July 10, 2025 Regular Meeting

001Good evening. I now call to order the regularly scheduled school board meeting for the Lake Unified School District, July 10th, 2025. Roll call, please. >> Here. Um this evening as we have our moment of silent prayer and private reflection, I ask that we remember this evening the family of Walter Foxcraftoft. Um he was a student growing up in the Lake Abis Unified School District, became a successful business owner and community member. So let's please remember his family this evening. Thank you. Amen. Would you please stand for the pledge? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one indivisible and justice for all. >> Thank you. Good evening. We want to thank all of you for attending this evening's meeting. I want to open um by saying last month

002um we had some outbursts in in our meeting and um I just want to state tonight that that type of behavior in this setting or any public board meeting setting is unacceptable. Um if that behavior happens um per the superintendent and the governing board, you will be asked to leave. We can all have differences of opinions, but please respect one another. Please respect and resp and hear each other out and so we would just ask that we would have respect this evening. Thank you so much. Moving on. Um, student services spotlights and recognitions. Okay, welcome guys. So, tonight we're going to present a our spotlight for recognition to Mr. So the athletic department LH it is on sorry you can probably hear me without it anyway uh the athletic department LHS has been under direction

003of Mr. Zampona and through his leadership has been outstanding to say the least each year improvements and expectations are raised for both athletes and coaches alike as athletic director Mr. Zampon holds himself to that same standard as evidenced by this announcement. The National Interclassic Athletic Administrator Association or NITAA is pleased to announce that Dustin Zampona has been recognized by the NIA as a certified athletic administrator. To earn this distinction, Dustin Zampon has demonstrated the highest level of knowledge and expertise in the field of interplastic athletic administration. The voluntary certification process involved a thorough evaluation of the candidates's educational background, experience, and professional contributions as a rigorous and comprehensive written examination. Dustin Zampon is one of a group of interclassic athletic administrators nationwide to attain this level of professionalism. He is a true example of what

004happens when passion meets dedication. Congratulations and thank you to Mr. Dampon for everything you do for our coaches, athletes, and fans. All right. This time we will have our call to the public item 3.1. forum. I want to compliment the board for doing the things that we really appreciate. quote from 1784. The end goal of education is to direct the powers of the mind in unfolding themselves and to assist them in gaining just and in order to do this rather than qualified only. It's no accident over that despite never again our children stumble over the same ideological nos in all their earnestness. Where was I? That they they cannot see the patterns, the fingerprints of tyranny left by the same collective conspirators who have always sought to shackle them. No, my friends, the American people's

005inability to recognize these patterns is not a failure of intelligence. It is a feature, a deliberate design embedded into the very fabric of our so-called education system. Let's name some names, shall we? Horus man, the so-called father of American education, imported the Prussian model of schooling, the very same system that turned freethinking farmers into obedient cogs of the German war machine. Man's vision lauded by progressives as the salvation of American mind was in fact its first nail in the coffin. A compulsory governmentr run institution whose ultimate goal was to produce factory workers not freemen. Then came John Dwey the high priest of progressive education who insisted that children should be molded by the state into socialized beings. whose radical collectivism is well documented believed that education should not transmit the accumulated wisdom of Western civilization

006but should instead indoctrinate students into the group think of the so-called common good and so it did you have there there you have it a century of educational subversion is it any wonder we have a generation of Americans who can't spot tyranny even as it shackles their wrists who will willingly and gleefully shackle their own wrists so long Because the chains are designer and don't clash with their outfit. Are we perpetually caught in the same old traps and sold the same old snake oil? >> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. >> All right. There's plenty more there. Good evening. I'm Cy Porter. Um, I just wanted to discuss the new changes to the cell phone policy that you guys will be discussing. Um, I know that it says on there that kids will have to be locked

007up for the whole day. And as a mom with a high schooler, I'm not sure how appropriate this is being that we're training them to be adults and be able to function in the real world. And if we lock up their cell phones for the entire day, that doesn't teach them how to manage their time with their cell phone and complete their work. So, I think we really need to look at that. Um, also, I'm not sure where the funding is going to come from that, but I don't think that's appropriate use of our funs. Um, I feel like I know a lot of the teachers at the high school and I haven't heard any complaints about cell phones. So, I feel like if this is a problem that maybe it needs addressed, but I'm

008not sure that it's actually a problem. I think this is maybe a self-made problem so that we can look like we're doing more that doesn't need to be done and money that doesn't need to be spent. So, I think I would appreciate um looking into that and if there's grant money that we use that I I'm a little nervous about how much money we are spending um and knowing especially how um unstable our government state government is right now on funding schools. So thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Diane Lutz and along with 50% of this community, we are retired, have no children, and pay taxes into this school district. We care about the direction of this community and education of the students who will shape our

009future. At last month's meeting, Victoria Far provided a budget and tax overview of the 2025 to 2026 budget, which is very indepth and informative. During her presentation, she was rudely heckled by members of this audience, many of which are school district employees. This was embarrassing and not who have a student. As we talked about bonds and budget overrides that require voter approval, I thought, why would I vote in favor of additional bonds given the behavior of some of the people, many of which, as I said, are employees of the school district. and benefited from the pay raises this very board voted in. Teachers haven't received a true pay increase for more than 10 years, largely because the LHSDA budget has been grossly underst. This community overwhelmingly supports the direction and actions of this elected board

010and So do I. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Now moving on to item 3.2, business services, Victoria. I wish I was that tall. >> Good evening everyone and thank you for welcoming me back for another um explanation of the budget. As I stated in my last presentation, these are uh statutory timelines that we must adhere to in order to set tax rates for the upcoming school year. This particular presentation uh is not directed towards the tax rates themselves. But this is an open discussion. It's a public hearing. It's an open discussion. So you can feel free to ask me questions um about the prior presentation, about any questions you have on the budget at this time because that's the purpose of the public hearing as mandated by state Thank you. So, uh

011what school districts undergo in Arizona and almost all other entities in the country is called fund accounting. So, what that in a general terms that means that we have 70 different bank accounts and every single one of those bank accounts can only be used for a specific purpose. When I spoke at the last meeting in June, I spoke of the three major buckets, you know, MML, capital, and adjacent ways. But there are 70 different buckets that Lake Hattis Unified has for all of the activities and um promotions that the school district employs. So as I stated last time is for salaries benefits, capital is for addition is for capital classroom site fund is for teacher compensation. But there are also other major funds if you go and the thing about the fund accounting you have

012some that are based on how much cash you actually have in the bank. So if you have one penny you can spend one penny you can't overdraw that account and others such as M and capital that as long as you have budget capacity you have $100 and you only have one penny at the bank you can still spend $100. That's how that kind of works in the state of Arizona. So your budget controls are examples of maintenance and operations, district additional assistance and most I say most federal and state grants. The one that is not uh cash budget control you see is food service that is a cash account. So cash controlled Jason ways bonds auxiliary funds tax credit. There's a lot of tax credit donations that this community supports the schools which is a

013beautiful thing. So those are all cash based. So if you have in the bank, you can spend it. If you don't have it, you can. So, I'm going to go into um addition average daily membership. I didn't get into that presentation last time or into that discussion. So, school districts in Arizona are funded on student count, what they call average daily membership. And it's a really laborious calculation to for the ease of calculating. If I am a student in high school and I'm I start school, I'm enrolled in day one and I make it to day 50 and then I leave, I'm only going to get 50% of funding for that child. If I come in on day 75 and stay for the rest of the year, I'm only getting 25% of the annual funding

014for that student. So, a student has to be enrolled continuously from day one to day 100 in order to be fully funded for that year. Now, the implications are that if you have and Lake Havisu is a beautiful community and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of um charter competition, should we say? There's one or two charter schools, a couple private schools. So, it's not the the competitive the hyper competitive nature that you would get like in in Phoenix where I live. So the average daily membership student enrollment is pretty stable. Um this uh last year uh 1483 we're I'm projecting again it's a death that we'll lose about 147 students based on incoming mostly based on the lower number of kindergarteners that are replacing the 12th grade seniors that just graduated. Our

015our cohorts are becoming smaller. our kindergarteners cohort, the number of seats becomes small and as that cycles through the system, the student count gets lower and lower. The state also funds additional resources for students identified with special needs. That could be autism, hearing impairment, visual impairment. There's a there's a long list. You have some moderate, moderate, disabled. So every every student that qualifies for additional services will get additional funding. But again, it's based on when they enrolled and when they exit, if they exit the base support level, this is interesting because what you see right here, the $5,000, $5,000 or$13, that's a guess because remember the legislature had not passed a budget when I was here the last time. They just passed it and we don't have new forms. So what that number is going

016end up being. I will let you know in September because that's when we're going to have to revise. Um, let's see. Transportation is stable. So, right now, I'm with that change in student count and not knowing what our actual base support level is going to be, I'm estimating that for current year funding, I'm not talking about carryover, current year funding, we'll be about $766,000 less than we were last year. Same thing with this uh district additional assistance. The only difference with district additional assistance is based on prior year ADM not current year. M is the only fund that's based on current year. I think that was a oversight. So now it's a little bit different. So between actual um student count in 24 to actual student count 100 in 25 is 59. loss of the

017students. So that's not a significant decrease, but it is a decrease. Oh, there fun time. This again is based on um a weighted average daily membership value, which is different than actual average daily membership. You get your weighted counts from how many preschoolers you have, how many elementary kiddos you have in your high school. Each one of those has a different additional weight factor. So as you can daily. Last year we got $792 per weighted average daily member fit student. That's a mouthful. It went up $50 for this year. That should stay the same. It's based on this the amount of revenue that the land trust earns over over year over year. So that's um a decrease of $19,000 even though we've lost more than that in students. Does that make sense? Okay, next slide

018please. Other funds, we have bonds, adjacent ways. I did ask that I did put out a public notice in the newspaper requesting that we add $750,000 to our adjacent waste budget based on the ingress and egress safety needs that we need at our schools. We have instructional improvement that's from Indian gaming um casino revenue and the state divies that out to all the schools. Then we have title one which is supplemental revenue based on demographics and title two is this kind of the same formula but it's for professional development for teachers. Then you have IDA which is a um individuals with disabilities education act. Those are special ed students that get extra funding for their needs on the federal side on top of what they get from the state. And food service again that cash

019control fund. It's based on how many meals you sell and how much colle revenue collection you get from the parents and the government reimbursement. So that's where we're at now. Okay. Tax rates. I combined primary and secondary rates that are on the forms to give an idea of what the tax rate would be for $100,000 of assessed value. So and I'll get into and not not yet, but in the next slide it'll explain what that what that actually means. So if you have per every $100,000 for fiscal 26, we pay $34847 combined. That's your bond payments. Uh that's your um maintenance and operations and your capital and adjacent. Last year it was slightly higher. So tax rates are incrementally going down. right now. Um, we do not have an override and I believe the bonds

020are almost all set. Next one, please. So, okay. So, this is what I like to do. I I get Google Maps and I zoom in and I look, oh, that looks like a house. I'm going to pinpoint that house. I don't know who lives there. I don't know. I don't know. So, this is the address and somebody knows who lives there. You say this is your tax calculation for years. So, in this case, the full cash value per the state um assessor website county assessors is $316,000. Now everybody knows you can go to Zillow and reg and say how much is my house worth and what do you estimate if I sell it now? This house is almost $400,000 cash value but the assessed value is $25,000. So you can see there's a wide discrepancy

021between what my property value is as what I would earn if I sold it today versus what the government is the value the government is taxing me off. It's a huge difference. One of those reasons is the assessed value per homes is limited to only increase by 5%. But we know inflation is greater than five and our property values statewide have increased more than 5% year-over-year for the past few years. So for this particular home, this individual would pay $214 I'm $714 in taxes for a a home that they could sell today for $400,000. Um yes sir. Yes sir. >> The limited value is the 2005. The assessed value is 10% of that which is why you see um if you have to divide it by 100. It's kind of interesting. It's kind of weird.

022>> Yes, sir. >> We can come back. because they're coming up on questions and I did receive some questions from the community and I would love to be able to explain some of them if I can. When you look at a budget, the budget forms, you've got 14 pages of numbers and spreadsheets and then another 10 pages of instructions. Who wants to read all that? Probably nobody. The purpose of one of the purposes of the way budget forms are structured is because when we upload that information to the state, the state at some point, usually a year or two later, ends up uploading that same information in a data file to the federal government. In order to receive federal funds, we have to give the federal government the data that they ask for. And you

023have account code strings that are 19 characters long. And you say, why do I have to code it this way or code it that way? because you have to report it to the federal government so they have to do cross comparisons between districts in one state to another. The health questions are the same in where you go. Almost always the same. and state. >> Well, this is just some of that. We've got 75. We've got a bucket of 70 funds. that for food service that's combined revenue that the the um schools receive from pay the parent payments and federal government reimbursement that is combined that is combined correct for your like IDA entitle that's purely federal government instructional improvement is union giving money adjacent raises taxpayers And bonds is also taxpayers taxpayers. Bonds and adjacent

024are taxpayers not the state does not fund its correct absolutely. Um so going back to the forms when the annual financial report comes out and you have to do that by October 15th of the year for the prior fiscal year you'll have what you'll see the your budget balance your budget what you started with what you what cash you ended up collecting and what your we call a fund balance so that's still a cash balance so even for maintenance and operations I have a budget of $100 and I spent $200, my cash balance will still reflect negative $100 on this point because that is actually trying to calculate your cash, not just your budget capacity. And the reason why I bring that up is because when you look at all the funds and say, okay,

025well, this says that I have $100,000 or a million dollar left over. That means I can use it as reserves. Reserves are very hard to come by. Basically, maintenance and operation and capital are your only two funds where you can generate reserves. Everything else is restricted. You might have carryover available, but that's still restricted for a specific purpose. Like if I have $300,000 left over in title one, I can't use that for anything else with title one initiatives. It has to be written to the next grant or else we lose it and say that we overcolcted then we have to send the money back. That's not money that we can say, okay, we can use that rainy day fund. Those are not rainy day fund timing accounts. So, I just wanted to make sure I

026kind of explained that this the district um and districts in general. It's not advisable to have too much left reserves because what's happened and I've been around long enough to know the state will come and sweep that cash and then say you're so that's happened that's happened to me twice and there's a reason why on those financial forms they want to know exactly how they're spending their reserves because they want to and they can pull should they have a budget shortfall because the fact is this school district budgets account for more than 50% of the state budget. Period. Half of it goes to schools and the rest of it they they can set aside for healthare uh road maintenance um administrations half of it goes to schools. So the first place they're going to look

027when they have a budget circle is going to be the schools. So, they're very um interested in vested into knowing exactly how much cash or capacity schools have left over. It's always a good practice to spend current year money on current year kids. If I have an allocation at the high school for supplies for $200,000, I hope you spend it on those years because Victoria, the way I budget, you're not going to get that $20,000 back on top of your new the next year. That's this year's money, this year's kits. That's that's what I try to impart on um my staff. Let's see. Federal state grants. In addition to being restricted in how you can spend them, there's also a different period of time where you can spend them. The federal fiscal year starts on

028October 1st of every year. A lot a lot of people don't know that. So, their their day one, their January 1 is October 1st for us. So, we technically and have taken advantage of that extra three-month period to spend grants. So, whatever cash or budget capacity I have available on June 30th, I still have three more months of payroll to pay because that grants doesn't officially end till September 30th when the new grant starts. Um, let's see here. Now, I will apologize in advance. I was was brought on by the district um in mid May and that was not enough time for me to to submit a revised budget for fiscal 25. I will do that with a they call it a 15 915 letter with the department of department of ed. You send them

029a request form and they open the portal. It would come to the board. My my plan is to have that done in August so I can get perfect perfectly good numbers for fiscal 25. Throughout the year, especially in Minor, you have changes in in um student count. You also have a period of time in at the end of June where the state aggregates all the data and then recalculate. Everybody goes through a recalculation of what your final email is and you can always recapture that. So that's my intent to make sure that I I will capture any student games that happened in June and that I can make sure that I have and I can provide the board and the community perfect perfect numbers for fiscal 25. Now it's my understanding that the legislature came

030to some sort of agreement on Prop 123 that's not in these two budgets because it wasn't there and it wasn't on the forms when we adopted and proposed. But that those final numbers for those that bunch of the application will be on the next set of forms sent to us by the auditor general. The auditor general's office is actually one of the the entity that creates those heart forms because they're not the easiest thing easiest thing to read. Um federal grants I'm going to go back to federal grants for a minute. For the past two years, the districts have been given an initial allocation of what those grants are, and then come February, oh, here's another $100,000. You're like, really? I just, you know, what am I going to do? I already have my staff

031and it's already halfway more than halfway through the year. So, then you get additional allocation. So, I I do expect that trend to continue, especially for title one and title two and special. No, that's part of that's part of the federal government and then no. You never want to you never want to overestimate and grants are very tricky. Advanced grants are very tricky because you have a lot of salaries and benefits wrapped up into the grant funds. So the goal is not But also the goal is not to understand because you're not allowed to keep anything more than 50% of 15% of what you get. So it's it's not cheapology. It's not cheap. the extra money you want to spend as supplies because typically supplies are equipment they last longer like the essential equipment that

032lasts more money. >> Yes, sir. No. Okay. How does being affected by >> Oh, that okay. Before it's my understanding that before the department of education at the federal level was created that was the responsibility of the health and human services department and they administered them via what we call block rights. So instead there would be I wouldn't want to say less red tape a different kind of red tape that we would all have to become become acquainted with. I was, you know, I was a kid back then, so I would have to learn what that means. >> Correct. Correct. And the fortunate thing that in Arizona, especially in Arizona, I'm sure it's the same way in other states, too, that we have the phone to friend people that you can always go to that

033are always looking out and sending you emails when they have updates. One of my um good that now works at at the office in Tucson was at AD and he's still maintained his all of his grant contacts and I was able to help a different district recover loss funds through him. So we have a really good network of people and groups of um organizations that help mitigate and and dig into those details for us so that way we're not having to do it individually. It's going to be a change if it happens. That would be very rare for them to make that change make a change to the structure before an October 1st >> date. Correct. Anytime you spend government funds, there's always a levelable accountability involved. >> And the only way to achieve the

034accountability, unfortunately, is some red tape because if it was if it was a free-for-all, then nobody you don't have the rotate and you can do whatever you want, but then there's nowhere to say, okay, well, how how did you how did you spend that money? There's no accountability for it. So, It's always a balance. It es and flows as as as entities and organizations and administrations come and go. So, you kind of just you try to live right in the center even though kind of swings a little more than you want to question. >> I have so um we were able to exchange emails earlier today. Thank you. Um and you gave me some information about the amounts that are left in the different reserve accounts. would you mind talking a little bit about that?

035>> Sure. Sure. So, right now we are in what we call our encumbrance period. So, that means that we're not issuing any or buying anything else out of last school year, but we are able to pay off bills that we incurred last school year, and we have until August 30th to do so. So, that's invoices. Let's say that we've ordered um a roof a roof patch in the middle of June and we don't get invoiced for it until August 1, we can still pay that bill because the contractor did it in June. That's prop prior expenditure. So, we're working through making sure all of those bills are paid. So, every single invoice is no longer outstanding as of August 31st. That's the leeway that the the state government gives us. So, that being But if

036I were to look in and I've got the example here, we have 400 almost $435,000 of incumbrances and maintenance and operations. So I can't say that I'm going to have that in carryover until I know that all the bills are paid. Kind of an example. Um there were some differences in based on your numbers and my numbers. It looks like there were some differences. Most of it were the incumbrances because we had some significant encumbrances especially in um bond and ML. Now classroom side fun we're pretty much spot on. And again like I said federal and state grants I don't know because we're not done paying those. We're not paying that until December. >> Are you okay with me reading out the specific numbers? >> You go right ahead. >> Okay. >> I thought I

037had it printed out, but I left behind. >> That's okay. Okay. So, again, this is reserve and as for pointed out, this doesn't take into account um sort of outstanding debts that we might have in some of these areas. But for M our um reserve is 9,741,60. For unrestricted capital it's 7,857,94. For bond building it's $927,993 for adjacent ways. It's $251,144 classroom site. It's 182,220 and then federal and state grants. Um I feel like it's too unknown to really make a statement um because it's dependent on payroll and those types of things. So >> no maintenance and operations and then capital on the budget and but the others are cash funds. Yes. I have not yet found anything that was mismanaged or mispent. Unspent, yes, but not mispent. That makes sense. No, the when you

038look at a budget like M is a is a $35 million budget and I have to or what should happen is that entire $35 million is spread out in a budget amongst all the necessary account codes. So, let's say that I have a contingency what I what I did in my other district. I actually have a contingency account that never gets spent because I want to make sure that I have exactly this much carrying forward at a minimum and that money doesn't get spent. So, there's there's always going to be that $3.5 million sitting there. It's just not going anywhere. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. Yeah. Just you never want to be left in the lurch at the end of the day. You always want to have some level of of question. Should the

039state do it again and roll uh you know roll your revenue streams that that You have to have those three. Correct. You can't have more than three. That's actually the rule. >> Correct. Correct. >> There used to be a cap on how much you could carry forward. That was 4% which is where I get that three.5 million. Um, but they lifted that restriction. AD had lifted that restriction. to the legislature lifted that restriction. So you can carry over 50% if you wanted to, but why would you want to? That means half that means half of your kids are going without something. It's it's always about my mind I always like to stay around 4%. Because that's what has historically been allowed and anything more than that I just think is doesn't pass the test. Any

040questions? >> I was invited by >> um I believe human re so I can speak to that human resources Dr. has requested that that position be posted uh for an inerson CFO. So, it is posted at this time and I believe there are some applicants. Correct. Yes. >> And that is fair because this this is a this is a heavy lift because this person that holds this role is not just a manager and a mentor to the staff. They they're also hands-on. So, it's very difficult. And I I feel for the staff and I'm very grateful for the opportunity, but I've I've never um I've always believed that that the staff need someone in person for their for their guidance and support. Somebody that's here full time. I live in Phoenix. I can't be here

041full time. And that's only fair to the staff. >> All right. Any other questions? Any questions from the governing board? >> All right. Thank you, Victoria. >> All right. Um this evening, moving on to our consent agenda, item 4.1, I would like to point out item 416 on our consent agenda this evening that the Lake Havis Unified School District has entered into a dual enrollment agreement with Grand Canyon University. Uh we are super excited about the opportunity. I know Mr. Becker and the high school is extremely excited about this and it offers even more opportun uh for student success for our students here in the district. So uh thank you Mr. Becker and to our team at the high school for your hard work on this partnership. Um at this time we will need a

042vote for consent agenda motion. I move to approve my consent agenda. >> Yes. All right. At this time, item 5.1, student achievement, will be presenting this evening, state testing proficiency results. Miss Olsson. President Rose and members of the governing board, tonight I would like to share with you the most recent proficiency data from the AASA, the Arizona Academic Standards Assessment, the ACT, the Arizona Science Test, and the ACT Aspire. Um, It is our intention that the information I'm sharing with you tonight will be on the district website for public access in the near future. First and foremost, I want to thank Mrs. Jamie Tunaman. Her time and expertise she put into compiling all of the assessment data is invaluable. Her ability to make complex information both comprehensible and accessible is truly appreciated. and her expertise

043helps the entire district make informed decisions that directly support student success. Thank you. So, the first two pages that are that you see are handouts of the AASA proficiency scores for grades three through eight in both ELA and math. The AASA was first administered in 2022. There are four proficiency levels for the AASA. They're minimally proficient, partially proficient, proficient, and highly proficient. In order to be proficient, a student must earn either proficient or highly proficient. This chart represents all of the students who took the AA essay, even if they didn't attend LHUSD schools for the entire school year. We recognize that schools vary in enrollment. Um, So converting the end counts, the number of students into percentages allows us to compare schools using a common language. And then at the very bottom of the page,

044this includes a graph representing the students in grades seven and eight that are heavily students. Can you go to the next document, please? Uh this page includes ACT data. The ACT is administered to 11th graders. The chart represents again all students who took the ACT even if they did not attend LHS for the entire school year. The valid number represents all students who took the test. The composite mean score is the average of all five subtests. math, science, English, reading, and writing. For the purpose of school letter grades, the state looks at the math subtest and then combines English, reading, and writing into one ELA test and looks at those two tests for the purpose of school letter grades. Document, please. this page are the ACE Arizona science proficiency scores. The Arizona science test is

045given in grades five, eight, and 11. These tests are cumulative, meaning that students who take the grade five test are assessed on content taught in grades three, four, and five. Proficiency on the Arizona Science Test provides bonus points for a school's letter grade. Can you go to the final document please? The fifth and final page is proficiency on the ACT Aspire. This assessment is given to all 9th graders. Bonus points again for school letter grades are awarded based on completion, not proficiency. So if 95% of our ninth graders complete the test, the school receives bonus points for the school's letter grade. So, I would like to say that um our proficiency is um pretty much in line with the state's average proficiency, but that is not good enough for us. Um if you have ever

046read Jim Collins book, Good to Great, he quotes, "Organizations don't improve unless they confront the brutal facts about their shortcomings." And these are the brutal facts. So we have very definitive next steps. Um this includes meeting with building principles next week and during that time we are going to help principles disagregate their sight specific data. We're going to start at spa uh site level data. Actually we're going to start with yes our district data then site level data. We're going to move down to teacher level data, student level data, and subgroup data. So when we say subgroups, we mean, for example, our students who are English language learners. We're going to then examine the data by both domain and cluster. So what what are what is aligned in ELA, what is aligned in math. This

047is going to allow our district to better align our curriculum to the rigor of the state standards. Then we're going to have uh principles create smart goals which are measurable, actionable things that we we're not just saying we're going to improve, but we are going to have very definitive numbers and dates and checkpoints. Um I did mention school letter grades earlier. So I would like to say that school letter grades are historically released in November. So the state is still working through that static file to determine growth of the the phase students which are students that are enrolled before the 10th day of school and remain in the in the school for the entire year. Um, I want to say it is really important to recognize that school letter grades often buffer the reality of

048student proficiency and we will facilitate another data meeting with building principles after school letter grades are released. Do you have any questions going? >> I love those. That's amazing. I don't want to devalue like the letter grades that the schools have, but I think this is super important to try and implement that. We're better than just the average, but these percentages are horrible to me. They they are learning. Yes. And we we can do better. And we are aiming to um provide our principles and our teachers with two main goals, which is what are we teaching? Is it aligned to the rigor of the state standards? And how are we teaching? Are we all on the same page about what good core instruction looks like? Refining that, improving that. We have pockets of excellence in

049this district. We have teachers who do amazing work every single day. But being in an amazing teacher's classroom should not be a lottery. It should not be by luck. And that that is my goal that every single student who walks into a school in our district has the opportunity to have amazing instruction every single day every single year. So I am uh four days into this job and we are we we have big um steps to take but we will step boldly into that and make changes. >> Miss Olsson, I do have a question. We had discussed um within the last couple of months and had been discussed potentially about having coaches available at each campus to to help with student achievement. Is that you feel would would help with with this? >> Um, I

050think that in this moment in time as a district, we need to have an overall vision of what instruction looks like. I I do have hesitations about having a different coach at every single school, having a different vision of what grade instruction looks like. So that potentially might be a step in the future, but at this point, my goal is to really make sure that great instruction is understood by all at every school, that we all have a common understanding of what great instruction looks like. >> What's the discrepancy between the proficiency of the school? >> That's a great question. Uh, Mrs. Tunan, would you might better words for that than I do. As I understand it, school letter grades are uh based highly on growth and maybe you have better um formulas than I

051do. based on proficiency where we're thinking about our students being prepared to move on to that next grade level. And then we know that we want all of our students to grow students that are Thank you, Mrs. >> I just want to just make one side point, too. Um, so when kids take the ACT or the Aspire or the ELA test in the elementary schools, it's it's not tied to the grades that they receive on the report card. Correct. >> That is correct. >> Okay. So um a lot of this does depend I will acknowledge that we need a plan for improvement on the teacher side of things like the instruction make sure making making sure that there is rigor in our classrooms but a lot of it does depend also on student motivation to

052do well on a test um if they show up and I can see you disagree but I'll get to in a minute um but um if you don't If a student does not have an internal incentive to do well on a test or to take it seriously or to even just answer all the questions and like um focus the entire time, it really brings down those proficiency scores and it does reflect poorly on our district and I I know that there's a combination of factors at work here. What would you like to say? >> I think the staff are unhappy. So my daughter right now attitude instruction but you can't environment. You're not so obvious. I'm not anybody. I got You got to look at your principles, how they're instructing you. When you walk on

053campus, they're all teachers. That's not that's not better than it's better because So, I I don't disagree with anything you that you said, but it does sound like we're kind of making the same point, even though we come at it from different angles, that a student's motivation to do well on a test is one of the factors. and having a good leader in the classroom will, you know, hopefully create an environment where our students want to do well on the test. >> And I love what Miss Olsson said is we we want every child to have an amazing teacher and and so I I think that as you move forward as our new student achievement director and making sure that our teachers are excited and motivated and love coming to work and love um teaching

054our kids. So, thank you. That's awesome. >> Thank you. Any other question? Yes, there was another hand that was raised in the audience. >> Yes, >> it is. No, >> and and when we look at Yeah. No, absolutely. When we look at some of our demographics in our schools, we have some schools that that have students that come from high performing families that are very involved in the education of their child. And then we have some schools that have families that could care less what's happening. And and that is the reality that our principles and our our districts or our district across the city deal with every day. And the teachers deal with that. And you know, every student is motivated differently. And so as we all move forward together, this really needs to be

055a partnership of everyone involved, the parent, the principal, the teacher, student achievement, and the board to make sure that we're engaging with the students and trying to meet the need. >> Thank you. >> All right. At this time, um item 6.1, uh recommendation for principal of Jamaica Elementary. Before we do that, this evening, we have a new district employee that I would like to introduce. He was not on the agenda, but he is our new communications and outreach coordinator. Um, he's in the back by the camera. Um, Jason Jason Usri comes from us to us from television news and so we are so excited to have him here in the district. So, Jason, please welcome to the district. At this time, uh, we are pleased to welcome back a dedicated educational leader as the new

056principal of Jamaica Elementary School. With over 30 years of experience in education, Mr. Weeden began his career in 1993, coaching coaching multiple sports in his hometown of Cam, New York. He soon transitioned in the classroom after earning his mers in vocational tech tech education. In 1996, he moved to Lake Absu City and began teaching business classes at the high school, also advising DECA and FBA student groups. He later served as an assistant administrator and principal at Smoke Tree Elementary School while completing a superintendent internship under Dr. Melly. In 2004, his family returned to New York where he spent over 20 years with the Watkins Glenn Central School District, nine years as an elementary principal at 11 years in district leadership roles, including athletic director, communications director, uh, and district data coordinator. Most recently, he supported

057two New York districts in interim roles as athletic director and elementary principal. Now, he is excited to return to Lake Haps Unified School District and continue his career right where he began. He is committed to ensuring a smooth transition at Jamaica Elementary School and to fostering a positive and student centered culture. Please join us in welcoming Mr. Weeden back to Jamaica Elementary School into Lakehouse Unified School District. >> And at this time, I'll open up for discussion from the board. >> Well, I was just going to say we do have to vote on it. >> Yes, absolutely. >> But he's not here today, >> correct? Well, I make a motion to approve 6.1. >> A second. >> Yes. Now we can officially welcome. >> All right. Item 6.2, student achievement, the 2627 academic calendar. Miss

058Olson, welcome back. President Rose, members of the governing board, LU has LHUSD has historically adopted academic calendars two years at a time. Administration meets with a calendar committee representing each site to elicit feedback about the academic calendar. The calendar committee met last August and September to review the current adopted calendars. The committee was made up of teachers, classified staff, and administrators. Eight of the committee members were also LHUSD parents. Suggested changes to the calendar were brought back to the school sites for approval. The calendar committee members presented the calendars and a survey was sent out to the sites. 250 responses were collected from school site staff. Overwhelmingly, staff agreed that starting on a Thursday, fall break, and an April testing break were beneficial for students and teachers. They also agreed that having the Monday off

059for students in January allowed for teachers to prepare for the second semester start. Site principles then held meetings and solicited feedback from parents. All sites shared the calendar during a parent meeting, and parents shared they approved of the academic calendar. The current calendar structure works well with quarters and semesters that are even and an emphasis on ensuring high school students complete finals before winter break. The current calendar format recommends that school begin for students on a Thursday. This allows for focus time to establish classroom routines and climate prior to beginning academic instruction on Monday. This house day start also provides a smoother transition for kindergarten students. This calendar includes a teacher work day following winter break to support preparation and collaboration for the new semester. The calendar provides a day off in late April providing

060a needed break following standardized testing. Students will continue to attend school for 180 days and teachers will still work 188 days. Workday calendars will be are created by human resources after adoption of the academic calendar. The calendar style meets accessibility requirements for online posting. The academic calendar attached is provided for the 2627 school year. >> All right. Thank you. I'll now open up to the board for discussion. Um, I'm pretty sure Stone can answer this one, but why was early releases made in general, especially for Thursday, but what was the reason? >> Dr. years ago for ensuring that teachers had time to do professional development and staff and all of those kinds of things that didn't have to happen after school to share with you. Uh yes, early release days were first instituted when we

061had a budget shortfall and we had to reduce art, music and PE at the elementary schools which meant that teachers had reduced planning time during the school day to make up for that. We instituted early release days so that teachers could have that planning time. >> So now we So you have those specials now. So why do we have early release on Thursdays? >> So it was expanded. It used to be every other Thursday. um which led to a lot of people forgetting which Thursday was which and then also it just became confusing and um expanding it to every Thursday meant that we could have articulation meetings at each site level and even inter site as well. It was especially important over the last four uh several years when we adopted multiple curriculums and so

062having the opportunity for teachers to work together over those curriculum adoptions was really important. >> I think it's super hard for parents to get out to be able to accommodate those things. I feel like that's one of the biggest things parents don't like about early release Thursdays. >> So we so I can speak to that. We recently just had a meeting um and myself and and some other district staff to discuss the not this calendar but uh looking at what we could do for the following calendar for 26 and 27 and early release came up and and some of the suggestions even a conversation with superintendent and and there will be a survey that comes out to all students families um I'm sorry not students but families and teachers and staff um just for feedback

063but some of the discussion was getting rid of early release date that there were some staff that felt there is no longer a need for that. So, we're going to be looking at all options and we have heard from parents that it is um an issue especially if you have families that maybe you have a a family has a child at um have Supai Elementary and then they have to rush over to Thunderbolt Middle School. And so, one of the conversations that we've had is staggering our start times um to make it easier for parents. And uh so, those are discussions that we're having. there will be a calendar committee created and then we can begin to have those discussions and get feedback from our parents and teachers and staff on what options they would

064like to see. So >> yeah, we are definitely not staying in the realm of we've always done it this way and so we're going to continue to always do it this way. Once something has um played its course and it's no longer needed, we absolutely are willing to adjust. I don't know. I know last year and reason it's hard But there are some consistency. >> And we would lose funding for that Friday. Correct. You do >> hours. That's right. Okay. Those of us know about California. Arizona and I know current research does show that 4 day work weeks are not advantageous for students academically. And I do um my children are now grown. But yes, the half days were even a barrier as a teacher because now what do I do with my kids on

065Thursdays? So yes, I Absolutely. I mean, it would have been nice if they could have adjusted for tutor time. I mean, we don't have that. Well, okay. And so, for some additional context, um 2526 is set. So, I I want to make sure that the newspaper we're not discussing anything for the 2526 school year. For 2627, we are voting on this calendar today. as far as like the start date, the end date, um the days off, all of those types of things, we could as a board talk about early release for 2627 and possibly modify that because I was in the same meeting that President President Rose just referred to and um I was really surprised to hear that early release is not that um well-liked amongst elementary school teachers. they feel it makes it

066um at least from the people that I heard heard from it makes it more difficult to get to all the things that they need to teach in the day. Those half days really they're not truly half days they're just shorter days but it makes it really hard to get to all of the material that they would like to be teaching. Um and I'm not exactly sure how the high school or the middle school feels about it but I mostly heard from elementary school teachers on that respect. The other thing I wanted to say, so for 2627, our start date would be July 30th. And I know that um that always gets a lot of um feedback because it's it is early um and and we get told that we're kind of erasing the summer. Your

067summer is still the same length because you get out earlier in May. And a good rule of thumb to keep in mind for our formula that we're using for the calendar is if a month of August has five Thursdays in it, then we start school on that first Thursday. If August only has four Thursdays, then we start on the last Thursday of July. And so, we really aren't trying, we know that summers are precious to families. We're really not trying to shorten that down. Um, but we do have to balance out our athletic schedules and our dual enrollment um schedules and those types of things. Um, this calendar allows us to do that. And like I said, it does then affect when graduation is. So graduation is also going to be a day earlier this

068year. So it's it's always the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. Um so in 2027, uh graduation will be May uh 20th. Um I think there was one more thing that I wanted to say, but I can't remember. So somebody else will jog my memory, I'm sure. >> Any other questions from the board? >> All right. >> Well, there Oh, wait. Yes. No, I do remember. Sorry. All right, >> you did it. Um, the one one piece of feedback that I get from parents is that those days that are kind of odd, like the first day in January um where they get that Monday off, January 4th would be in 2027, and then the day in April, which is um April 23rd, 2027. They said that those floating holidays make it really difficult on them. like

069most parents don't just have January 4th off for no reason or April 23rd off for no reason. So, um, one thing that I would like to look into is possibly expanding our partnership with parks and wreck or maybe local businesses to offer some sort of day camp for that one day. I think that might alleviate alleviate some of the pressure on families. up so fast. >> Any other questions? All right. at this time. Uh, and need a motion to approve item 6.2 in a second. >> I'll move to approve 6.2. >> And I'll second. >> Yes. All right. Now, item 6.3, student services policy updates for wireless communication devices. I will tell you guys very >> Oh, now it's on. Okay, you heard me anyway. Um, okay, members of the board to go over this.

070Um, before we go into that, I just want to This is a one pager. That's the cover page. This is the state bill that covers this. And if anybody ever watches legislation, the state got something done in one page. I I credit the paperwork reduction act of 1984. We still print out paper. I have no idea what you're talking about. But the long and the short of this is, and I'm going to tell you right now, this is not unique to Arizona. This is coming everywhere. The cell phone distracted part of schools. Um, I can tell you this law is very uh to the point. It takes a lot of stuff into consideration, but I want to go through the off the top of it. Sorry. Um, I have to make sure I have the

071right one. So, um, do would you like me to this you guys had a chance to read this highlight. Yeah, no one wants to be here that long and no one wants to listen to me talk that long. Um, we put in a few things in there. So, it's coming out of this House Bill 2484 is the appropriate use of technology. And I'm going to preface this by telling you when um I went through the federal reporting that had to be done by June 30th. Uh, and this was I will as the previous year. And then looking at some of our data coming out of our uh discipline system, we had over 6,000 technology violations at the high school last year. Now, I don't think every single one of those was a cell phone. I

072would even guess half of them would be a cell phone, but technology is a I can't imagine what I would do if I lost even three 2,000 of those violations I had to go track down. Now, I'm not saying, like I said, 6,000 of them were cell phones. But I'm going to equate it to uh to um the hands-free cell phone policy, distracted driver. Um we have seen an increase in um I I hate to use the word but addiction in in in smartphones and um this is trying to address this. So prior to use of technology the highlight is basically here says the district will restrict the students from using it because that's what house bill 2484. This isn't something we're willy-nilly. We are trying to come in compliance with the state's new law

073and restricting that use. Now the middle school doesn't have a lot of problem with it as per se and and elementary generally doesn't have a lot of problem either because generally at the elementary we don't encourage electronic devices. Uh it's not very age appropriate anyway at that age. Um I we all see younger kids on them and it's not It's not making a benefit. Let's put it this way. So, sorry if you go down there. No, you're n right spot. Sorry, she's in the right spot. Okay. So, we have to protect these three four things right here. Access to staff or students. And you'll see where it says child pornography or visual depictations that are obscene. And you see the scratch says child pornography. This is just uh the trust that goes through this for

074legal ease and taking them out or harmful to minors. Um there is no argument against that one. I I don't know if there's an argument against why wouldn't we want to do that. Number two, risk the safety and security of students when using district technology or to access the electronic mail chat rooms or other forms of electronic devices. In the state legislation, it specifically says that students during the school instructional day, which we just talked about, and if we want to improve scores, let's focus our instructional day, not distracted by what just got posted on the grand. That's my old joke is how how does teenagers weigh themselves in Instagrams? The science teacher is a bad joke. Sorry. But I can tell you, and this has been going on for years, hey, did you So

075posted and I sitting here going, "Why are you guys on your phones? You're not even allowed to have your phones." Oh, sorry. And it's a very distracting thing. Uh unauthorized access and other unlawful activities by students online and unauthorized disclosure use or dissemination of personal information regarding students. Um that's not unusual. That's not unique to us either. That happens everywhere. Um, I will tell you a story out of Las Vegas. It's about 12, 14 years old, but we had a situation at a high school where an individual was seen to be bringing a gun on campus first thing in the morning. It was a DB gun. It was reported instantly. It was recovered out of his locker and everything was done. Put the place on lock down until we made sure there was no other

076threat. That is the proper thing to do. It was made on announcements. It was going room to room. And this is 12 years ago when phones weren't even that as prolific as they are now. It says stay off your cell phones. Don't use them. Within 30 minutes, I had two I wasn't at that school, but a good friend of mine was. had two sets of parents in major car accidents rushing to the scene because this the game of telephone literally was that there were SWAT and and and like you know people you know mad men on top of the roof with rifles. None of that was true but people rushed oh my goodness I got to get down there. Two different sets of parents had to go to the hospital for major car accident just

077rushing to the hotel. We have an emergency process. We have a system to to get out information whenever anything happens. We have a new program coming on called Raptor and Multilink that will communicate directly with the school district or with the police department where they can see the cameras in the buildings if there is a situation. And I can tell you right now using cell phones only complicates that. That's it's not necessarily my opinion. This is from years of experience. before we end. Okay. So, this would be the uh this is what we're asking for the board to approve which would be um 35-305 student code of conduct. The really only change to this this same is the same student code of conduct that we already have is that there it is right there. Uh

078number 30 cellular telephones and you'll see the markouts again. It is for creating this is lawyer for just creating what's instead of calling electronic communications wireless devices. Students will not use a cell phone which they call cellular telephone or other electronic communication devices during skip over there the school day including meals, passing periods and recess except as expressly um permitted by the district. restrictions are limited um in a procedure 5 S305A the district technology use agreement which I will go over our proposed restrictions. Is there any questions to any of that? Yes. Yes ma'am. >> the new bill. Oh, okay. >> I'd have to click on that link literally in this post and it will tell you. I'm going off of I apologize. I'm going off the House bill that passes this restrictions. Okay. >>

079And I thought about asking looking at that. >> It's an ARS. -20-05 that is revised statute for Arizona bill because there is a hyperlink that you can click on and it will take you straight there. I just couldn't tell you when it was passed. I know look this is being prompted off is 24. Any other questions in my explanation of that part? >> Yes. Um I haven't gone over my proposed for the district specific to this. I'm I'm going over the where it is proposed in the entire student code of conduct and I will get to that. That should be the next one. >> Sure. Correct. I'm not That's what I said. It It was 6,000 plus is alarming, but I don't think it was I probably only 30%, maybe 20%. Cell phones. I will

080I I will speak before I talk about the details. Um I worked as superintendent for four years and I implemented the pro procedure with the locking bags at my school. the exact same company. Uh they basically have they are a worldwide company. They they have the corner on this market because it's just simple and it just works. I went from having maybe three to four to five a week of either test of other people's property or I didn't do that. Someone took my phone and took that picture in that locker room. I'm talking we can just let your imagination run to zero. Zero. I had absolutely no technology violations whatsoever. I had one individual that could not go without his phone and he cut the bag open. Well, he gave me $30 and he got

081a new bag and he do it again. You can't have your phone on campus the rest of the year. Period. And I had students I anticipated quite a bit of feedback. I had students that came to me within the first week and said, "Thank you for making me talk to my friends at lunch because last time I just sat there and kind of eat and do this or do this and this and this and barely eat." And they're like, "I had to talk to my friends at lunch." And it wasn't like I had to talk to my friends at lunch. It was like I haven't talked to my friend like that in like two years, you know, and it's like, you know, because at 3:00 in the morning we're talking, right? Okay. Sorry. So my

082proposed what I well what we put together I guess that would be the last >> oh I'm sorry you are correct there two different pieces I'm sorryund because there is a danger that's where you're coming from that several class and there it's not a friendly conversation but it's also a conversation I had some time and we don't have to Absolutely. It goes down to every other thing. You trust who's you know that's the number one thing and I'm going to just speak on that because I didn't want to interrupt but it's an all over approach. Every single person in this room should be concerned about what this how the kids are doing because they're our kids. This is just one exact word but Well, I >> can't approach. >> I couldn't speak to that one,

083but it's an all over approach. I I I am older school. My dad was my principal all my life and smaller towns and um my mom and dad before I got in trouble with them usually got in trouble with somebody on the way home because they heard about it. So it was an all over. I'm sorry specific questions. >> Well, I mean this is a student code of conduct that we're voting on. So just to bring it back I mean if we want to have a discussion about um our professional standards for our teachers that would be a different conversation but um I'm sorry. Well, you know, >> I'm sure we all can come up with like isolated incidents, but I feel like in general, our teachers do a good job of adhering to the

084standards that are set for them. But in any case, I make a motion to approve three. Oh, first. So, I just wrote a little fact here, but I don't know if it's going to come out all right. So, my daughter, she has panic attacks and she ended up going to the bathroom and she literally was just throwing up. The teacher didn't notice and it's okay because obviously there's a lot of kids. Things happen and she was able to call me and she's like, "Mom, I cannot continue right now. I'm getting ready to pass out." And I was able to call the school and talk to the counselor because she knew she was going through some things. And the counselor's like, "No big deal. I'm dropping everything. I'm going to go get her out of that

085bathroom." So, she took her out and she was able to have that I mean, that that's kind of a big deal for me. I I want to be able to know certain things throughout the day. That's my kids. Um, I feel like these young adults are losing some of their constitutional right if we do take away their cell phones. There are many adults. We need to teach them. You know, there's there's some teachers, well, no, not some. In the beginning of the year, teachers put out their list of expectations that kids have to sign. teachers were down with having a phone and it's used as a tool. Like for instance, I live by my phone. It's my life with a calendar. It's my kids life, too. If they're having a test and stuff, they're like,

086"Oh my gosh, I'm putting it in there right now." And then I'm able to see it as well. Um sometimes it's used as for for like books and stuff. So, some teachers do allow it. If you don't want it allowed, it should be in the list of like expectations with that specific teacher. that taking away a phone I don't think is acceptable. Um, what else was there? So, I'm not saying this would happen on on our campus whatsoever, but it is what's in my mind. So, I did work in a school in Phoenix for a minute. We had two different shooters on campus and they came on not for the kids, but they came on because they were nearby. Cops were chasing them and We were running throughout the school and we had a helicopter

087over above us with a rifle hanging out trying to figure out what's going on with this year. I'm going around campus and I'm locking every door and that's from preschool on up to middle school and I got to one door and the lock broke. I couldn't lock it. I didn't have my phone, but one of the kids did. And I was able to at least make a call and be like, "Hey, I'm going to sit against this door because there's nothing else I can do." And that like that killed me on the inside because my kid was there and on the other side in preschool. But if they didn't have their phone, what else am I supposed to do? So, just something to think about, I guess. >> Could you um go into more detail?

088what the new law by our legislation is actually requiring other than for the policy to be created what specifically they are asking for in the policy to explain >> absolutely so like I said it's a one pager it's pretty easy I'm not going to read it to you but I'll go through this um so what you're having come here number two um our number one says govern student access to the internet as provided by school including policies that restrict student access to social media platforms. The policies or procedures adopted pursuit of the paragraph. Now we're talking legal ease. Limit the use of wireless communication devices by students during the school day. The policies and procedures adopted for students with this paragraph shall do all of the following. This is in the follow my proposed uh

089that are proposed solution. Thank you. Okay. So it says uh allow students to use wireless communication devices if any of the following applies. Educational purposes as directed by the student's teacher. If you are setting a Chromebook in your room, you can get everything off that Chromebook that you can get off of something. I have had that argument 100 times and I've been right 100 times on that one. For educational purpose, I'm sorry. during an emergency. There is so much research, not just stories I could tell you guys that during an emergency causes more panic than it doesn't because we have a system right now that will lock the school down and it will bring the cameras up at the cop shop in a matter of seconds. So, we have that. It's going in live this

090school year. Number three, the student needs the student wireless communication device because the student has a medical condition, including procedures for a student's parents to contact the student during the school day and include procedures for a student to contact the students. Oh, sorry, I read that twice. At the beginning of each school year for the purpose of this section. Oh, that's good. It's laid out a lot better. This is so much legal aid. the school. If the student needs a device, he has a medical condition, he has an IEP or a 504 that requires something for this, let's say translation, it is an acceptable use. So, it's not like you're going to be locked up all day from every single person. We're just trying to cut down on Did that help a little bit? I

091I I can say in in conversations um I had a conversation with our chief of police um because I I really think some of the concerns from parents is during an emergency they want to be able every parent including myself wants to go to know that your child is okay. Um and what happens in speaking with our our chief of police is 911 system gets jammed up and it it creates communication issues. Um, our chief of police is completely in support of limiting students being able to access to call 911. Um, and then just it creates more chaos. They show up on scene. There's been some misinformation and and we've seen it even happen here in the in our own district. Um, but I I think it comes back to we need to make sure

092that if we have a policy like this that we are effectively communicating in a timely manner with parents during an emergency. Um, also I would like to hear I was going to call on him but I would like to hear from Mr. Becker this evening um just on the severity of what we see at our high school when it comes to the violations of cell phone use. For an example, just an estimated init. As far as teachers haven't shut off Facebook. handies. I think our parents first started my first day. We went into a lockown place. But one of the biggest changes in war. >> Thank you so much. >> You rock with communication, by the way, because I get those, just so you know. But to take it away and put it like in

093a bag to lock it is one thing. To put it away but still have it is another. >> And so all we're voting for with this particular item is the student code. Correct. We're going to get to the bag and the next item. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So at this time I call for motion for item 6.3. >> I'll move to approve 6.3. >> Second. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. All right. Student services item 6.4. Cell phone bags. >> You're not going to be popular this even. >> Can I talk about food service first? No. That'll save you. It's not going to be popular. And I'll tell you what we boil this down to as far as definitions and coming right off the state law. definition says that the school day means that

094periods of time when students are school including meals passing periods of recess because Becker is exactly right. You you cannot win that war. Um it's going to kind of take it away from the canvas monitors because when everybody pulls your phone up they know something excit something something exciting is about to happen. Don't like that anyway though. Social media platform means a website, computer application or other digital platform that is used for social networking and are creating exchanging virtual content. So this is the state and we're putting these in in our uh procedure wireless communication device including personal devices and devices that are provided by the school. So that's the definitions of what these things are. So, we're proposing the permitted use is students shall be permitted to use a wireless communication device for educational

095purposes as determined by the student's teacher or individual education IEP team during an emergency and if a student needs the student wireless communication device to address their own medical condition. Let's say you had a a heart monitor that was linked to your phone. That might be a situation. Well, that would definitely be a situation if it's in your IT or 504. They need to be able to monitor that. So, all access to the internet at using the district's network must be in accordance with the district's technology use agreement, which is already in place. Students may use their wireless communication devices before and after school hours for personal use, including on school transportation. Students are required to use our wireless communication devices. In conformity with the student code of conduct, students may not use device to

096disrupt the educational environment because that does happen. And so contact with parent legal guardian, I'll give you this. This is part C. Students may contact may contact their parent legal guardian during the school day with express permission from a teacher or staff member. Parents legal guardians who seek to communicate with their students on the student's wireless communication device during the school day. They contact the school's phone office. So if you said I need to talk to blah blah blah, you call the phone office. They have them bring it up. They'll take their phone bag. They'll unlock it. They will communicate with the parent, lock it back up, and go on. When we first started using these, parents were like, "I need to text them that after school and they need to blah blah blah." Go

097ahead and text them. When they get it out of the bag, it's going to be sitting there waiting for them. Okay. Restrictions broken down into two categories, K through 6 and 7 through 12. So, students are permitted to have wireless communication devices in their possession while on campus during the school day subject to the following restrictions. Restriction one for K through six devices of the age and devices at these age levels are discouraged. It is not the best thing in the world for the developmentally for that age. Before after school, students may use their wireless communication device before and after the official school day. This is all coming in compliance with the law. For elementary, for K through6 storage, wireless communication devices must be turned off and stored out of sight. In other words, a

098backpack during the entirety of the day unless instructed otherwise by a staff member during instructional time. Students are used a wireless communication device during instructional time if basically when it says if they are um by a teacher or staff member for an educational purpose. Students may use a wireless communication device or text call or may not sorry wow just contradicting myself may not use wireless communication devices to text call access ging or any other non-instructional activity during the uh instructional time periods and social media network. Students may not access social media networks during the instructional time periods except for expressly permitted by a teacher or staff member for educational purpose purposes and locking storage bags were not are not going to be provided at the elementary level. I can stop there for any questions for

099elementary. >> So the expectation to be compliant would parents would either kids don't have a all or if they do they leave them at home or they leave them with the parent or if they do take it to school it goes in the backpack that's basically what happens now if I'm correct >> they applies to wireless devices yeah the smart watches are connected to the phone some of them have their own phone number and they No, they tried the Google glasses and they were an absolute disaster and no one has them anymore. >> No, they tried that. Yeah. >> Welcome to my world. >> Yeah. >> Sorry. On the elementary part and I'll go through the restrictions for K or 712. Since we are broken up with elementary being K6, the other part is broken

100up for 712. When I reference, I didn't mean to leave the high school out, but I referenced the middle school just has them in their lockers, hands off, but the bags also cut down on theft and and or damage. I will tell you that before for 712 restrictions before school, same thing. Students may use your wireless communication device before the school day officially begins in designated areas such as the cafeteria or the common area. Once the educational day starts, they have to be put away. So after school students may use their wireless communication device after school hours for personal use stories or instructional time wireless communication devices must be turned off and stored in a provided locked bag. The locked bag with a cell phone or any other ancillary device, smart watches because they're getting

101to the point where they're just about as powerful as the phone itself and or headphones earbuds because why do you need earbuds if your phone's in there and turned off? will remain in the possession of the student for the duration of the instructional time period unless instructed otherwise by a staff member. And I'll get to how the bags work here in a minute. Uh use during instructional time. Students use their wireless communication devices during instructional time only when permitted by the teacher or staff member for educational purposes. Students may use a wireless communication device through text. May not I did it again. may not use wireless communication device to text, call, access, gaming, or any other non-instructional activity during instructional time period, social media networks. Same exact thing I said earlier. I'm just trying to

102so you don't fall asleep listening to me. Locking bags will only be unlocked at the conclusion of the instructional portion of the day. If your kid checks out for a doctor's appointment at noon, they will not leave that campus without unlocking that bag. or if they do, they'll only do it once because they'll have to go till tomorrow to unlock it. So, [Music] >> I seen yesterday I found them all at the IHOP and go back to work and go to school. They didn't like it when I walked in. Uh the unlocking devices will be made available at the exit of the building or location designated by administration. So, anything on K on 712 >> just for 78. Okay. Um I was still trying to think through how this would look at the high school.

103But for 78, um, instead of purchasing a bag, what if we utilize the current system that we have? We have the cell phone hotels in the classrooms. Whatever the child's first period would be would be like their home room, let's say, and they put their phones in that cell phone hotel, and it stays there until the end of the day. And then they just go back. Maybe maybe we release them like five minutes early or something like that and they go back to their home room and get their phones before the end of the day. Is there a reason why? Because I mean if the whole idea is to prevent students from having it like during their lunch and their passing period, wouldn't that accomplish the same thing without us having to spend money for

104the bags? >> Bulletproof you can't get into. >> But we but we already knew that in our >> I understand that. I'm not saying it's happened and I'm not saying it's going to happen, but we are liable >> for theft of an item like that. It was just in the little um for anybody familiar with the little pocket calendars and you put it up and I can tell you right now where my phone savvy kids will pop the case off and put it up in a little phone in their pocket and they go, "Oh, look. Yeah, mine's right there. No, it's not the case. >> Could they do that with the bags though, too? >> Here's a caveat. You get caught with your phone outside the bag. It's an instant. There's no argument. There's no,

105"Oh, I forgot." Just know. It is one of those things. And the system is very, this company is worldwide and they are really they come in and train. They part of the cost. They come in and train. They help you implement. They help communicate parents with concerns. I'm telling you, I said, "Only time I ever had," well, I shouldn't say that. I had one owner that had a phone locked in that bag, but then he was calling on phone. >> Well, the parents were really happy when I was phone because it was a burner phone that the parents didn't even know about. And of course, that's the first person I g you selling drugs. He goes, "No, I just want to talk to my girlfriend." >> Yeah. So, we have a question. Sorry. And then

106the second question is exercise to solve a small problem. That's a great question. Is there any teachers in the room that could speak to please? >> I've ever had your phone away. My mom state lawress responsible for trying to make sure that we as parents are given a little bit more choice in handling state law that's being implemented. Yeah. I used to when I said mom call and I said, "Good. I want to talk to her." And I take and I say, "Is this really mom?" And about half the time it wasn't. >> I get it with accountability, with making kids, they're they're going to be adults. Like I get it for making them accountable, maybe making the punishment harsher, but I I want my kids cell phone taken away from them. >> Absolutely. >>

107Yeah, it's an initial it's an initial investment minor yearly wear. Well, we're hoping to we're hoping to use grant funding carryover money. >> Yes, I did. Thank you for saying that because I hate that word, but it's one of those many unfunded mandates when they're saying you need to make this policy to do this and then they kind of go, "Okay, go figure it out." No, they lock them up every day. The kids >> the policy will be that you put it in there. You can keep these bags, by the way. There's a slot for their ID. So, you keep the bag on you. So, you come back and you slide it in there. You know, if you forgot, oh, I forgot to put in there. Okay, put it in there now. We're talking like

1083 minutes after the bell rang at the beginning of the morning. The kids are savvy. >> Correct. And they keep it on them the whole time. >> There's a great video on that website. >> It is a I'm just get us up to speed with state law. And this is just a proposed option that I have used before that I know works. Yes, ma'am. So I mean >> you don't put a tablet in there. It'll fit the biggest phone in there. Trust me. Those are the those are the old ones. Okay. >> That's pretty extreme. And when I I understand, but in compliance with the law, as a parent, you're not the one that pays the penalty for compliance with the law. The law is written for the board to come up with a policy

109to be compliant with the law. >> To be clear, we would >> it's state law that we comply with this policy. It's not state law that we have the yonder bag. So, that's what's still up for discussion. And then to be clear, we wouldn't be if we did I'm I'm kind of undecided on this one right now, but um if we did implement the yonder bags, we wouldn't be taking the kids phone from them. They would still have the phone in their possession. It would just be in a bag that disables them from using it. That we're not taking their phone from them. >> But we're not we're not taking it from them. I I see what you're saying, but we're not taking it from them. >> The key is that the entrance or exit

110to the school but can't unlock it. I know that at the end of the day as a school. They don't always put on their signal prevents a setting as opposed to This doesn't block the This doesn't block the signal. >> It doesn't block the signal ability to use it. Signal blockers are actually illegal. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Oh my god. I'm sorry. Well, we can also get our butts for it, too. >> I'm just saying that's kind of >> But I I want I want to go back to how do they unlock? It's a proprietary magnet lock >> and trust me, lots of people have tried to break into them. Trust me, if any kid's going to get, oh, I'm gonna figure out how to get into that. It's And even >> No, I'm just

111saying. I'm telling you right now, a teenager that doesn't unlock it before they leave will never do it again. I mean, trust me, by 8:00 p.m. they're calling everybody they think. Please let me into the office. I like this. >> No. >> All right, Chuck. Thank you. We're going to bring it back to the board now >> for discussion. Is I I do appreciate Miss Mag's suggestion of a work session. Obviously, this does have to go into policy. It is a state law. This board is required, but I I really think that we need to look more at what that policy will look like. Um is there something else we can do besides spending $75,000 for bags? We we need to look at our options, look at our policies, and hear from parents. So, I

112think that we need to have a public work session, invite our teachers, parents to involve, hear from the feedback in that as we develop this policy. And I think Chuck, it gives you the opportunity to check on those grants for funding as well. >> Correct. And I can get that company to come out here and talk to you specifically about it. >> What's a date for compliance? Sorry. >> A date for compliance. >> We we already because we already approved the policy. This is just like how we're going to implement the policy. So, we already have our student code. We already have the student code of conduct approved. So, a student who is using their phone during a passing period of lunch would already be breaking a rule. >> Yeah, this is just above on

113how it would make it easier. Um, it's not going to hurt my opinion, not hurt my feelings one way or the other. I just know of this particular product and it has been very effective. >> Thank you for presenting this. So, at this time um I'm actually going to make a motion to remove item 6.4 from the action item and present it at a later date. We need to schedule a work session. Um and Dr. Stone, if you could work on getting the date set for that. >> Yeah, I need a second. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. >> Thank you. All right. Now, now item 6.5, food services and tax. Or are you presenting for food? Okay. >> I said >> because that one >> maybe it'll be a little more popular here. >> I

114will probably be a lot more popular with this. So we have what is known as the C which is community elig community eligibility provision which is um it's kind of new the way we look at it. >> Yeah it's changing things. Basically it's a non-pricing meal service option that allows eligible students uh to offer free or eligible schools to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students without collecting individual household applications. So who qualifies? Schools or districts where we are at least 40% enrolled students are identified students. Those directly certified for free meals through programs like SNAP tanniff or homeless, foster, migrant, or runaway youth. So far so good. Okay. Okay. Benefits to students and families. Every student eats for free. No, no stigma. No meal debt. Easier access to nutritious meals that support academic

115performance. Benefits to schools are that we simplified meal counting and claiming process. You don't know how that makes things so much easier. Uh no more free reduced paid classifications and reduces administrative burden on paperwork. Increases participation in school meals which can lead to higher reimbursement. Uh funding is based on the identified student ISP multiplied by federal multiplier currently 1.6 to determine I feel like Victoria and I like all these multipliers determine the portion of meals reimbured at a higher free rate and can you tell us some numbers? >> Okay, I students have the highest families that are benefits. Um so our proposal is to go through those schools. This is this proposal still has one year to increase participation by 10% at lunch at breakfast at all the schools in the district participation. >> That's

116not going to happen. >> And correct me. I'm sorry. So we figured would be the best school next year I think the state get another four years in it doesn't work we at the end of the year. >> Can I give you the best thing about that? That means that 100% of the kids at those three identified elementary schools will be eating free breakfast and lunch. Period. >> If they want it. Let's say sorry5% increase all of them. No, they're roughly running 54% on average right now. So, you couldn't increase just those off those three schools to get the whole district. Correct. increases at the other school. >> So the board's role in this would be approving the CD implementation register the district can provide equitable access to meals, increase federal reimbursements, and streamline operations.

117And I want to be I I will I have a tendency to talk too fast, but I'm going be really clear on this. And if the newspapers are getting this down because they need everybody to hear this, schools still need to report the demographic and income data for other for title one. I still need those applications from everybody whether you qualify or not >> and the application is so much more easier. is down the street. It's just from the state. They rip off the back page on there. You look at it and say, "Oh, I have four people in the family. I make $3,43. >> It's a lot easier. It used to be Good question. I'm sorry. [Music] >> Actually, They don't have enough students. >> The more applications we get in because this was

118as of April 15th of 2025. So we can build for next year and so if and populations change and demographics shift and if the form is so much easier. I can remember arguing with people because it was like a four page form, five page form and like I don't want to know how much money I make. You just find an area and go this question. >> I well I'm a big supporter of this kind of program. Um, I think it's going to help us address um possibly tardy students at some of our schools um because I think the breakfast component of starting out their day is sometimes timeconuming for families and this will take that off your plate literally. Um you can just send your kids to school and we will take care of breakfast.

119And then the other thing that I wanted to point out is that this program or the success of it really depends on community and family participation. So, I think sometimes when people um they hear that there are free lunches available and I I will go back to CO as an example um where we were able to expand meal service to all of our students at no cost to them. Um some people don't take advantage of that because they feel like well I can afford I I can't afford to send my kids a lunch so I don't want to do that because I feel like I would be taking um a meal away from someone who needs it more than my kid does. But with this particular program, the more participation the better. So even if

120you are a person who does take your kids lunch and sends them to school with a sack lunch, um having them at least get like a milk, a fruit, and a veggie would count as participation in the program from our point of view. And so um that would help our that would help our schools retain this program for the future. Um and and you can do that pretty easily. I mean, if you are a person who makes a sack lunch, just leave out the Capri Sun and have your kid take a milk as a lunch line and they'll also get, you know, the veggies and fruits that they serve are very popular. It's like orange slices and apples and carrot sticks. It's very kid-friendly. Typically, a very kid-friendly form of veggies. So, it's a way

121to supplement your child's meal and help us at the same time. It's a win-win. We're hoping to boost the participation for the tardies just the grab and go breakfast and so we don't we don't want anybody to be left out if they're missing Will this erase that meal debt for the school? It'll give us some room to try to >> I didn't hear you say it will eliminate it from those rules. So everything else we sell can't sell. We must provide meal program. So we only You just buy that's And so what we said about participation, it's actually true for every school. So that $2.8 million. That includes spending that funding and it's such things like that. electricity. So, it's literally probably overall. This will be a little bit less money because So for me,

122so increasing participation All right. Now, I'll bring this back to the governing board for discussion. Any discussion? All right. I call for a motion uh to approve on item 6.5. >> I move to approve item 6.5. A second. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. Item 6.6, business services, fiscal year 26, adopted budget. >> No, this is um just a formal. We already had a public hearing and discuss. This was formal board approval of the adopted budget for fiscal year 2526. Thank you. >> All right. Uh any board discussion? >> All right. I call for a motion to approve on item 6.6. >> Motion to approve 6.6. >> I'll second. >> Yes. All right. Item 7 7.1 Superintendent Dr. Stone >> I just want to congratulate I know we put in a lot of work to accomplish

123that certification and also thank all of our directors this evening for their presentations. Really appreciate the work they have put into that and we are looking forward to a great start of the school year which is coming up very quickly. >> All right. Thank you Dr. Stone. Any governing board members have any >> um Am I supposed to follow up with you, David, or or whatnot when I brought up about the high school and the parking passes and how that teacher brought it up to me for the fact of like it took hours to get a parking pass for her kid and she was kind of bullied in the line because there wasn't very many people there. There was like one or two people or whatnot. >> Go ahead. immediately. My office seniors Everybody >>

124something that was brought up and I didn't mention it. No. >> All right. Thank you so much. What about the lights for the school fields? Did we put that on the agenda? >> We will need to discuss that with Dr. Stone, get on the agenda. Um, talking about lights on some of the ball fields. >> That would involve community conversations with the neighborhoods that are around your school. The would be involved as well. >> And from Wanda, I understand that's been some of the feedback in the past is some of our schools have neighbors don't want bright lights. So, we need to we would need to open that up. Give >> I just want to make sure I don't drop it and I know what the next step is. I'm still learning. So, >> okay.

125So, Dr. Stone, can we note to make a >> work session for that as well? We can combine it with our other work session. >> And then, um any anything else? I have a couple of announcements I'd like to make. Um, we have had some staffing additions and administration at Thunderbolt Middle School that I would like to announce tonight. Hannah Clifford has been named the new assistant principal at Thunderbolt Middle School. And uh, we are extremely excited for her. And then Carol Noacowski has been named the teacher on assignment and dean at Thunderbolt Middle School. And I know her her friends at Oral Grande are sad to see her go, but she is excited for this new opportunity. And we're excited for the new team that will lead Thunderbolt. moving forward. So that's all I

126have. Is there anything else? If nothing else, we need a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll move to adjourn. >> A second. >> Yes. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you for being here.