I I'm really worried that if we keep doing what we what we're doing we're going to end up in that same situation not just people new coming in jumping over our employees but losing employees because they're never going to they're never going to get caught up when we have when we look at that and I do hear from teachers a
082lot that will say well but I have three Masters okay but they have three Masters also and they're 30,000 below you um that that's it's difficult and it's hard to make sense of of teacher pay for that reason um so I would agree that we need some kind of a tool for them and and I I actually thought we had requested one in the past that there would be one on the site if and maybe maybe it fell off at some point but I was pretty sure at the time we resolved some of the issues that we had requested that there be a a tool for them to calculate so they can make informed decisions um I don't know what that does for us today I I really don't because we we do need to
083honor that our teachers have um that's why I asked the question we had you know over 50% only 11 said no I find it hard to believe that over 50% didn't run the numbers and on on the ratification [Music] um so and sometimes we do have our our staff or teachers that will knowingly say I get it this time it's not going to benefit me as much but I want to honor this group so that may be why they voted that way so but for future I do agree we need to have a for our for all of our staff to truly evaluate what these decisions mean to them um this shouldn't be something that we do to them it should be something we do with them and and and they should want um the
084decisions that are made here um just it's what I felt then and it's what I feel now thanks thank you Mrs Fisher Mrs paperman so coming from a background I come from a different District uh we also have negotiations with salary uh I don't know about Dear Valley but one of the challenges that we do face every school has communication where we share it with our teachers uh give them the survey but one of the challenging is for them to take the survey or only some will get feedback and so will not get feedback uh I know in my campus uh I provide all the the information excuse me to the teachers and I do not get all of them to in the past when i r for them to to give their point of
085view or to to help with the decision making so I don't know how the Deer Valley process is but I think when it comes down to survey it's like pulling teeth uh and it's not only it's not only in negotiation with money it could be survey in other areas yes uh that you know question well what's the majority why there's only a uh you know the percentage is not at least you know 90% so serving uh is is a challenge to get to to get to everyone uh because as a teacher even on my own campus every year when I was in the negotiation committee was was a challenge to get everyone and even if I gave him the survey twice I will not get any respond back but you you know so it depends
086on the individual if they want to provide that information Mrs zway um so we have followed um normally um for the last 13 years we have gone with minus the one one one or two years with what the associations have um proposed I'm hoping that they have kept in mind all of their um members or not members those that are part of their um certified classified so on and so forth um it's just hard to watch uh the newer um employees um come into our system and we expect that they're going to stay because the ones that have been here longer they need that they want that and you'll have to wait because it's not your turn right now which is just the way it is I mean someone's going to get a higher raise
087someone's going to get a lower raise classified um for me has has always um always looked out for 360 degrees not saying that uh certified um doesn't have the intentions of making sure that everyone will get something out of their negotiations so I I'm going to as usual um honor uh most likely honor what they're asking for but I am also going to ask this board to um have an executive session a session a study session work session because we really need to figure out um how we are going to be Equitable smart productive and um be the business that everyone wants us to be to make sure our employees have some equity and and we have employees to um negotiate and pay because it's hard enough as it is right now to compete with
088um places that can pay you $20 for a lot of things an hour that possibly does not have you in a classroom does not have in a classroom for a multitude of tasks that you would be standing in a classroom for whether that's teaching cleaning being the par being the electrician or whatever so I think we have to come to grips with having a meeting to figure out how we're going to help um ourselves along and not um continuing to quote unquote eat our young because we need to make more money because we don't have that much money to go around so that's that's it Mrs Reed um thank you Mrs Ordway um Mrs Le Brien um I first want to say to our teachers um I highly highly value the time and the the
089work that you put into um educating our students and preparing your lesson plans and preparing your classrooms to be um a place of rest and refuge for your students as you're teaching them um while it's been 15 years or so since I've been in the classroom I remember calculating my pay for um the hours that I worked every week as a self-contained special education teacher and I made $667 an hour and given um having a toddler at home and wanting to continue to expand my family I decided to leave because $667 an hour was not worth the emotional toll and the time away from my family and um raising my kids so I I understand completely um what what it is that you do and what we ask of you to do as a governing
090board and and um what the state asks of you to do um I think it's really important that we honor um the process of what um the language that's in NST um and while I don't agree with the entire process as it is or the language um I think the language itself in NST is confusing um because it it says you know it has to be a split and sorry I'm paraphrasing I don't have it in front of me but it has to be a split or whatever you decide so I would like to um see that language being changed I don't think that it is um the place of the governing board to um change that language for you I think that it is the place of NST to come up with better language
091that gives better Direction and that is um clearer for future negotiations um I would also like to ensure and see that when we're talking about um teachers leaving at that fiveyear Mark that moving forward we ensure that teachers that are fiveyear and under um have a seat at the table to make sure that their viewpoints and their lenses are being considered um and I know that a lot of times we're talking about teachers that are fresh out of college and starting their lives and it and it's busy but to at least extend that offer for them to have a seat at the table I know that with the other with other work groups and committees we make sure that we have um lots of different lenses that are being seen so um and to include
092you know new principles and new administrators um new classified staff um I don't know um if that thought will be entertained but that's what I would like to see because I I think that the needs that you have as a five-year and under teer might be different than the needs that you have as a 20 plus veteran teacher um so so that being said I I would um like to um suggest that we honor the negotiations of our um our recommendations this evening for um the salary recommendation and know that um next year while I won't be on the board I when I'm tuning into this meeting I I don't want to see the same thing happened um last year when we sat down um and had this same meeting um the majority of the
093board um said that this year when we came back we wanted a solution to um fix some of these issues we didn't want to continue to Kick the Can down the road and um that would be my request is that um that NST language would be changed um so that it can we can finally start to have a solution and I would agree with Mrs Ordway that we would have um a meeting to further discuss so while I haven't voted in the past to honor the language again I'm disappointed I will tell you that approving a 6% raise tonight for the certified will further increase the Divide between our lowest paid and our highest paid by another $2,300 I think that is wrong um especially given the fact that if they if the recommend ation
094had to come forth with a 6040 split at three with which was a 3.6% plus 1249 um that would have been reduced to down to about a $1,400 split but what it really meant between the two groups the bottom and the top is that our lowest paid teachers would increase their pay by about $247 and the difference for top means that they would still get they would still get a substantial amount but they'd be getting about 550 less with that and I would contend that somebody making 75,000 um dollar a year and we do have employees making $775,000 a year uh that that looks a little different teachers um it looks a little different to them $550 than $247 does to $41 1,750 and I think the fact that we have will now be in
095our sixth year of approving a full percentage raise um given the comments of the board that I would move to amend the motion to attach language um for future negotiations that it must be a 6040 split or a flat raise that there will be no more option for a full percentage so I move to amend the motion to change the language in the certified manual Mrs Brian can I just um say something before you go through with that I think that kind of um change would be something that we would discuss um only because at this moment in time we as a governing board do have a negotiated um salary process and let me finish with associations not unions associations so yes we are very um I mean we're all Lucky that we talk so
096I just think that um having a a formal um I don't know what you call it Jim I'm looking at your face Jen I'm looking at your face but a formal meeting to address the changes that we want so we can see what the implications will be before we would then dictate something that we don't know what the implications would be if we were to say one or two or three are the only things you can do that's that's all I'm saying I I don't want to try to fix something tonight that we don't know what the um effects will be until we actually look at what the effects would be well and I guess that I would respectfully disagree I know what the effects are because I have six years worth of salary in
097front of me where we have provided a percentage increase every year and we have had discussions about doing this differently and the definition of crazy is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome so for me um that just means that we didn't have our meetings before the negotiations came up and we didn't do our portion of it I don't agree with what we're with what's proposed I think that the the teachers that are newer are losing out I think the teachers that are at the higher end won't be losing out that much I think that teachers that are at the higher end are catching up to our assistant principals and our Deans that have a whole different basket of uh tasks and responsibilities but I don't think personally I don't think
098at the day at a vote for this is the place to fix all that because I mean we can undo what we would vote for tonight to go through a thorough um look you know thoroughly looking at it it's it's up to somebody to make a second I just I don't agree with what they want us to vote for but I don't agree to crush a process because um individuals did not or or the Association associations did not follow what we had asked um all year and well not all I mean I I do hear you Mrs zway so I have a motion out there if there's a second there's a second if they not we go back to the original Mo motion so of course Mrs Fischer I this is one of those areas
099where I think we are are um I respect your motion I I I really do and uh because I I've been running these numbers while I've been running my staff's numbers I've been running these numbers all day long and looking at them again and again and and thinking about the lower paid employees um and thinking about that scatter plot that scared virtually everybody but I I don't know that um I always hate throwing the baby out with the bath water I I think sometimes you know people will will just make a snap a snap decision or a snap um so I don't want you to think I I don't support what you're saying because I 100% do which anybody who knows we don't always agree but the the the my concern is um I'm not
100really concerned about the the compression between administrator versus versus our our top teachers because I get they have different jobs but but there's a high value to both um things like that but but I think the bigger thing is that we have failed and it's not anyone else but us as a board we have failed to um have a study session um uh I I would support us having a meeting and having a study session I do not want it in executive session there is so much hidden things and they end up becoming false things and so I I really would support us having a a serious meaningful discussion well advertised back where we bring in our staff and they get to sit up here and actually have a conversation and they get to understand
101understand I'd like to see the numbers up on the board and I would like some of our newest and youngest and some of our I don't want to say oldest because I'm getting very old myself but some of the other end wiser some of our wiser staff members to to get together and actually discuss this um so I I would ask that we honor what is is here because what is here um I don't like it either I I I I was very disappointed that this is what was brought forward um I just expected a better um thing brought forward but I don't want to do future damage without having a real conversation with all of our staff our our new our new baby just graduated out of college with our I'm about to retire
102um and so I just I just I really hope that we can get together um for a change on on something and that being that we want what's best for all of them okay so there is no second for that so then the original motion oh sorry Mrs paperman so I just would like to say that I mean I do agree with Miss Fisher that this is a decision that it should not be just the B because it sounds like we you know making this decision right now is just like locking it in as a teacher all I could see is like oh my goodness now I got to be researching other districts where you know that I'll you know have better races uh percentage so you know right now we're trying to retain our
103teachers you know we're not trying to you know to get teachers to leave our district because you know the board decided that that we're going to lack what the races are going to be so I truly believe this is a decisions that is not just the board we need to give a voice even to our staff our certified and classified staff uh to get their input if we're trying to figure out to have the lower Pace to have higher salary and to also value the vetan teachers I'm a veteran teachers and and I know I work very hard you know I started my year with 30 kids in the classroom and and as a teacher I put my time working with new teacher and I do not get paid for that if they ask me
104to stay after school I'd help and provide a support So veteran teachers do more than what a lot of people don't understand because they're not in the system but this decision should be included with with our staff thank you okay any other comments so we are back to the original motion and I will call for the vote sorry if I can get to the place um all those in favor of approving the fiscal year 2023 negotiated solution team salary recommendation please say I I I I I nay the motion passes four to one so we will now go to the finance report Mrs mock good evening president O'Brien see if I can stretch up a little here president O'Brien members of the board and guests in person and online we have a couple different reports
105for you this evening we have our uh enrollment report for the month ending march of the 2122 school year we are pleased that we continue to show an increase of about 1.4% in enrollment from the same time last year or March of 21 um we did start tracking earlier this year at board request our percent change from uh our last pre-pandemic year which is 2018 2019 and we are still showing about a 3.6% um decrease or fewer students than what we had pre pandemic overall right now we do have 32,610 students enrolled by in programs um grades prek through 12 and I will take any questions on the enrollment report I don't see any I just one oh sorry Mrs orway Miss smck what have you been doing to increase our enrollment um president O'Brien
106Mrs I would probably defer that to uh Mrs aled at the back of the room I was gonna say that's a Monica thing but she has been yeah our Communications Department as well as our schools actually have been working very hard and um we're not to next year's budget yet but um We are continuing to expect uh growth uh in the coming years as well thank you next we will review our M budget report for month ending march um 22 as well we continue to see a an expected about 19. um 8 million in carry forward now just to be clear 7.4 million of that is from this year's budget um 4.7 million of that a part of 4 7 million is additional carry forward from last year over what we had projected and um
107an additional uh budget capacity from our rare September budget revision um the good news is that we are projecting a large carry forward the bad news um as we've stated at uh all the previous meetings is that most of that is from uh savings from vacancies having significant vacancies in our certified and our classified positions we do also still have about 9.3 million in committed budget balance that may or may not be spent um we are three4 of the way through the school year and hopefully we will not have many more surprises with uh just about a month left of school and um we will know for sure what that carry forward will be unfortunately um more toward July as we complete our next year uh budget adoption but one month from now we will
108be back not only with the April uh M budget report report but also the y22 budget revision and with that I will take any questions on the M budget report I don't see any thank you so much Mrs mock all right our next um more district report is Staff professionalism with students and for that we're going to go to Dr zerbach uh good evening president O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch it is our pleasure this evening to pres to you an update to the work that has been done uh here to for with respect to staff professionalism with students this evening we will hear mainly from Mr Warner and Mrs Moffet uh on the progress that has been done the only item that I wanted to make sure that we begin with is that
109all of the information the recommendations that you will hear tonight are here not only for the emotional physical safety of our students but for our staff as well and so that's an important Point as listen through this and with that I will hand it to Mr Warner thank you Dr zerbach uh president O'Brien members of the board Dr fch I'll try not to speak so close to the microphone um if we move to the next slide uh here's sort of synopsis of our original recommendations um and I'll just go through them real quickly the updated electronic user agreement the training to employees regarding employee student communication training the students regarding employee student communication methods to monitor and support both groups and a committee to evaluate current progress and identify uh additional next steps it should
110be noted that uh concurrent to that and even before that HR was working on uh some of these agreement some of these recommendations um as as I was making them to you uh and they've been working on them since and so that's why was MAF is here today uh originally we came to you December 14th with those and with that I'm going to have Mrs Moffett talk to you a little bit about what's been going on okay all right um so this may be familiar to you if you recall last summer we spent time um sharing in updates often the work that a core committee was doing on our electronic information service user agreement this agreement agreement specifically outlines how employees are to engage with students electronically it did require some updating to be really
111more current with the things that we had um done with with all of our technology across our system but the area that we um pointed out more to our employees this last cycle was uh the peer-like activity that employees are not to engage in when um communicating with students so if you recall we shared that revised document with you additionally we deployed um training and it is now part of our annual training for every single employee in our school SCH system and then we also developed an electronic communication disclosure process for each one of our employees who do have the responsibility of communicating electronically with students so specifically um this agreement addressed how employees were to engage more specifically with more detail it also outlined um uh ethical expectations for using any devices within our
112system and it also reviewed procedural expectations for employee disclosure so you'll see the disclosure um paragraph right out of the agreement there so here's the process for disclosure that we um started taking last July 2021 first step of the process is that each employee in our system that has the responsibility of communicating with students so a teacher for example who might need to communicate with students regarding homework or projects coming up or coach that needs to communicate with their athletes would be responsible for completing this this electronic disclosure form the district already does have adopted um Information Management systems that we could already utilize such as canvas canvas could be used to communicate with students anything that an employee would want to utilize outside of what the district has already adopted would have to be
113disclosed to the supervisor in advance of using it so they would complete this form the the supervisor also on the campus does have the ability to um tell their staff what platform they will utilize and not allow for additional platforms but some of our campuses like to allow a teacher to use remind to communicate with a student or a different um app to communicate with students and parents once that um permission has been obtained from the site supervisor the employee is required to disclose that um communication platform to the parent in advance and then they may begin to utilize that communication system additionally this year we've gathered a committee to work for deploying um another training for the 2223 Year and that is called the develop uh the staff student interaction and professional boundary guideline
114this is a guideline that details um how employees May engage with students and how employees may not not engage with students the core subjects um of this guideline focuses on supervision of students closed door meetings with students employee conduct with students the shells and the shell knots that I just referenced employee transportation of students in private Vehicles field trips and the responsibility employees have a reporting improper conduct so again I we did have a steering team come together has been vetted through administrators and uh Denise lit has taken a look at this guideline as well through our work with Denise of udol Shemu we've aligned this guideline oh I should also reference um that we we did research with our peer districts to see if they had anything in place as well um working with
115Denise we reference these specific policies and then um code administrative code code that you're all familiar with um our team is also working with Valley schools and a a company we hope uh we will be utilized coming up into this next year it's called vector and they provide a child sexual abuse prevention training program um my understanding is that Paradise Valley and Poria have also signed on to utilize this specific training Vector offers other types of trainings that we might be able to use to process improve our annual onboarding um trainings but this one is um specifically targeted to our employees that are engaged with students they are differentiated modules that meet the needs of employees working with Elementary age students middle-grade students and high school students so we should be able to deploy this
116training in the fall so we just wanted to highlight a couple of the current resources for students and families that we have please turn on your microphone Mr Warner I don't usually have to do that I'm sorry thank you um current resources for students and families U that we've had for a number of years the safe school's hotline St school's email the answer now line which M Mr Migo enjoys uh and the wellness and other counselor support that we have um on our campuses that we've been working to make sure that our campuses provide couple things we've identified for possible resources uh uh future resources and training for reporting um app based reporting such as Anonymous alerts we think that'd be an excellent place to meet kids where they live um but it could be
117for anyone including employees uh training for students uh one example we have talked about is our using some of our stter leadership councils which are on our campuses already um to push out information about healthy boundaries and uh good choices and things of that nature in fact uh we have a number of excellent examples of student athletic leadership C councils on our campuses right now um that uh really think that would be tapping into some student leaders to uh help us with that sort of thing and then we're exploring restorative practices uh and each and every one of the ones that we've looked at has had a way to identify healthy behavior and healthy boundaries uh for students so that um they can start to uh advocate for themselves finally our end the digital communication
118scrubbing uh we've been using the uh the bark scrubbing technology for a year now um it's something that I monitor every day um we've had numerous alerts dozens of alerts in all of these categories suicidal ideation bullying uh DCS calls and self harm um and I after having monit monitored this for nearly the entire school year um we think it's reasonably believe the chatter over inappropriate adult activity would be picked up as well um it has an algorithm that picks up all kind kinds of uh inappropriate activity inappropriate words inappropriate pictures and things like that that reside on our cloud and I think Dr zerbach is our closer thank you Mr Warner so our second to last slide now captures the next steps uh for the folks that have been working on this the first
119step is a piece that we may need some additional Staffing uh to help do some of the work some of the monitoring uh that is involved in this and additional resources perhaps as well uh such as Anonymous alerts or another app-based uh type system uh that was alluded to earlier uh the second point is the finalization of the training uh Jenna and her team um they have made much progress with this and so the uh final stamp on this as far as when and where and who uh will see will receive this for 22 23 three uh is being talked about now and will continue to be talked about the third step that we have outlined is the committee work that uh particular part is Falls with Mr Warner and that would be uh work
120that would include students and parents as well as staff members and that group would come together to look at all of the work that has been done and then to make any suggestions as to additional uh tools or resources that would be helpful and also to uh weigh in and evaluate the work that has been done here to for and then finally the last bullet point is uh the three C's of communication and really all of this um that Mrs Moffet and Mr Warner have talked about that we will need to work with all of our campus leaders our department leaders and to work on a solid and robust communication plan so that truly reaches all of our staff members and they understand uh what this entails and so with that we would be happy
121to entertain questions thank you Mrs zway that could you just explain for um the audience what bark is U how how it's utilized sure Mrs O'Brien uh mway members of the govering board Dr fench bark is a cloud scrubbing uh program it has uses an algorithm to uh find inappropriate activity on our platform form so our our Google Cloud our Google Suite um it finds uh you know curse words inappropriate discussions about vaping uh inappropriate pictures um discussions about bullying or self self harm uh depression uh problems in the home things of those Natures that that it looks for all those things most of what it finds is relatively innocuous where two kids are talking to each other and uh uh one kid will say uh you know you know you're you're you're just being
122stupid the other one will say well I'm going to kill myself right now he says no how you're being stupid you know something that you might have kids saying but other times we really do have suicidal ideation where kids have uh said I don't really it's it's more of a journal entry where they are talking about uh how worthless they feel um and how they just don't really think that anybody likes them and the world would be better off without them and when we see those kinds of alerts we can get them the assistance right away um in fact the bark program that we use uh will call I I get calls in the middle of night some nights uh when the kids are uh uh when they think it's severe enough that it's it
123warrants an immediate response so it really it scrubs the cloud using an algorithm once once the algorithm picks up the inappropriate activity uh human eyes look at it um to see if it might be inappropriate um so that as a result we get R we rarely get um hits on the Edgar Allen Poe section of the English language Arts when they're teaching that because uh we've seen that before um in in previous uh uh iterations so they look at it make sure it's not a it's not an assignment for school um but then it then it gives me an email alert um unless it's severe then they'll call and then one more question a little bit different um is this the agreement that um our employees would be signing that would address using students names
124on public um and or social media um would this be where that would go um are you referencing the electronic user agreement that that would reference whether or not an employee is allowed to reference students maybe on a um Instagram account or yes yes that's so that would be different this policy could be utilized um but also um eth staff ethics we we would go utilize other policies as well that that would align with well more that I'm looking for is that the employees just know that you don't uh students in your on your pages or whatever you call them so I didn't know if that was would be part of this training or it's part of something else that's all Mrs paperman so this is going to be a training for teachers on how
125what device uh uh electronic devices will be allowed to use to communicate uh is it with parents and students or just students the electronic service user agreement and the process that is followed specifically um is for communication with students students there is also within that process you are disclosing to your supervisor the methods you're utilizing to communicate with parents as well um but if you're responsible for commun communicating directly with kids that's um what you what the supervisor has to sign off on okay and then uh the devices would they would there be like types of devices that will be allow be allowed to use and not to use um regardless of of the device um if if they were utilizing their own personal um phones if they were using it obviously you can use
126an app no matter what device you're utilizing um so we're really just looking at the program that you're going to be using to communicate okay so however the the user agreement does talk about texting does talk about emailing it does differentiate between personal devices and school devices but these days so many of our employees are utilizing their school devices even for personal purposes at home sometimes going on to Amazon in between grading things or or that type of thing and we understand that okay so um there's more attention put on on the platform utilized okay and it will be clear to them okay thank you Mrs Reed thank you um going back to the training portion for students um I would like to see something um maybe in the students write some responsibilities handbook um
127a little blurb about um appropriate student and staff behavior um that parents and students are supposed to to read prior um and specifically in there um what healthy meetings look like right that to remind students um and parents that students don't have to meet with a teacher or a coach or an administrator um if they feel uncomfortable without having somebody else there in the room with them or without having a parent on the phone um I was speaking to um a parent um a few months ago and um had made that comment and she said oh I didn't realize that that my my child could have called me and I could have been on the phone during that meeting that they had and I think that's really important that our students and our um our
128parents know that that is their right um that they can be included in on those meetings or that a student can pull another adult into the room if um if they choose to to have another person in there Mrs Fischer I I understand the efforts that we're making and I see them you know in in I guess I guess we can only control so much and and it's somewhat limited within our own system my concern is that we're missing there's a whole segment we're missing how many fake profiles are out there how many um closed groups how many um you know the the the occurrence that created um the need for us to even start this was 100% outside of our system in a regular Social Media closed group I don't know how we address
129that how you know I mean is that the intent of having this you know maybe the additional employee for for um I mean are we going to hire a detective how do how are we going to address an issue like that um because we don't have access to scrub um if it's not in our Network correct or or am I misunderstanding the capability of it okay that's what I thought so to Mrs fiser I guess question um because obviously we bark or whatever system we would maybe utilize can only scrub our system we cannot scrub a Twitter or Facebook or I dated myself there Instagram Tik Tok all of those fun things however um what one of the things you talked about was the anonymous reporting and I think part of this discussion and and
130setting up our rules and our policies and guidelines and AMG amgs a yeah okay amgs is that um part of it is in communication but I do think an education and informing I think that our staff needs to be trained and truly understand they have an anonymous way to provide information I.E screenshots of Twitter because I'm hoping that the [Music] um what we have in place already and if it's not there that it will be shortly says that a sta it is inappropriate for a staff member to be um followed friended or whatever any of those other groups have that would be against policy for I'm going to use Twitter because that's one that I'm most familiar with right if I if I'm a teacher and I teach whatever grade it would be inappropriate it
131would be against District policy to have students follow my personal Twitter account now if I have Mrs obrien 7eventh grade you know language arts teacher uh and and that is a my official school thing and all like talk about his school stuff and I'm the Palm coach and all of those things that would be an appropriate place to have students follow me but Ann O'Brien mom and friend and wife that that is not where students would follow and we there would be consequences should we receive information that says I have students following me on Twitter is that correct I see a lot of head shaking but if someone could answer me um uh president O'Brien it it would be correct that the there is a um significant portion of the electronic user agreement that outlines
132that you're not to engage in peer likee activity and social media accounts are um included there's also a disclosure in there that um familial connections um are an okay way for an employee to uh be a friend with a student um I believe there it also um familial and friend Connection and with advanced notice from the parent is is also included and I believe with our new um guidelines that that is that language has also been included from uh Denise lbrt as part of that guideline um that uh specific AMG so is there a point in time at which amgs and these um District policies will be sent to us to review and when might that be I see another head shaking but the one that we're currently working on um we are waiting for
133the last section it's the field trip section we're going to complete that section and then you will you have access now to the electronic user agreement I can provide that again this Friday for your review okay um but the one that we're drafting right now should be ready quite soon and as soon as it is we'll send it to you and the policies that you outlined are any of those going to be need to be impacted or changed yes Dr Dr Finch says yes I think uh a couple of them you said needed to adjustment or no we're just going to change the amgs the the policies don't require changing I I actually the corporal punishment policy I think is going to be coming forward for some revision but that's an asba recommendation okay um
134they really they're really good policies and and that we can utilize them in a variety of ways what what this guideline is providing is more explicit Direction which to um I think answer your question or the point you're trying to make as well as Miss fiser what this is doing is really going to be helpful to our employees overall sometimes our employees misstep out of ignorance um and this more clearly explains how you are allowed to engage with students um actively on a campus how you're allowed to engage in social media um if you're faced with the conundrum of what do I do in this particular situation where we don't have a bus and uh I need to transport this student to a game what am I allowed to do what am I not allowed
135to do should I have someone else in my car if I am going to transport what are the rules we're really thinking through every possible scenario that we have re we have faced in the last eight to 10 years and we're trying to do our due diligence in educating our staff and and what steps to take when they face these situations okay and I would like to um concur with Mrs Reed that it is important we have something in the student rights and responsibilities that parents and students need to read because I think that is the other place where we need some education and information to occur and I think it part of it is making folks feel comfortable and it's better safe to report something and find out there was nothing there than for
136the opposite to occur and so um I hope we we get there sooner rather than later Mrs Fischer so we're we're addressing the employee and we're addressing the student um but I would really also like to see some sort of guideline and consequence for administrators or fellow employees who turn a blind eye who yeah I saw that but I didn't want to make a wave yeah I saw that but um you know I somewhat agree with this or that or what have you because it's it that this is such a wide range of of issues um I think there needs to be it needs to be an allaround um and and I would like to see something a little bit more um in that direction as well all right thank you we um when can
137we expect to hear back from you Dr zerbach do you think uh president O'Brien I would expect probably likely in early fall um once the committee gets going and we can look at uh providing an update to that okay but we'll see the documents that we're talking about before then in a Friday update all right we have we're going to move to call to public now all right um I guess so you don't need to read it again no so we will have Craig Beckman who has two minutes remaining um Paul Carver is that right yep Y and then Adrien Johnson Georgina Tracy TR Travino and Felicia okay Mr Beckman you state your name for the record you have two minutes left on your time sure uh my name is Craig Beckman uh my second
138point that I would like to make tonight uh is I'd like to talk about a students rights to freedom of speech there's been a lot of discussion recently whether or not the district should allow students to participate in days of recognition protests or simple civil discourse would like to remind everyone that a student does not shed their constitutional rights to free speech and expression at the schoolgate this has been ruled on by the Supreme Court on many occasions most historically in the 1969 ruling in Tinker versus de Moes that set a precedent and cemented students rights to free speech in public schools with very few exceptions of which the bar of standards are very high we're constitutionally bound to allow our students to participate in activities that are protected by the First Amendment and that's
139all I have thank you for uh your service to the community and uh your time thank you for your comments sir our next speaker is Mr Carver please state your name for the record and then you'll have three minutes to speak my name is Paul Carver recently the gln National Day of Silence has received a lot of attention the memo that was published by P Hills highlights that staff should be aware of the Day of Silence in which children are likely to arrive to school and have tape covering their mouths throughout the day this is supposed to symbolize their support for the lgbtq plus community in an effort to bring attention to the difficulty that youth that live that lifestyle might have the glsen organization and the school districts that support this through their inaction
140as in this case de valy are creating an environment to potential harm to the children I must ask does no one here think it is possible for a child to tape their mouth shut and not run the risk of Suffocation hyperventilation or asthma attacks we're talking about children potentially as young as five I've received many Communications from concerned individuals that say not supporting this day this display of solidarity is an effect curbing student rights to them I say this no one is saying that support cannot be shown or given the issue is the potential harm that may arise by taping the child's mouth shut in this case a p Hills a k through eight School some of these children may as I stated be young as 5 years old so we have the concern of
141child abuse to contend with additionally I have pointed out to some conversations that it is unfair to devote time and resources to this issue or any other day when it will detract or distract from the greater learning potential of the students I was challenged on how this would be a possible time suck very simply put again does no one think that time will have to be spent in class to explain to others why Johnny or Susie showed up with tape on their mouths if time isn't spent then haven't we created an environment where bullying May likely happen due to ignorance and if this topic were to be discussed it then falls under the umbrella of sexual education this in turn requires if not legally ethically for Parental permissions to be involved the school is not
142the place to teach or preach sexual alignment or personal beliefs as in the case of a special education teacher in the Poria School District that is taken it upon themselves to educate her Elementary age children in the differences in sexual alignment in her words many of our students have taken a keen interest seriously we can't get our children sped or not to read write or do arithmetic at an acceptable level but her crusade to expose these children has created a keen interest I spoke to a parent of a sped child and she said and I quote although the child is 17 the child has no idea what lgbtq plus is and why because my child does not need to know what the teacher's sexual preference is in the bedroom and for the teacher to have
143the audacity to think it's okay to expose my child to this is unacceptable sexual education and awareness is A Private Matter between the parents and the child not to be exposed to personal beliefs of the faculty I'd ask you to please thank you for your comments sir our next speaker please state your name for the record and then your time will be [Music] begin thank you president O'Brien and governing board my name is Adrien Johnson I am uh a mom and a DB USD resident I've studied uh gender ideology for the last several years and I'm here to talk about the Day of Silence um gender dysphoria historically was an issue for young males who often were traumatized in their youth but usually grew out of their dysphoria during puberty and realign themselves with their
144sex now we're seeing an explosion in particular with young females of 4,000% increase often in groups of friends and an increase with males too this has been coined rapid onset gender dysphoria by Lisa Litman who with others who study gender dysphoria recognized that comorbidities like anxiety depression autism and societal experiences are causes of this increase this explosion indicates that gender dysphoria is a social contagion similar to anorexia in the 90s activities like the Day of Silence transgender recognition day and gender sexuality Alliance clubs are all contributing to this trend something that is affecting our children's well-being compelling children to support this agenda further drawing in kids who have never shown signs of gender dysphoria this is adding to the numbers of children identifying as transgender it is not the place of schools to focus on
145sexuality and bring an ideology into the norm especially without proper transparency and notification parents must opt in per ars1 15-12 otherwise it infringes upon parental rights other ideologies are not recognized like this one but by doing so schools are helping to create disorder that is damaging children families and communities I implore you to put an end to the Day of Silence and other such activities supporting this ideology I can share resources if you'd like thank you thank you our next speaker this she did not speak you did not speak before correct okay just making sure thank you go ahead and state your name for the the record and um your time will begin my name is Tracy trino and board members I'm here asking that you vote nay on the proposed Ela C curriculum am
146I speaking you need to stand a little closer speak up a little bit more thank you um I completed the district survey and expressed my concerns with the Bedford Freeman and worth curriculum and hoped that this resource would be removed from from consideration I have a couple examples of the material that I found when I reviewed the curricul curricul I'm really nervous curriculum um the first one being titled what if we were all coming back at first I thought about reincarnation in the narrowest possible terms wondering what term what what future life I'd earn if Karma proved real it's a worrisome thing to contemplate it's easier to speculate about what kind of future lives other people deserve maybe B Bull Connor the white supremacist Alabama politician who ordered that black school children protesting segregation be
147attacked with police dogs and fire hoses has already been born again as as a black child in a neighborhood lacking jobs in decent schools but filled with police officers who shoot first and ask questions later maybe he's now subjected to the very forms of bigotry Terror and structural racism that he once gly inflicted on others another article titled bully the pulpit says in many ways we live in one of the bullies Golden Ages a time when the mere mention of white supremacy is an anachronism absent the hoods and burning crosses we presume the bully dead but he's still operating in the shadows he's just working through ins sendu Mees excuse me the fact that many people refuse to acknowledge his mean him means that we cannot dismantle what he has wrought and in our blindness
148we've created a host of studies to explain way away his legacy in the meantime he is at work when we see 21% of kids of color in poverty what is white sup that is white white supremacy at work when we see a president refusing to allow immigrants from major minority majority people of color countries into our country that is white supremacy at work well I'm asking for thank you for your comments [Music] ma'am please state your name for the record and then your time will begin my name is Georgina bingaman I am actually um a parent of two to a second grader and a kindergartner in the district and I also work at the particular school that um are at um I'm going to give you a very brief story as to what it was
149I wish I was prepared like everybody else with the script in my hand but everything happened recently and it just so happened that this was a topic that was covered in today's meeting I never thought I'd be working in a cafeteria for 3 hours in my life with a bunch of kids but unfortunately when my daughter started kindergarten she was having a really hard time she was terrified of going to school and I couldn't understand why cuz for two years she bought supplies and backpacks along with her brother although she did not have school yet um she was hospitalized it was it was very difficult getting her to school position opened I took it thinking it's separation anxiety it's kindergarten her getting settled in um sure enough when I did get the position uh first
150couple of days on the job I kind of realized why my daughter was terrified of having any sort of a male Sub in her classroom I didn't want to make assumptions right away and I figured let me look let me see let me hear I wish I would have spoken a little bit sooner because just Thursday as I was in the cafeteria I witnessed a St member slap my second grader in the face and I stood there and nothing could be done about it now as a mother yes I wanted to do a lot but I had to compose myself for my son I didn't want him to get scared I didn't want to scare the rest of the kids in the classroom in the lunchroom so it took a lot out of me and
151thinking about it and replaying it in my mind does this to me as well uh I I could barely get any answers I had to wait for a process for an application for a process although it was caught on video so one thing I did here was the anonymous bullying app I think it happens a lot and it's not just students bully students there's some teachers some staff not all teachers please don't get me wrong I have a new found respect for teachers ever since Co and virtual but there's things that are being said and done that are terrifying these kids and there's a way of being a good a Stern aggressive teacher without or staff member without terrifying them without laying hands on them um they're there it's school it's supposed to be their
152safe safe place but unfortunately it seems like there's a lot more going on behind the scenes that everybody turns the Blind Eye to thank you for um your comments Dr zerbach if you could please follow up on that with her after the meeting thank you so much all right if you state your name for the record then your time will begin Felicia nce so um I'm a longtime educator I've been in education for a few decades now and it saddens me to see what's happening to and the teachers here know what I'm talking about in local parentis we used to protect children that's not happening anymore I was very disturbed by an article that I read in a newspaper recently um about a transgender International transgender day and so that's what I want to speak
153to tonight so in making a career in education uh one of the things like I said before was that we always protected children and one thing I can say is I've run into a lot of my students because I used to live in an area after teaching there for many years and I'd run into them as young adults one thing they would say is I always made them work hard that's the primary goal of school districts how we got into this transgender nonsense I'm not sure but at any rate that said I'm not sure how the international transgender silence Day message wasn't immediately placed in the garbage how did it get through the hands of several School administrators and then get dispersed to your staff and I'll explain why what Disturbed me most first of
154all it's one thing to give your staff a disclaimer and say well we don't really endorse this but we're going to give it to you anyway and we're going going to distribute it districtwide however the way in which staff takes that is that you absolutely endorse it you took the time to give it to them and I think there was even a correction made to the notice and so you gave G I think handed it out a second time I'm not sure but there was attention paid to this notice and I want to just bring your attention to organizations like Glenn's Glenn's they're not in local parentis which means they're not standing in place of a parent they could care less about standing in place of a parent they have a very specific agenda their
155agenda is to advocate for gay people they're not advocating for our children so why is a notice going out from Glenn's when does Glenn's get to inform our school districts as to what should be distributed as to what kids need and this this act with regard to children being silent during the school day I think that's evidence that their agenda is not academics this was one of of the things that was noted in the message is that children will be silent during a school day it makes no sense it should have have gone directly in the trash and never been distributed last note it really saddened me to see that part of uh this would include thank you for your comments your time is up thank you for your comments the next speaker is her
156time to speak you'll need to please sit down so that we can continue the meeting thank you very much for your comments your time is up please sit down or leave okay you can leave then your time is up ma'am yes I can speak your time is up your time is up and we have please oh sorry we have a minute 55 right for our next speaker yes come speak again hello uh my name is Katie May Smith um I am a parent of children in the district and we just heard from a bunch of people who do not have children in the district um and as somebody with children in the district I wanted to take a moment and say I fully support any student that wants to take part in the Day of
157Silence that is your right and there's something wrong with people running for uh a a position on our school board that wants to take that right away from you that's not okay you guys have the right to do that the school is not saying one way or the other way they're letting kids do what they have legal right to do they have rights over their body and shame on the adults in the room for trying to impose on that thank you thank you for your comments All right we will move on to the consent agenda all right I would ask that the Govern board approve consent agenda items 7A through 7K I second all those in favor please say I I I I any oppos please say nay hold on just one second we didn't
158mine didn't come up Sheila I can you just every we've all voted I we all voted I so if you could register our votes to reflect a unanimous vote in favor of consent agenda that would be wonderful we're going to move into 8A to approve the tax credit and fee authorization I you got it or you want me to do it I move that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation to to approve the 20222 extracurricular tax credit and fee authorization I second we have a motion and a second as this Mrs mock president O'Brien thank you we are presenting the um annual fees for Deer Valley Unified School District including the extracurricular activity tax credit fee that allows us to um collect um Arizona Public School tax credits from our parents and community and
159residents in the state of Arizona we are not proposing any changes to the fees on this schedule um and these will be the same fees that are in place in the current school year I would like to add my apologies to the good folks that Aspire I do see that we forgot to change um Dear Valley online learning program to Aspire so if this is approved this this evening just know that that change will happen before this fee schedule is um released to our schools thank you Mrs mock do we have any questions Mrs Reed just for the sake of transparency can you um briefly say what um these fees are that the district collects are used for please sure president obrien Mrs Reed absolutely the fees we have on this schedule include um let
160me run to the top of the schedule um starting with our athletic participation fee that fee is used um to help actually pay the agendas for our coaching staff um you will see that come across and some of these fees you'll actually see come across in June and July when we bring the budget forward for next year you will gather those and propose those as part of our budget uh forming process we have our uh seventh and eighth and High School athletic event admissions those fees stay 100% at the schools that collect them to help run their athletic programs we have our tuition fees for our Aspire online school those fees are typically chared charged for our high school students who already have a um 1.0 FTE at our brick and mortar school and are
161taking additional classes either for credit recovery or for advancement through our online learning program um we also have our um drug diversion program mentioned here earlier today um or earlier today I heard it sometime this week um the drug diversion program sorry it's been a really long two days this week the longest five days ever um drug diversion program this is a program um operated from ALS that um instead of suspending students for um marijuana infractions they can take part in this program and it actually has helped save many long-term um suspensions and um U also on the list we have our field trips and other extracurricular activity fees we do not have a specific dollar value for th those fees we go anywhere from a dollar but no more than the actual cost of
162the activity these fees should not be um fundraisers for the schools and we should only be charging um individuals the cost of the activity our locker replacement fee Locker cleanout fee ID replacement uh parking fees and Technology protection plan uh Locker replacement cleanout ID uh replacement ID all of those fees stay directly at the schools that collect those fees parking fees per year those are split between the district and the schools schools keep 40% of that fee and that is to maintain the parking lot signage security cameras um anything they need to help operate uh security for the parking lots and then again for us we use that for the staffing uh the monitor Staffing that work in the parking lot and you will see that in our budget adoption process and the iPad technology
163uh protection plan that is directly for the replacement of um technology devices um uh including bricks cables uh new screens new devices at the high school level that stays 100% at the high school at the K8 level it stays at the district level but then district is responsible for the cost of replacing those items and not the [Music] school all right thank you very much hearing no other questions or discussion all those in favor please say I I I that work Mrs Taylor wonderful we'll move on to Item B hasn't popped up but you can vote I for me okay so it passed unanimously so we're gonna move to I would like I didn't get a chance sorry but I would like for future if we could have a discussion about the tax credit and
164how we apply it and how we it's just a request for a future discussion okay we'll make a note of that Mr Fisher all right sobody would ask that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation to approve job order contracts with Core Construction for the media center modernization projects at Barry Goldwater High School Boulder thank you for the light that works well Boulder Creek High School Deer Valley High School Mountain Ridge High School and sander Dale Connor High School a second have a motion in a second we're going to go to Mr miglino uh president O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch uh we are excited to share uh information regarding uh high school media projects um just as a refresher we're bringing this to you as an action item because we've talked about this
165but it's been a little bit of time so just as a refresher back in September we named an architect DLR group um is the architect that's been helping us uh with this project uh uh in October we had a work team uh that had uh individuals from each of the schools as well as from various departments that uh uh could help us uh create the vision for uh the improvements in December we uh entered into a pre-construction contract with Core Construction um and uh just a month ago uh the board approved the furniture uh for the improvements tonight we're going to share with you um the vision for the construction improvements at all five uh high school media projects and um uh with your consideration tonight we will then uh get started with the uh
166W with the fun of getting this work uh hopefully completed sometime in the near future pending supply chain issues uh here's the work team um you can see outlined here uh the first meeting of this team was back on October 5th uh we met several times uh sometimes electronically uh and uh it also included many uh individual meetings with each school as well um the purpose of the team really was um to Envision what the U media centers would be um um and and kind of making them much more student uh a much more student friendly environment so here's what the existing Media Center looks like at the five campuses um at both Deer Valley High School and Barry Gow I know this is a little bit difficult to see uh on the image but
167U I wanted to keep my reputation for uh images that are difficult to see during presentations uh so uh I will not disappoint in this presentation as well um but you can see there's a great deal of similarity between Deer Valley High School and Barry Goldwater what's not evident here is uh this is a very traditional Library if you will um with you know stacks of books and and uh um some limited seating options for uh for people in the U uh in these areas uh not much unlike Mountain Ridge High School and sard Deo Connor shown here um again not shown in the physical depiction of the building itself but uh there's lots of you know uh uh bookcases uh and books uh a bunch of seating areas um in these uh open areas
168that that are depicted here and then finally Boulder Creek High School which is our largest High School in in uh in size um because it also shares the space with the uh uh North Valley uh Regional County library and um but again uh much of the area uh in the center area here is just uh reserved for uh stacks of books what we're really proposing to do um are these improvements U that are shown here so here's uh Deer Valley High School uh we're going to bring in some natural Al light some additional National n natural light you can see in the upper right hand corner um and adding uh in the lower right hand corner adding uh kind of a cafe entrance for um a coffee uh area they already have this on a
169much smaller scale um on the left hand side you'll be able to see um that that is going to be expanded so the far left corner um is uh where the coffee bar will be relocated to um the center area of this building will be where the charge desk will move to and um you'll see what the actual Furniture layout looks like in this slide uh so uh much more casual seating and um much more uh opportunities for students to just uh quote unquote hang out in this space um to be able to use in in various ways uh much if not all of this furniture is movable so it can be reconfigured into different ways uh for different needs that the the campus may have um and just in the interest of time tonight
170I'm going to go through this quickly we are excited about these options though um very similar uh uh because the campuses are similar Berry Goldwater High School you see the charge desk in the center um not only natural uh more natural light through windows but uh also creating another entry into the the main entry into the um uh into the media center here um uh different than Dear Valley high school and then here's what the furniture layout looks like again uh with this furniture uh having uh a more student friendly aspect to it um with some collaboration spaces for students to be able to uh go into um and then uh some more comfortable seating uh casual seating for uh for uh for students uh unlike Deer Valley High School they do not have a
171coffee uh area uh at the school's request I did not show the mezzanines both of those schools have mezzanines we will make those Ada accessible they are not currently meaning will be adding a chair left to them um because they are going to uh utilize the mezzanine or or second story to the to those areas uh as part of their plan uh at Mountain Ridge High School we are kind of reconfig figuring um how this area will be accessed with a door out the West End uh which is depicted in the lower rightand corner uh you can see that also in the um uh site plan uh the larger uh site plan uh we are also relocating the charge desk closer to that door just for supervision purposes and creating some um some study areas
172uh for students and some additional offices is that's what this furniture look uh layout looks like um this is again a reconfigurable Furniture to be able to be moved around and decreasing the uh the stacks of books uh because of the trend uh to uh move to a more electronic um information sander Deo Conor uh they are adding a coffee area uh that they do not have uh that's depicted in the lower right hand corner um there is an area of um uh windows on the North facing wall uh we will be carving in some or adding some doors into that so that it can open up you can kind of see that on the overall site plan as well but it's shown uh as an elevation in the upper right hand corner of this
173slide and moving the charge desk again for supervision purposes uh from its current location to the north uh and that's shown a little bit I think easier on the furniture layout again all this furniture is movable so it can be reconfigured um into different areas and there's enough seating um at uh these schools that happen to be our largest Camp larger campuses to be able to have uh to be able to utilize the space Maybe for staff meetings and things of that nature uh if the schools would so choose and then finally Boulder Creek High School uh the least number of uh changes to uh to this space um in terms of construction much more in the terms of uh furniture and that's uh shown here so we do have a a classroom that we
174previously carved out of this space uh we will be mimicking that uh so you can see that at the top of the slide here which is actually the West Wall of the of the campus um we're taking the center of this area and creating it as uh more casual seating area uh and congregating area for uh for students and uh will also be able to be used by the general public when the uh County Library opens we have shared this with the county library folks uh they are working on making a plan for how this will change um how they would deliver Services uh through the county library um and uh so they're aware of uh of what we're doing uh in in terms of the budget you can see kind of where we're at
175we had uh identified $5 million of the 2019 bond for uh these projects uh due to uh supply chain issues inflation Etc uh we are um targeting right now our tracking just over $5.1 million uh uh collectively for these projects uh we do expect that that probably be real close to that number uh when we get uh said and done we we believe that uh this is not um a problem for us or will not be problematic is we also have an additional $5 million reserved in the 2019 bond for our K8 Library uh reconfigurations and we feel that that will be more furniture based than construction based so we don't plan on expanding um or increasing or changing the configuration of those spaces uh from a construction standpoint be more furniture uh modifications uh
176for those and so we think we can fit that within the balance of the $10 million reserved for Library improvements that was identified in the 2019 Bond so next steps um is for you to formally consider this uh tonight uh we will issue the notice proceed so we can start uh to order items uh some of those door configurations and that um our long lead items uh we think we will begin construction sometime in May we don't want to start uh earlier than we can actually do some work so we will coordinate that with the uh construction team uh so that we're not um asking for the media centers to be uh you know closed off and and we're not actually able to perform any work um that's meaningful we do have a commitment uh
177from the contractor to be able to finish uh end of August beginning of September that is obviously contingent on you know some supply chain issues that may not be known at this point in time um and uh I'd be happy to answer any questions the board might have any questions okay seeing none all those in favor please say I I I I any oppose please say nay the motion passes unanimously I believe yes all right I would ask that the governing board approve all employee out of state travel for governing board policy gccb I second any questions hearing none all those in favor please say I I I I I any opposed please say nay hearing none the motion passes unanimously I would ask that the governing board accept the administration's recommendation to approve the
178attached revised summer rates of pay schedule for 2022 2023 I second we have a motion in a second and we will hear from Mrs maofa uh good evening again this is a revised summer pay schedule if you recall last summer you did approve a pay schedule that would go all the way through this year's July or next year's July however we have a couple of changes that we would like to draw to your attention first off is the PLC summer work the rate of pay daily rate of $290 is not a rate of pay that we have offered in the past so that will be new this upcoming summer additionally we have some premium rates listed below um Jim are the bus driver cafeteria manager and cafeteria worker at different rate of pay than previous
179previously described I'll let Jim speak to that and if you'd like the custodian one too unless you'd like me to refer to the custodian one uh yes so uh last year we had a premium rater pay for bus drivers we uh $2 an additional $2 an hour uh for our bus drivers to work um when they were driving buses uh for our student student instructional programs uh this year we are uh proposing that to be $4 an hour just because of the number of programs that we're offering for uh intercession so that we can staff that appropriately uh last year we did not offer a premium for our cafeteria workers who normally don't work during the summer uh so for our cfer managers we're um proposing a um also a $4 an hour premium for
180them to work in the summer uh for the workers in the cafeteria a $2 premium and then finally um in order to make sure that we have the opportunity to have uh custodians um uh to be able to clean these areas for the summer programs that we're offering uh we are uh offering a dollar uh premium for custodians that would be working uh just as a in a limited capacity this summer so not for our existing custodians because those 12-month positions but these would be limited positions uh for help during the summer uh for these summer programs that were're offering any questions okay hearing none all those in favor please say I I I I any opposed please say nay hearing none the motion passes unanimously are we ready am oops excuse me the uh
181I would ask that the governing board accept the administrator administration's recommendation to pre-approve the ex the agenda as uh presented a second do I have any questions or comments okay hearing none all those in favor please say I I I any opposed please say nay motion passes unanimously I'm abstain I'm sorry I abstain so passes 4 to zero to one I guess okay we are going to preview the annual K12 use of facility um and field fee schedule for 2022 2023 and for that we'll go to Mrs mock president O'Brien members of the board I'm going to take you on a trip back in time to April of 2020 uh at that time uh our facility Rental specialist Tina Robinson and I worked on a comparison of Deer Valley Unified School District rental fees that
182we charge compared to other districts um in the metropolitan area and what we found was that Deer Valley as a whole was typically lower than the average for that study and sometimes the very lowest rental rates um even though I would like to thank Mr login our facilities Crews and Mr Lino and the construction Cruise pretty sure we have the best facilities so uh we are renting out the best facilities at one of the lowest rates so at that time we brought to you actually and we can see here here some of the comparisons we had at the time um for a class three which is the highest possible um fee that you could charge we have uh three different classes class one class two class three in each class depending on um your for-profit
183status or your connection uh directly to uh Deer Valley Unified School District program depends on which class you qualify for all of those are outlined in policy um KF and um the fee schedule is part of that so just for some um some history or some information context for these fees so for a class three classroom rental Deer Valley Unified School District um at the time actually we were only $20 per hour we're now at $24 per hour um going to a proposed of 29 but what we found with our comparisons was that the highest was up to $46 per hour with a $33 average so even with what we're recommending for some of these increases this year or moving to 22 23 we still are going to be at or below the average uh
184a specialty classroom which we will see which classrooms those entail we're currently at $30 per hour and proposing $36 per hour when we did our study back in 2020 $81 per hour was the highest district surveyed and $46 per hour was the average last year when we brought the fee schedule for so the original year one of the threeyear increase was approved for the 2021 school year when we brought this forward this time last year for 2122 we recommended no increases to the fee schedule uh especially given some of the chaos that surrounded facility rental during the pandemic and even having to shut down uh facility rentals for quite some time so this year we are asking to move forward with that three-year plan um and these are the recommended increases for 2223 these are
185our inside rooms some of the we're not recommending increases to every type classroom if the classroom or the type of rental was was already in line with some of our with the comparisons that we made we are not recommending an increase so that is why um you're not seeing an increase let's say for the media center or the library or K8 middle school high school auxiliary gym these are the outside areas most of those are already in line with uh the comparisons that we made so we're only recommending changes to um Fields with outside lights for middle school and high school and and uh without lights for high school and with lights for high school the final change that we are recommending is uh for the technical student worker the fee for that currently that
186we charge our renters is $13 an hour we do try to pay our student workers at minimum wage and as you are all um incredibly aware minimum wage continues to increase it is currently at $12.80 an hour and so with the $13 we're barely able to cover the cost with what we are charging and this would allow us to continue to be able to cover that cost and not have to have a midyear increase next January when uh minimum wage increases again and I just wanted to note that when we talk about any of the fees see the $15 fee here and any of the other worker fees that are currently approved by the governing board um those are what we charge the renter and that is to cover um not only the hourly rate
187but also then the benefits um and any matching benefits that are required by that we have had some confusion in the past where uh a few individuals did believe that that was the rate that was being paid employees so I just wanted to take the opportunity to clarify that that is the rate we charge the renters in order to cover all of the costs including the hourly rate to the employees and with that um we do have attachments including what the fee schedule would look like this is just a preview we will bring this item back for governing board approval for 2223 at the next governing board meeting and I will take any questions uh on the uh fee schedule for next year Mrs Reed um I know that they we have had an unprecedented
188year again as far as Staffing goes with some of um our facility rentals and have had some issues um having staff members be available to cover some of the facility facility rental requests um when we when that was brought to the board attention there was a conversation that I had with Dr Finch that there were some um policies maybe amgs I'm not exactly sure what they were um that might need to be um looked at or changed in regarding in regards to who would be allowed to um cover those facilities has there been any work um done with that I thought there was a committee that was going to convene or something similar to that I am that okay that we have specifically um and this is not necessarily just for all facility rentals we
189do have a work team that is facilit by Scott Warner for district Athletics and that work team is more looking at feeder programs um and how we equalize feeder programs for our own athletic programs such as track and field or um um football any uh other programs like that and uh in including basketball there's a great deal of confusion with some of our um own coaches on what constitutes a facility rental and whether it is our own program which would be a class one where no rental charged whether it's a class two and um you have a discounted rental fee or your class three which which is the highest rental fee possible and we do have administrative management guidelines in place as well that help us um identify which one of those groups or or
190help even a coach at the school who would be able to look through that administrative management guideline and know where they fall um that AMG is actually due for a review right now and we're in the process of um simplifying it and making it very clear but I think the work team with uh Mr Warner I am on that work team Mrs Robinson's on the work team and we have athletic directors and principles from the high schools on N work team as well so is there a strategy in place or something that we're working on to ensure that um if the governing board approves the um fees schedule for facility rentals that we will have staff members next year to cover them so that rentals aren't being um canceled at the last minute um that
191I want to be very cautious when I answer that statement I I know Mrs Robinson and the high schools many of our schools um 50% of this Revenue goes directly to the schools and it is available for M type expenses and capital type expenses they want the facility rentals they want to accommodate any of these groups when they can bring them in and so um it is only in a dire situation typically when we just can't make it work when the schools turn down the facility rental and even if there's a a campus that for whatever Reas and the Staffing they can't make it happen because they are short custodians or um whatever the case may be Mrs Robinson will work with them tour other campuses find a campus that has the staff and is
192able to make it work uh we do absolutely everything we can to place the renters knowing that the renters are serving our community and our students um and we want to be that good partner with them so we do everything we can but with the Staffing shortages St shortages we continue to see with custodial and with certified as well um I can't make that guarantee but I can guarantee that we will continue to do everything we can to make that work uh hopefully with the salary increase being approved uh the work that HR is doing for recruitment um we will be able to see some of those vacancies filled and not see this as a continuing issue I really do think it was a covid based issue thanks to the extra uh work teachers were
193doing the extra work that administrators are doing uh not just because of the pandemic but then also because of the uh Staffing shortages thank you very much Mrs mock we'll move on to preview item um 9B the grade 610 English language arts gifted Advanced honors and IB curriculum adoption recommendation and for that that we have Dr gallagan president O'Brien members of the board Dr Finch Adam lanningham our gifted services manager and Elizabeth Harris are 612 English language arts curriculum instruction and assessment specialist and I will share the adoption committee's recommendation for resources this was a a wonderful partnership between uh Elizabeth and Adam as they Co facilitated the ELA um adoption committee's uh review as well as um recommendations that you will hear of this evening I'm going to turn this over now to Adam
194to continue our committee's Focus was to identify vetted resources to support deer Valley's gifted and advanced Ela programs and courses these included the sage spark gifted programs in grade six the Renaissance highly gift gifted programs in grades 6 through 8 the international Borat program in grades 6 through 10 the advanced courses in grades 7 and 8 and the honors courses in grades 9 and 10 currently we have the hmh collections as a primary curriculum for all Ela classes in grades 6 through 10 this includes our honors in advanced courses the gifted courses in Sage spark and Renaissance also have supplemental materials from our last adop adoption that consists of the William and Mary curriculum until now many teachers were having to supplement the standard curriculum on their own to meet the needs of our Advanced
195Learners through the course of the committee's work the committee decided to continue some of these supplemental resources for our gifted programs but also move away from the hmh collections as a primary resource in our Advanced and honors courses the materials the committee would like to adopt will allow easier differentiation of the curriculum for our Advanced Learners our committee consisted of a wide range of teachers and parents working together in person and virtually at our meetings as well as gaining input for more parents online through our public review process the committee members met either in person virtually or sometimes both depending on the meeting and member needs communication about the committee was provided through our to our Community through emails which began going out in October 2021 seeking committee members our website which was posted um
196on the district committee page the gifted Services page and the El page postings began in September 2021 and the dvusd gifted Facebook page put out the information and we ended up with over 8,000 people being reached with 84 engagements about the committee the committee's public review had 32 responses these came from parents and community members providing feedback electronically with the adoption committee's rubrics and with open comments our public review portion and public review portion and representation from all age areas and input for all resources under consideration 96% of responders ranked all of the materials we're reviewing as either meeting or exceeding the committee's criteria for enhancing our District's general education curriculum and the ELA Arizona College and Career Readiness standards 89% of responders ranked all of these materials under review as meeting or exceeding the
197committee's criteria for engaging gifted Learners and 100% of the responders ranked all of the materials under review as meaning or exceeding the committee's criteria for being able to be adapted for online or virtual learning environment overall the committee believes that we had high quality materials to reveal we did have a few um negative comments and Elizabeth is going to address one of those now both passages mentioned earlier this evening were examples of extremes in a chapter um a non-fiction chapter titled changing the world a passage written by a New York's time columnist and lawyer suggests putting oneself in another person's shoe to share shoes to share different perspectives of American lives the second passage is a personal essay of a young man's experience being bullied as a youth um again both of these are given
198as examples in a unit where the goal is for students to write personal essays all right our timeline an overview of the committee's timeline is as follows in September we have the adoption request AB approved through cabinet the committee's information again was posted on the website and we emailed our potential vendor ERS in October we emailed principles to further invite teachers and parents to join our committee and the committee met for the first time at that time we discussed our academic needs and created rubrics in November and December materials were put on public display which lasted from November 17th through March 1st this was VIA website posting under the district news the gifted page and Ela as well as for physical viewing at Barry Goldwater High SCH school's front office the committee also met and
199reviewed our vendor submissions in January we met for our presentations and shared the videos with our community we announced it through email and the website materials were still on display during this time in February we focused on getting the word out to the community before our final meeting in March materials were still on display for public review and we added more notifications to try to increase Community involvement this included the website posting under the same web pages and having materials at the very goldw front desk but we also sent Flyers to all schools to display as well as set notifications out through social media and the school messenger sharing that we were sharing the materials in March the committee met to determine our final recommendations and our recommendations are Jacob's Ladder Jacob's lad focuses on
200reading comprehension skills in high ability Learners in the form of all three skill ladders connected to individual readings in poetry myths and fables non-fiction students are able to move from lower concrete thinking skills to higher order critical thinking skills for example latter a moves students from sequencing to cause and effect and then to consequences and implications the effect of Jacob's Ladder reading comprehension program uses model mod to approach and scaffold students learning to promote inquiry based decisions and discussions with text and the series of Jacob's Ladder again focuses specifically in supporting Advanced student social emotional needs including highin reading selections and stories poetry media and biographies it moves students from lower to higher level thinking skills promotes self-awareness Meda cognition and goal setting the committee recommends Jacob slatter for sage spark gifted programs the gifted
201Specialists would receive Jacob slatter book 6- 7 Jacob slatter book 7 and 8 and Jacobs Ladder book 7even and8 effective the committee also recommends Jacob's Ladder for the Renaissance highly gifted programs the Renaissance teachers would receive the Jacobs slad book 67 for 6th grade the book 78 for 7th grade and the book 6 through eight effective for 8th grade Jacob lad was adopted for grades K through 5 in last year's Ela adoption and this would be a continuation of the resources into the grades 6 through 8 overall the teachers like that it consists of short easy to use lessons that are created specifically for gifted Learners and it incorporates the higher level questioning and thinking skills and we did have one quote from a parent this curriculum seems fantastic in that it engages it is
202engaging for students pushes them to think and perform critically and really supports the teacher our next resource was William and Mary the William and Mary Center for gifted education language arts units have been aligned to National standards within each each grade level as well as two to three grade levels above grade level in addition to addressing the regular language arts standards the William and Mary language curricula also focuses on analyzing and interpreting literature issue based research skills vocabulary development analysis and persuasive writing the committee recommends this resource for our Renaissance highly gifted programs this will be a continuation of our adoption from back in 2012 all of the units you see here with the accompanying novel sets with the exception of the pursuit of Justice have been used in our programs since then as a
203supplement these units and novels have been well used and need to be replaced grade six will receive the AUD biographies and Memoirs units and pers persuasion grade seven will receive threads of change in 19th century American literature and the 1940s a decade of change grade 8 will receive a pursuit of justice and Utopia again this resource has been utilized in our Renaissance classes since 2012 adopting this resource again will be a continuation of our grade K5 adoption from 2021 these materials were cre ated specifically for the gifted learner and they incorporate those higher level questioning and thinking skills and then another quote from a parent we love this program for our Advanced readers I think it's been an excellent tool for them both my third graders have a Lexile score of over 1,200 and I
204believe this program helps them to continue growing next would be Wordly Wise 3,000 it's in its fourth edition it is a supplemental vocabulary program that provides Direct academic vocabulary instruction to develop the critical link between vocabulary and reading comprehension the robust activities include student engagement and differentiated instruction that provide flexibility to meet the needs of our student population the committee recommends this resource for our Renaissance sixth grade classrooms and for the international Balor middle years program in grades 6 through 8 at nor Tera Canyon this vocabulary program is continuing our K5 supplemental resource in the Renaissance programs it was adopted again for Renaissance last year in our K5 curriculum the sixth grade Renaissance teachers would like to continue with it in its digital form the committee would like to purchase digital license for the next
205five years the international aacal program at norara desired a richer vocabulary program to supplement its student learning in the IB program the teachers there have requested paper workbooks so the committee recommends 5 years of workbooks for grades 6 through 8 in the international Balor program common lit Essentials Pro after looking at the comprehensive program savis and college board the committee determined that the college lit Essentials pro has a stronger library of selections with strong unit plans created by teaching professionals many of dvusd teachers utilize the Free Library that commonlit provides and and have utilized their free 360 units because they align perfectly with the Arizona Ela standards and have built-in reading assessments the purchase program will provide all of the unit plans and a data dashboard for teachers and administrators to track students reading skills
206the unit plans will be vetted for the seventh and eighth grade Advanced courses and specific units and titles will be identified for official use in two years we can either continue the usage plan or purchase site licenses and expand this program to general education courses also vetting particular units and titles the committee recommends this resource for grade six IB Middle years grade seven Renaissance in advance courses and grade eight Renaissance and advanced courses commonl is already An approved supplemental resource that many of our dvusd ELA teachers use to add to the stories used in collections PLC collaborative teams use the commonl quizzes often as common format of Assessments since the reading standards are built in the platform and ra the students automatically again the data dashboard that comes with the purchase will provide immediate data
207on our students reading skills on specific standards we did have some concerns that parents may not approve of some of the titles and as a district we will recommend a list of titles units for our teachers to use teachers will also list the titles in their syllabi for parents to know and they will have alternative titles available wide variety of text selection in both fiction and non-fiction is available it standards align and one of our DB USD parents said the numerous categories in the common lit Library will have something that appeals to all students having more choices for free time would be very helpful particularly since there aren't many approved applications that appeal to gifted Learners in seventh and eth grade my child is inquisitive and constantly Googles to read new material and learns bits
208about random topics functionally the common lit Library would replicate that experience but with the control and guidance for age and read meing level appropriateness Bedford Freeman and worth creates textbooks for the gifted and high high school student with numerous authors and passages our te our teachers already provide to students these texts add essays articles and artwork that enhance the understanding of highlevel analytical thinking needed for the honors nyp and preap student the online platform allows for students to access the textt primarily through canvas and teachers to personalize their courses with text and assessments they know their students will need for the high stakes courses in their academic future the committee recommends foundations of language she needs a new microphone and uh grade nine honors and grade um n ibmp and advanced language and literature grade
20910 honors and grade 10 ibmp Bedford Freeman a worth is the same publisher dvusd just adopted for 11th and 12th grade language comp and 12th and 12th literature comp and will align well with these courses already utilizing the same platform and terminology currently our honors teachers must provide these high rigor text essays and assessment practice and providing well researched textbook is a spe that is specific to prepare gifted Lear Learners we are unifiing unifying DB usd's curriculum across all of our schools a teacher um of honors 34 said the textbooks by BFW uses a multifaceted approach to teaching English language arts that is essential for honors and gifted students within our district each text is paired with artwork speeches photographs news articles political cartoons poetry data graph statistics comment strips Etc honors and gifted students
210need Advanced and rigorous content that that challenge them to synthesize information for training and professional development Jacob slatter and William and Mary the teachers are working teams at schools during our monthly gifted meetings and plc's Jacob slatter is very simple to use and we've had the William and Mary curriculum for many years Wordly Wise has online tutorials and with our PLC and campus time we will have time for collaboration and again in Renaissance that has been in use for many years the common lit pro has an online trading with tutorials built in and how to utilize their unit plans and their 360 materials common Pro again will be vetted Byer seventh and eighth grade Advanced and Bedford Freeman and worth worth will have the same for their honors programs Bedford Freeman and worse has their
211on boarding online and full tech support for grades 9 through 12 and again we already have purchased grades 11 and 12 there is no additional cost for PD in the adoption here is our timeline the adoption timeline can be seen here our goal is to set is to get new materials in our teachers hands prior to the end of the school year so that they have them throughout the summer and can look through them here are the total costs for this um preview and this adoption for our 612 honors AP IB gifted um adoption the expected total there is just under 364,000 that is the expected total including tax shipping and professional development you can see in the chart itself the different costs for each of those uh vendors and materials we have two that
212the final number is pending but we have built in what our expected costs are and that's why you see that expected total to be just under 364,000 we will bring this to you as an action item at our next board meeting at the end of this month Adam Elizabeth and I will be happy to take any questions you might have Mrs Fischer it sounds to me like like we're adopting a program or supplemental that we know there's questionable materials in um and what safeguards are there that the um extremes won't be used um I mean is there there are so many literary works out there why are we resorting to even having questionable materials or considering questionable materials within our district I'm just curious to clarify did you want me president O'Brien Miss Fischer would
213would you mind sharing which one of the resources you are referring to I'm referring to the statement and I'm not sure who said it that said that there was materials on one side or the other um it was fairly in the beginning of the of the presentation um this is also what we had that parent come and speak about correct and so so there's that plus there was and I don't know who made the statement because it kind of at this hour Blends um but there was a statement that there was concerns expressed that there were um questionable um the an assignment that somebody is self- writing I believe one of you said um as an explanation um president O'Brien Miss Fischer the the parent who spoke um was talking specifically to the Bedford Freeman
214and worth resource uh and um I'll have Elizabeth talk further on that but this is a resource um at least the vendor is a resource that we currently have as an approved um vendor in our upper level Ela courses that the board approved earlier so we're not utilizing them or not considering utilizing those materials in this correct no president o Brian miss fiser when you say utilizing those materials those were specific to our upper level courses this would be um the resources that are appropriate for these particular courses and Elizabeth if you would just expand on that please sure yes um the excerpts that were mentioned are from two different passages in the 10th grade book that would be used and um both are just essays in a chapter called changing the world of non-fiction
215essays um the the whole unit has many different personal essays written by authors I do not they were used in examples of a white supremist that would be uh replacing themselves in a different situation um and proposing that this would just give someone a different perspective I don't find that it's inappropriate I think committee believes that these are important in preparing students to see personal essays the other one that was mentioned was asking was a personal essay about being bullied and then an example came up um that out of context appears as though it's talking about white supremacy but was just used as an example of a bully and so that wasn't the point of the essay again this is part of the preap and myp preparation for these programs s and the committee feels
216that these are the best materials out there to show a wide variety of perspectives sounds like CRT to me it just does President O'Brien Miss Fischer we do not support critical race Theory it is not part of the state standards it is not something that we would teach uh the resources that are being recommended were vetted by our Educators they were vetted by parents on the committee and they were vetted through that public review as well as the many different ways that we posted this particular adoption and I will stress again dear Valley does not teach nor do we support education around critical race Theory because it is not part of the Arizona English language arts or social study standards are you done Mrs Fisher okay Mrs ardway um perhaps in the Friday update Dr
217Gall and Miss Harris you could um include in context the other selections that would have accompanied that um unit I don't know what it is a unit a chapter or whatever it is so we could get a context and flavor of the 360 degree angle that they're trying to um use for uh students to uh critically think would you be able to do that President O'Brien Miss Ordway we would absolutely do that and and Miss fiser um we would do our very best to provide you that chapter five uh unit that is that are essays and and then you are welcome to read those yourself so you're better informed for that decision at the end of this month I I'm always willing to look and I'm always open to look um but I and maybe
218it's wrong of me but I always take it back to belief and this isn't critical race area is just a name that people want to attach to something um I really do believe that and and I don't believe that that dear Valley supports critical race Theory but what I also know is back in the days of of Nebuchadnezzar the way of changing a society is to bring in their youth and indoctrinate them to your ways and then send them back which is what he did with Shadrach mesak and abedo these are behaviors that have happened since Biblical times and I just use that as a cultural point it it's not doesn't have to be a Biblical thing um your modern Church sends missionaries to foreign countries to to um to do what to set up
219schools to teach the youth um my concern is that our parents have the say over their children's upbringing and guidance um and and that's what I'm looking for I'm not looking to beat up on anybody who may or may not so on that one aspect and then on the other end I always look to protect teachers even the ones that I don't agree with um I spent years teaching teachers how not to lose their certification that's very important to me because false accusations even when they're false when they're made and they're really pushed and then they are grabbed into groups of the media you can destroy someone's life and they did nothing wrong I I don't want our teachers to even have a chance that that would happen to them because even if they you
220know ethically religiously morally disagree with me their job is to teach reading math language and I do understand sometimes that you have to break down literary pieces that are just they're difficult for someone else to stomach but in and in in our setting I just really do want to protect both parents rights and our teachers certifications I don't want you to think in any way on blaming you or accusing this is the first I've even heard of it no one's brought anything to me um so for me I can only go with what I hear right here because I haven't looked at this curriculum so I I I just I would appreciate the opportunity to read through it and make my own judgment call on on well number one whether it would be appropriate for
221a parent number two could anybody use it as a a weapon against one of our teachers we will add that to the Friday update thank you Mrs Reed so I was gonna ask for the the same thing if you would um open that that section back up for us um so we could look at it and then um I think on slide 18 with the common lit Essentials Pro was um where the comment was made about the list of literature um is it possible to um have have that recommended list as far as what you know of it to be now or is that something that you're um that will need to go before committee I think that would be helpful information to be able to um to see which titles might be um might
222be used and which titles would not be recommended to be used within the classroom um having a gifted student that will be using this curriculum um I think that when we talk about curriculum when we talk about you know the buzzword of indoctrination and um buzz word of CRT and all of that um I think one of the things that we are forgetting is that it is part of our state standards to teach um critical thinking and to teach um children or to teach students I'm sorry how to read a passage and understand bias of an author and then to um take that information and um form their own personal opinions and turn that into a narrative um that they can then def defend um in a in a piece of of writing and um
223I remember doing that in in high school in my advanced classes and um some of those those pieces of literature that we read that were historical um were hard to read um but it is a part of of our history and um for those textbook writers back in the 80s and 90s they thought that those pieces were important and um those are you know we certainly don't want to indoctrinate our children to believe something um that is or isn't true um but I also want our students and my students especially to be able to look at a piece of literature whether it be in a textbook or online or on social media and understand um why the author wrote that and they can then form their own opinion on whether or not it is um
224truthful and it's something that they want to believe so thank you right thank you very much I look forward to receiving additional information in the Friday update move on to governing board reports Mrs paperman I would like to say that uh I had a fantastic time at the national Bo board certifications uh CN uh being awarded uh congratulation again to all those teachers and uh it it inspired me that being a teacher myself um why haven't I not joined uh the national board certification so I may be considering uh for uh next year also congratulations to uh all the students uh that got awards today thank you Mrs fiser sorry too many notes um it's actually been a really busy time um not only because I have other things going on but it's just U
225there's so many opportunities to see and learn different things um one of the things that I attended was an ASU civics class it's a um a center for political thought and and Leadership at the Arizona State University they had um an event that they sent out to um I think they sent it out to teachers curriculum departments board members um and I really wasn't sure what it was but I took the opportunity to spend the day with a room full of teachers um and listen to the um the path I guess they're taking for teaching civics uh it was extremely interesting um they it's it was presented by Raul Rodriguez um and they're actually uh it was just very thought-provoking it's the use of The Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist papers to start conversations um
226and and to get uh engagement and I was really surprised to see at the room we we had um a very strange mix of individuals we had some teachers who were like you know um we're going to Rally or what have you we had maybe one or two and then we had others that go oh my God they're going to get thrown out um and then we had some that are like I've been teaching this stuff and I've been going through this for years and I I as much as I think I know I read a lot I know I research a lot I know I um have been very engaged in a lot of things there I learned a lot that I myself do not know about Civics and civil or Civics just the
227the founding of our nation and and the it's a little bit weird to see that some of the predictions or some of the Federalist Papers there or anti-federalist papers how right they were and whichever side you can see things that that came through and that are really right um I was a little disappointed that I was the only one from Deer Valley there I really think that uh it would be something good for us to at least look at um it it is very thought-provoking it didn't appear to be One Direction or another um the whole intent was not to push anyone's agenda it was just literally a look at these are the the papers that were were were published at the time when they were establishing this nation and how this how how it
228impacted and then you can compare compare it to today um and the the group of teachers I was sitting with were um Junior High and how they apply it bringing it some of it in and then the table next to them were were high schoolers and they were kind of talking a lot I just think it would be really beneficial um if we at least look at it um they there were the teachers that were there that teach these subjects um were very impressed with the resources that that they were provided and the information they were provided so and and I don't know if they're going to have more classes or if it's something that's moving further forward um three times but it it was very interesting it would be really worth looking at um
229I too enjoyed going to the National certified teacher celebration um it's interesting uh it's kind of like CPAs have to go through that annual training and stay on top um you know to see teachers and and it shows um some of them it just shows strong fortitude um but some of them it shows that they're really actually working on seeing uh new techniques and how to to maybe be Innovative uh I would love to see something that correlates the the the national teacher with student performance it was just something that that came to mind while I was there but it is a a significant accomplishment and it was really important to see a lot of our dear Valley teachers there um I have had a significant number of parents reach out to me regarding promotions
230and retention um and I'm not advising them I've tried to redirect them towards our process or towards the book uh or the the brag prag book um but as I read through it it it it doesn't it misses their questions it really it really does um you know I received another question from a follow-up question from a parent that I shared exactly word for word what I was provided um and and there's questions that are are along the lines of if I okay you know the if the school's going to insist on promoting my child and they're in the eth grade and I pull them out and I keep them and homeschool them in the eighth grade again when they come back will they be a ninth grader or do they I mean how do
231and so it one of the concerns that I had and I really hope that we take a look at was it all seemed very um some of it was just age well if they're this age and they automatically do this or they're going to do this or or some of it somewhat seemed subjective in that a principal makes a decision and so we we kind of go with that and and yes they can always appeal it all the way up to the board though that doesn't seem to happen as much as it used to um but I think one of the things because there's a lot of parents that our records May indicate that child is proficient because that child has an a um well that doesn't necessarily mean that child is proficient because you
232know there there's there's a lot of reasons they wouldn't be in some cases like like in the case of my son I homeschooled him the last two years he's graduating or graduated but I'm still homeschooling him because when I give him assessment tests he is testing at Junior High he's not testing at of high school so I bought eight years of curriculum and we're still moving forward with it we'll move forward with it until he's done with it um so a lot of times parents have an insight and and some of it is in some cases is a making of their own because they really wanted to push their child into school right on that edge where they kind of really probably weren't ready but then they wanted them to be ready and and we've
233gone over that but I think it would be easier if we could somehow clarify it a little better for these parents um they're trying to find innovative ways to move around our system rather work with us within our system um and I don't know what the answer is um I I do appreciate Dr gallagan you know I mean I understand you were giving me the answers but I I just without violating the trust that someone has has has given me and says hey you know can you just find out the answer to this question but don't give my whole story um I don't want to violate their trust so I I don't I can't share too much but I also feel like I that we really can't ask some questions um and so you're left
234to bring them here but I really wish we would take a better look at that promotion and retention and I know a lot of work went into it it shows but when you were talking about that age part versus proficiency part and now that we have this new grading where it's someone is just deciding that that individual is proficient and they're grading them on well they're proficient in this but how how do we know they're proficient because they got 1098 percents on a test or because they were able to I mean so it's it's it appears whether it is or not it appears very subjective um and I think that may be causing some of the issues that parents are having um so I would really appreciate if we could take a look at that
235the other group that um well couple of individuals emailed the entire board [Music] um but there are others who have have come I'm assuming to individual board members regarding special education and the resources and even if we believe that we are servicing um the children um I I I just wish we had a list of resources for our children or for our parents if they don't think that we're meeting their needs um provide the resources so that they can maybe supplement and provide additional resources um it's not always easy to find when when my son was diagnosed I mean we we were like dancing happy that he was finally diagnosed because it took anyone like seven years to do it and and it it back then we didn't have resources I had to find them
236I had to go to classes at ASU just to learn behavior modification or or ABA therapies and and at some point probably around the time my son was in we had a individual in Deer Valley Who provided awesome resources to parents and it wasn't necessarily class or or or what we do but just resources on where they could could step in and help their child it's a partnership they're we cannot do it alone and neither can those parents um and so if they feel they're not getting what they need or they're not getting their information they shouldn't have to fight for the resources they shouldn't have to fight for information on their own child or do public records requests or or any of that they're our partners and we should be working with them so
237I I really think we need to as we move forward with special education concerns that we look for that I if if adults um can't see eye to eye on things okay fine we don't have to see eye to eye we don't even have to like each other in some cases we don't even have to talk to each other but what we all have to do is at the end of the day look at that kid and know that we want the best for that kid and do whatever we can to help him and it makes a difference I will tell you my son plays Sims and you know what Mr kilman is in his game because Mr kilman was had an impact in his life and so he's in the game he made his
238character and he's just he's he's an awesome teacher in the game Dr vener is in the game he made an impression on my son you know those these children regardless of whether we think we're providing what is needed if the kids don't feel it it's not real man the kids are smart they're intuitive they know they know they know when we're they know when we're being buttheads and not getting along or or digging on our heels and being harsh and well you know I'm going to do this because I have the power they know that kids feel it um and I just think we need to have better resources I think it was I think she left it was a principal's wife but if we could find someone like that just to provide resources again
239um Highland Lakes that's his name yes uh Mark Anderson's um wife from back then she was the resource and she just she literally had classes as a Special Needs Mom I came in here and I sat some of it I knew some of it I didn't um but learning how to navigate DDD learning how to navigate you know a lot of stuff if we could just have an improved way that the parents or if there's a test that we're not willing to do a list of resources where they can do it themselves it would be awesome um and then the final I think I got all of them on the final one that I do want to um address and talk about and I'm not and I'm not going to say Pro or against um
240or any of that this Day of Silence um first off I'm a little bit angry about not anything that anyone in this District did but I'm a little bit angry that an individual chose to use Deer Valley as a a political sole purpose of political we all have a bit of politic politics that we do but it really makes me angry that somebody took a snippet and then took it in a path that it doesn't even have darn thing to do with with the truth or with our kids and it became a political volleyball when we saw it in here one group's going to say this one group's going to say that I I will say one thing and I'm saying it for anyone is that dear Valley should not be for your politics I
241I love politics I believe in politics I believe in and and people say well you mention politics yeah I do I have been mentioning them for a week saying we need to guard against those who are trying to hurt because they're out there and it hit us hard on this one but at the same time this should have been brought to this board and it was not this board should have discussed not this specific day but we should discuss what it looks like um what is appropriate or not I get that we have a Supreme Court decision and the Supreme Court decision was based on whether or not they wore the black armed bands regarding the Vietnam War that's what started the whole thing there's a big difference between wearing a I support what ever
242t-shirt or armband or something there's a big difference between that and something that is going to disrupt our school yeah there's a big difference than an armband and a walk out there's a big difference between an armband and putting a tape over a kid's mouth um I think we need to set a standard and I don't know what that would look like we have to work within the law but I think as a district whether it's this topic or any other there should be a standard of what's acceptable and it's not a free-for-all I don't care if you seriously start getting lawyers looking at it because I've had three lawyers call me about this and and some of them have said you know this they they have cited that there is a good um U
243standing that Tinker doesn't apply in this case because we're not talking about just an armb band um so I would ask that at some point the board considers having a discussion about the general topic of this type of thing and can we set boundaries not saying that we stop them from having their say for whatever they support or don't but can we set a boundary of this is disruption versus this is just standing for something this is child abuse versus this is just standing for something um so that's my request and that's it for me Mrs Reed thank you um a couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend Avenue Avenue 27 and the senior institute's um collaboration to honor First Responders um and host them and their families for dinner um it
244was a really neat um opportunity there were District staff members that were there um um with their first responder um also and that was um just a really neat opportunity to see um my husband has served in the fire service for almost 30 years and um I think that's the first dinner we've ever been to that um a Community member has put on to thank him for his service um we also invited um one of our police commanders who is a part of the Barry Goldwater High School Community to attend um and the the conversation was great um seeing the hospitality for the kids was wonderful um one of the things um that Tru Cathy who's the founder of Chick-fil-A said is that um he wanted his restaurants to be a place of restoration and
245um a place of um rest for the community and um that's really what Avenue 27 became that night was a place of restoration for our First Responders so um I think that that is a very admirable um event that I would like to continue to see maybe become an annual event um um and if obviously I understand that it was a student sponsored event but maybe moving forward um we could find some other sponsors to help um host those First Responders in a different way if there isn't a student from the senior Institute that wants to take that project on um I think it's really important to um provide the community um with what the facts are around um the Day of Silence and what was what was posted because um it was misconstrued a
246little bit during public comments um and the way that it was um read seemed like the district or the board had sponsored it so I'm going to read exactly what the memo was that was sent out says the glsen Day of Silence 2022 will be April 22nd this is a one-day silent protest that encourages students to be silent for the full day in support of lgbtq students you may have students that wear tape over their mouths or otherwise cover their mouths as a district we neither endorse nor prohibit this expression activity and students who participate should be encouraged to appropriately participate in class remember students have the right to expression and this includes the right not to express oneself by staying silent um there isn't anything in there that um makes me believe that the
247district nor the administration at any school or any teacher or any parent is um supporting this or not supporting it or endorsing it or um encouraging students to participate or not participate one way or the other simply as an informative statement um letting teachers know um what the day is in case they have a student that chooses to participate in it um when I was in high school um and Junior High for that matter I chose to participate in a national day um that um was not endorsed by my school or my parents or my teachers but it was bring your Bible to school day and we were encouraged to bring our Bibles to school with us and to carry it around school with us or to place it on our desks um I had
248every every right to bring my Bible to school just like on October 7th if another student in our district wants to bring their Bible to school they can do that as well and it wouldn't be um the right for um the district or an administrator um to say anything or to tell me I had to put my Bible away because it was my freedom of speech it was my first amendment right um the same as if a child a student chooses to participate in this day um it is not for um the administration or the board or the district to tell a student they can or cannot participate in something like that if they choose to um I think that we walk a very fine line if we decide which um national days we're going
249to allow or encourage our students to participate in depending upon our own personal um viewpoints and um you know I'm I'm I'm not okay with um with the first amend amendment being stepped on um you know we saw back in the summer of 2020 that there were um protesters that line the streets of Downtown Phoenix and downtown Scottsdale protesting against um police brutality and I knew many of the police officers that were standing down there holding that line and many of them didn't agree with what the protesters had to say but they were going to stand there and protect their right to say what they wanted to say um and that is an important part we may not agree with the things that our students choose to stand up for on these national days but
250it's their right um to to express themselves in a way that doesn't disrupt the school day um and we should all be willing to stand up for them to protect that right to do that so with that I am finished Mrs sway um just on that uh topic I've been in the school district for a long time had my high school kids they um joined in this day of observation never heard any problems with it um as far as I know there's never been any um anything that would have risen to uh any kind of bullying that would have come up to the board so if somebody wants to or any if we think that it's worth anyone's time to uh look up and see how many different behavioral if there's an anomaly in behavior
251on a Day of Silence that would be awesome to find out because I I've never heard of it before the point is is that they're silent and they're respectful of their fellow students and many of them don't even agree with the lifestyle but it's their fellow students so they are going to quietly um show that they are not only tolerated but accepted and protected so that's if anyone wants to look for that um Behavior stuff I don't think you'll find it but feel free to look for it I had the opportunity to go to the play called don't drink the water at um Boulder Greek High School uh I love the new LED lights um it just really accentuated the uh actors they have a great tradition of making sure that all of their senior
252um students that are whether they're the actors actresses um or the stage um crew and get um acknowledge and it was it was a great play um calling all fairy godmothers I can't tell you how much fun that is to watch these girls faces and the boys uh they come up and they look in the real quick story because I know it's like 11 o' and it's way past my bedtime um how do you get these dresses I said oh it's very complicated you pick them out you try them on and you take them home oh my gosh that's just like a fairy godmother I'm like whoa first time articulated uh the connection between what you're doing and what it's called so that was awesome and the next uh act to that play is going
253to be the eighth grade promotion dresses and the eighth grade dance dresses excuse me dresses and clothing um I was not able to attend the fabulous uh dinner to honor all of the National Certified board teachers but I heard it was excellent and they knew that I was there in heart um congratulations to all the student recipients their family and their people that were here for them and on a close oh one more thing before I close um if we could get an update or an idea of when the inspiration mountain 7eventh and eighth grade was would follow the sixth grade that might help a lot of parents decide whether they're going to enroll somewhere um other than um inspiration mount it might help us with our um enrollment there so sitting at the Das
254calls us to be prepared ethical and hopefully open-minded and passionate certainly about all we must lead by example and make sure that the example that we're setting is one um that is worth following so on that I appreciate everyone in the room everyone watching and I appreciate all the students in our district staying strong to the end and somebody can give me a number I think it's 28 days or something like well don't look at me because I can't tell you how many days are left to the school year although I'm sure there's some teachers that might be able to tell us that and more importantly there's probably students who know exactly how many days they have left to sit in those chairs and so I've got to tell you I'm torn you know this
255is an opportunity where I could make this my longest meeting ever or not um wow just thought we're right there I think we're really close to the cusp and if I talk for 20 or 30 minutes it could be my longest meeting ever in the school board I promise we're not going to do it um so I'm just going to say nbct was incredible it was so nice because for several years um we either didn't have any teachers or only one teacher and this time there were eight teachers uh recognized uh and and although one of them during the pandemic left us to move to Oregon with her husband um it was awesome they they took her picture and sent her a screenshot out of her name recognition so that was cool so had a
256lot of fun sitting with um the teachers and their spouses during that event also had a great time um hosting three of our Cactus pre Precinct Cactus Park Precinct um a lieutenant a sergeant and a community action officer at the Barry Goldwater uh First Responders uh dinner and so food was great and it was even more fun to know that they had volunteer servers so our server wasn't somebody who front um it was a NHS volunteer so she was just sweet as I'll get out and thank you to the Barry goldw High School uh kids for for doing that it was a really great evening um and with that I will call on Dr we say everybody have a wonderful relaxing weekend and then call on Dr Finch for his superintendence report yeah that's one
257part of the equation that you forgot because what's the number I need to hit 11 well I have bad news for you you need three board members for a quorum and we've all given our reports I I'm always interested in records so if we can break your record I'm in totally uh just wanted to say again uh thanks for the the interesting and verbose uh discussion about uh our uh raises they are historic um you think about it 9 and a half and if you add the 3% for next year if we hit our ADM numbers that's a big deal and our neighbors most of our neighbors are flat or at the most 3% so we are sending a shock wave through our zone for sure I met with the neic superintendants today and I
258was getting an nearfall so that's great so hopefully um we'll be picking up some neighbors coming our Direction um and for the seven seven and a half percent for um for our classifi that's a big deal as well so uh thanks again for that again uh since you did mention it and talked a little bit about it I want to reemphasize that I think Miss Reed said well maybe next year we can think about dot dot dot you actually have an impact this year because the NST language will be coming to you in May so you can make those boundaries that you talked about in May so I think um and te members in the room and online picked up that uh theme that all of you mentioned and so um they have a couple
259months go back to the drawing board and and work on that as well that might help a little bit uh further I also wanted to thank the um the last and final fin fine art show up in Moulder Creek at the anthem Outlets they were kids art was amazing next year we're going to have that here we're going to have it in our Innovation Center so that'll be exciting to have it more centralized in our district and pretty exciting but it still took me an hour and a half to pick out five pieces so it's always tough trying to get uh hit all the media uh last but not least uh you are correct we are down to five weeks left of school so we have a Sprint to the Finish I was in a
260couple schools today we're doing testing this is the last of the testing window so looking forward to see how our students are doing and our recovery and uh learning Gap uh progress hopefully we've been a start make some meas some growth there so excited about um our potential as the district last but not least there will be no Friday update because we have spring break day on Friday and I believe the Easter Bunny is coming to town as well so it'll be two weeks before you get your Friday update so be will there be a Monday update instead um yeah give me a call and we also have Passover coming as well this so are you done do I need to go a little more are we close did you want to make a motion
261future meetings are I will take a motion at 10:58 toour in a second all those in favor say hi is that a record and then say goodbye it's not it's close