001Welcome this afternoon. I call this meeting to order at 3:01. Um, this will be our study session. If everyone will please stand for a moment of silence. Thank you. You may be seated. >> Tonight we have a presentation from district and I'm going to turn the time over to Dr. Strong. >> President Davis, members of the board, uh if we could get the presentation up that'd be wonderful. We're here today uh to kind of close the loop is what we're we're saying on this. Uh we're we're in the middle of continuous improvement processes and cycles in Mesa public schools. Uh we've uh developed a rigorous continuous improvement uh system underneath the leadership of Dr. Mesa, Amy Deator, you Dr. Y, Amy Deator, Mrs. Deator, and uh we're excited that we're implementing continuous improvement. One of
002those processes includes and the vernacular we use is there's quite a few vernaculars you can use but we use PDCA plan do check act and so we've planned out some things we did this last year we actually brought some of the surveys that we wanted to execute to the governing board uh and now we've taken those surveys the data the information the summary reports from the organizations we worked with we've processed them as a district and then uh we've looked at the data and now we want to share with you things that we're going to act on in in in this upcoming school year. And so we've designed this presentation to really uh do a few things. One, we want to talk to you about the central purpose of three elements of things that we
003did this year. Two, we want to talk to you about some positive things that have happened throughout the district this year. We're going to share you some with you some initial positive results and Mr. Wing's going to share with you some positive survey results that have come in uh this year as well. And then finally three, we want to follow up with what are we going to do next year? Uh whenever we give surveys out and instrumentation out, we want to reflect on it. We want to understand how we can get better. Uh we want to understand what the themes are across the multiple instruments that we've administered. And we want to have some action steps uh and theories of action for how we're how we're getting better as a school district on an annual
004basis. So if we could get that presentation up one more time. All right, perfect. Thank you. So here we go. So, some essential questions we were really looking at as a district uh with uh input from the community and the governing board uh were what are school experiences, supports, conditions that most contribute to high school student success. And so where we attacked this problem with uh uh this essential question with was with ALP and focus groups. And so Dr. Esus is going to take you through some of our uh methodologies and findings on the ALP side of things. We also asked a question in our annual climate surveys that we give and there's some board questions that every year we administer them and we're going to share some of the results of that this year.
005Uh uh we asked some questions uh centered around college and careermies and opportunities to grow uh on the college and career uh side of things and we're going to share with you uh Mr. Wing's going to share with you some annual climate survey data and what we're going to do as next steps. And then finally with Westgroup, the board wanted we had about 1,600 kids in 8th through 10th grade that uh you know weren't shows with us this year. And so we circled back with those families, took a sample of those families and we have responses from Westgroup with their findings and then our synthesis across all three of these uh areas to suggest some things that we've learned from the Westgroup survey. I think Mr. Wang's going to uh kind of share with you
006some of those results. So, our objective today is to just share the collected data with you. You'll have the full-on reports in your possession. Uh, they are in administrative content and then share with you next steps like we reflected on the data. We've synthesized the data and here's what our teams are saying are are next steps for us next year to improve processes throughout the district. So, some initial data, some really kind of neat things that are are happening in the district is first of all, our projected I want to make sure these clear. This is not finalized. It's projection. It's where we think we're going to end up. Uh but our AELA results are up by about 15 and a half percent. Our third grade reading results are up by about four and a
007half percent. Uh you can see down the ELA side of things in uh the uh 1 2 3 4 5 six areas that are tested third through eighth grade. We're up in four of them. Uh you can see in the math side of things, the same thing. We're up in four of the six areas. Got a little work to do across the fourth grade in English language arts and mathematics. In science, we had a big increase in fifth grade science with a 5.3% increase in proficiency. And then we go down to the next slide and we look at projected outcomes at the high school level and we're up in a variety of areas at the high school level. In ninth grade Aspire, ninth grade reading, nth grade math, nth grade science. Uh we have a
008little work to do in ELA and mathematics. We were level mathematics at the ACT. We'd like to get that proficiency rate up quickly. Uh and so we know that some of the things we implemented this year with continuous improvement have made an impact. We're up in 16 of the 23 tested areas. The major that's more than half um the majority areas that were up and we think overall proficiency of the in the district while maybe short of our 5% goal, but maybe the 5% goal was properly set. Goals goals achieved, right? Goals fully achieved are somewhere sometimes not ambitious enough. And so what we're viewing this as is we're going to probably have a 1 to 2% increase in proficiency based on these initial projections and we're and and we're making progress forward. Uh and
009and we're living into the fact that we have a high expectations in Mesa public schools. We also know on the attendance side of things uh that 91% of our kids were daily attending in our in our campuses. And I I know to the right you say well the 91% is what we were last year. But I want you to notice that bar on the right is slightly above the bar in the previous year. That's because there's about a half a percent increase in attendance. And so what we know is that attendance is up this year by about a half percent throughout the whole entire district across all 54,000 kids. And so we know we have some positive initial results. Justin's going to share more with you in in the in the uh annual climate survey
010on some data we're getting from staff, data we're getting from parents that is telling that are telling us that we're improving in quite a few areas. But we also want to honor we want to get better in quite a few areas as well. And that's why at the end of this presentation, you're going to hear us talk a lot about next steps for this upcoming year and what we're trying to improve upon this upcoming year. What we don't want to do is collect data and then not drive action out of that data. If that's the case, if we're going to collect data and just sit on it, then we probably just should get out of the process of collecting data. That's just the bottom line. We should just not collect it. So, we're trying to
011model the practice of reflecting and continuous improvement uh with the governing board. and you guys were all part of of the board was part of the process of designing quite a few of these things. At this point in time, I'm going to try transfer it over to Dr. Es who's going to talk about ALP and kind of the process we use with ALP and focus groups. >> Good afternoon, Madame President, members of the board. So, I'm going to start with talking a little bit about what the details were of this study. And so you'll see, I won't read the slide to you, but we had um all of our our comprehensive high schools had randomly selected and invited uh community partners, staff members, um some students attended. And the intent of the focus groups was
012just that focus groups are small groups. They're not very large. Um so you'll see that um out of the 145 invitees, we did have 63 that attended through those um various focus groups. Those opportunities were um shared out with uh all of those uh community members and employees could attend any one of those six locations. We also had opportunities for um an in-person virtual as well as a Spanish-sp speakaking um session was uh provided to them. And the time frame was uh back in November. Um and it was facilitated by our partners from advanced learning um partnership which is ALP. We had Brianna Lynn and Alex Dennison who facilitated many of those or all of those sessions um in collaboration with some of our re research and evaluation staff as well as um our teaching
013and learning staff. And those um sessions were recorded. They were transcribed. They used coding and language um qualitative thematic analysis to look at the data um that allowed us to look at some themes across the board. And the purpose for this work was really to ask these two questions. Um how would our community define success for our students in Mesa public schools? And then as we look at how that success is defined, what kinds of metrics or um progress could we report out to our community so that we're we're showing uh progress along those metrics that are important to them. And so we really wanted their understanding or how they're defining what does readiness mean? We have the promise and what does that success mean when um they go through our schools and and we
014graduate them from Mesa Public Schools and which are most important to them. These were the key findings from all of the trends and the data um that was compiled by ALP was that readiness and success were consistently described not only in academic competence that was foundational across the board. Everybody um agreed that that was important. But in addition to that, the themes that came about in terms of what could we do better measuring, communicating, and sharing was how are we preparing our students for adulthood? How are they being resilient with the the things that will come at them when they when they graduate from Mesa public schools and go into their post-secary opportunities and out into the community? Um and and being able to um share those those outcomes as well as that post-secondary success.
015Um and so again back to what were those metrics in terms of what what were important to them were how we can we excuse me how we can reflect um not only those academic competencies but also what that looks like um in their readiness out in the career in the community. Um and then overall the the theme was that our community really is supporting the direction that we're headed um in terms of preparing our students, the opportunities that we provide in in our high schools, but just really want better understanding and communication about those options, about those opportunities. Um what does that success look like and how are we reporting that out? Um, another key piece you'll see in the notation there was um, they were often had made comments around they would just hear
016through word of mouth things that were happening um, or talking to, you know, a person in their community um, rather than just those district resources and navigating and sometimes that was difficult to navigate. So, they really wanted to um ensure that they knew all the options available to them, that they were clear about how we were preparing them um and just more ease of access to that information. And then I'm going to turn it over to Justin. >> Good evening, President Davis, governing board, audience. uh Westside group did a study for us. We wanted to pay particular attention to students expected to rise through our 9th through 12th grades uh coming from the 2425 school year to the 25 26 school year. We did have a retention rate of 91% but we wanted to identify
017some of the reasons why the 9% did not show. Um the following year going into this year uh we expected or we had about 18,500 students expected to rise 9th through 12th grade and that 9% is equivalent to a little over 1,600 students. We did do massive uh attempts to survey or west study did massive attempts to survey and we have about 186 uh meaningful meaningful responses from families uh in our data. Number one reason uh for families citing not returning to Mesa public schools was that they moved out of the area. This is typical with teacher retention, staff retention uh and and student retention, not just in Mesa public schools but throughout. Number two is school culture. Uh and I'll let you read the the other bullet points uh related to school culture and
018just district culture. Uh you'll hear more about our next steps on addressing that. When asked what Mesa could have done to keep students enrolled, uh communication seemed to be a common theme. I think you're going to see it throughout the presentation that uh we can always improve our communication and we'll do so. some insights. No shows reflect both external factors such as them moving out of the area, but also actionable actions that um we can take within Mesa Public Schools related to culture, communication, and just the overall experience. As you're aware, uh we also do an annual student survey, a parent survey, a staff survey. We just collectively call them community surveys. And I'd like to share with you some of our results from that. To begin with, uh just some data. We had over
019uh 15,000 students participate. It is 7th through 12th grade only. So be mindful of that. Parents and guardians uh almost 5,000 and employs a little over 4,000. It is done uh provided to all three um uh survey respondents to uh through or excuse me after a spring break for a few weeks through uh April 3rd. Let me go over some of the outcomes from that. >> Mr. Wing really quickly just so that 15,000 seems like a big number, but we checked on this because of some questions yesterday and just perspective. 17,000 high school kids, 8,000 junior high kids. So, we could have had 25,000 responses if all students respond, if we had 100% response rate. You never get a 100% response rate on surveys. So, that's why that number is big because we do have
02025 to 26,000 secondary kids. >> Yeah, the students the staff response rate uh was a little greater than 50% which is above the norm and above what we've experienced in the past. going to the excuse me. Uh so some of the results you're going to receive, you're going to see a lot of percentages. Most of the anchors or the responses uh allowed for five different answer types. Most of them were strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, or strongly agree. And what we're going to provide you in the percent is the percent positives adding the agree and strongly agree divided by the number of total responses. So neutral is not included in the percentages that I'm going to share with you. We're going to start with staff survey. These are um the questions that the governing board
021approves on an annual basis. You'll see here out of the five items, three of the five we had increases and the remaining two we were status quo as far as uh percent positive. You will notice that in the range of total number of responses, you'll see over 7,000 last year. Uh that's because we did a fall and a spring and we want to honor both the surveys that were taken. So it's uh collective uh both the fall and spring and now we're just doing it on an annual uh basis. For the parent survey again these are the items that the governing board approves on the annual basis. In here we have three items that or yeah three items that we increased. uh we remained status quo in one and uh we had a decrease in
022what to what extent do you agree that you have easily easy access to communicate with district personnel that did decrease and so going back to the communication from the uh westside group uh certainly an area that we can always improve on and will uh this year you the governing board asked us to incorporate other questions both in the staff parent and student surveys related to college careermies, block scheduling, etc. And I'm just highlighting some of the uh outcomes from those. This is from the student survey. Uh because there's no comparison from last year because this is the first year doing the survey, what you'll see is the positive responses and then just the total uh responses to get kind of a visual. Um a lot of these only uh were um surveying the five schools
023that currently have college and career academy in the block schedule. So you'll see counts different than the 15,000 from the very beginning that that one slide where it incorporated all 7 through 12th grade. The staff survey same thing. Um it only went to the five high schools in which our college of career academy and block schedule. So it only incorporated those staff members. Junior our junior highs did not uh staff did not uh get these questions. neither did uh base a high for many of them because it wasn't applicable. And then finally the parent one as well. Similar questions, similar items from the parent, excuse me, the student staff survey. These are items that the governing board had requested uh earlier in the spring uh that we introduced in our surveys. some key findings. Uh
024all three uh groups report very low awareness of academy transfer and opt out processes. I should share that everybody students felt that they got their primary choice. So it's more about the communication side of it as I reflected earlier. uh suggest uh systemwide challenges with communication, clarity, and stakeholder knowledge. Just kind of alluded to that. They appear more positive about the goals of the model than about their understanding of how the model actually works and the implementation side. For three of our five schools, this is our first year we implemented it and then the other two uh this is the second year. While gen parents are generally more positive, none of the me measures approach levels typical associated with uh broader stakeholder confidence. you didn't see a lot of 70% or even high 60%. A
025lot of them were underneath that. And then both students and parents report relatively low positive responses regarding enrollment in their preferred academy although evidence does show that they receive almost all the majority received uh their primary choice. >> Let me talk about that really quick. So Westwood has data collected on the students and the choices they made for preference when they fill out their forms and 100% of kids received their at Westwood High School in particular received their uh preference, right? Then there becomes and part of this may be that the selection process all the way to when they've had classes and in the spring we're surveying them. You know, I don't know about you, I've had teenage kids. I was a teenager once and uh opinions can shift rather quickly when you're that age.
026And so you can imagine me filling out of when I was a teenager my first preference and getting it and then six months later saying, "Well, that wasn't really what I wanted to do and so I didn't get my first choice six months ago." And so you got to view that in the data here uh and understand that you know points in time particularly with perception data matter. You know whether it's a focus group perception data or whether it's a survey perception data points in time and when you take the data matter a lot but what we don't want to do is just blame that portion. We want to understand like hey we're getting some signals out of this. There's definitely some signal. So how do we get better? what do we do as next
027steps to get better in our communication process, to get better in our opt- out process, and we're we're going to work on those things and we'll talk about those in this next step side of things. So, what we wanted to do is break we we got some advice from the board president and board clerk that we probably should break this up otherwise it's too much presentation and not enough questions. And so before we go into next steps, what we'd like to do is ask you on slide 31 if you would, what questions do you have with what we've presented so far. And uh some of our answers just to give you some foresight is we may say, "Yep, that's the next part of the presentation. That's next steps. This is where we're headed. This is
028how we're reacting to some of the data." So if we say that, just understand we built that in the next thing. >> Thank you. I'll go ahead and start with board member Hudson and we'll work our way around that way. President Davis, um I need some clarification. Um are we going to be able to ask questions on all three of the um presentations? >> We're going to break it up. Yes, we're just breaking up. So now, >> sorry. Yes, we're going to just break it up so that we have we don't have so much information to go back on. So we will have other question time for questions after. >> Okay. So we can I ask questions on AOP now? >> Yes. So right now >> can I ask questions on Weststead? Yes. >> Yes.
029>> So, I can ask questions on all three. >> The only Yes. The only thing we've left out is next steps. So, we might say to you like, "Oh, that's in the next step." >> This is a lot of information. Okay. So, here we go. >> Here we go. All right. So, um with the ALP um focus group um scenario, I guess my my my question is how did the portrait of a graduate inform the study? Now, I I I will admit I have not read the full report. What I've read is your presentation your summary. Um, but I'm I'm really interested in how the portrait of graduate informed the study because I'm not seeing portrait of graduate language in the summary. So, could you could you please um tell us how the portrait of
030graduate informed the study? >> Yeah. So in the focus group when the the questions were formulated they were formulated based upon researchbased type um questions and ALP if you might recall years back they were actually our partners helped us >> I do remember that cuz I was one of those four focus groups at the time so that's why I'm keenly interested. >> Yes. So they utilized that information, our portrait of the graduate, um our academic competencies, our competencies around our portrait of the graduate and um formulated those questions in that in that research base with really just opening it up to our community members whether they were parents or business partners or students or employees um around how do they define readiness. So, as we think about our Mesa promise of preparing them for college,
031career, and community, they wanted to ensure that those stakeholders addressed all of that and how how are they defining that success. >> So, so in the findings, the key findings are the academics you'll see, but you'll also see as you dig deeper into that report too, it's really about not just academic comments. We know they knew those were important. and we have to continue to report on them and that you need those to be successful in the future. But they also wanted to understand the durable skills um some of the workforce skills, some of the industry certifications, workplace learning opportunities, all of those pieces. >> Okay. So because that's what if I'm glad you mentioned the durable skills because that's that was that for me this was a red flag when durable skills were listed
032as communication, collaboration, problem solving. We know those are skills on the porch of a graduate and we know that those were skills that our community said they wanted kids to have. >> But skills are not resilience and adaptability. Those are attitudes. And so I I I that's what that was a red flag to me that the portrait graduate had probably not been used. Oh yeah. So all of the folks that were invited to the study understood what the MPS promise was. Um, I'd have to go back to my specific notes and and review the report, but I do believe that the portrait of the graduate was was mentioned and used. And in many of the focus groups and discussions that I either sat in or listened to after the transcripts were provided, that those conversations
033came up quite often as they talked about durable skills, um, the need for students to be whether they were in the workforce in their in their career years out or even just entering college or career. um that they needed those durable skills and all of the options available to them while they're in high school and really understanding those so that they knew where and what they needed when they when they went beyond Mesa public schools. >> Okay. So, um I I will read the full report because that's the historian in me, right? I'm I'm going to I'm going to read the primary document and if I have some questions um Dr. I I >> Okay, that would be wonderful. Um, I must I I I must be missing something. I because I'm looking at the
034survey results and I'm seeing a staff survey of the annual board approved questions, a parent survey, annual board approved questions. I don't see the student survey results. >> It's the governing board requested questions that I see student survey. I don't see survey results for the approved questions. >> Does the governing board approve student survey questions? I don't think this >> But you don't have any results for the student survey questions. >> We we have annual results for student survey questions that we give on an annual basis. The the reason we separated out the way we did here is because there are certain questions that the governing board wants annually. >> I understand that >> for parents and staff. We've never had governing board questions that you annually have said these are the five questions we
035want out of students every year. Okay. >> So maybe that's something we add. I mean we're open we're open to that. Maybe that's something we add is that from here on out we have these five questions we always ask every year of our students. >> Yeah. And and I would like I I'd like to see that because Oh yes, Miss Kirby has some information. >> Sorry. Can I just add that that is um the parent and the staff ones in statute that we have to have board questions. It does not say um statutoily that we have to have student ones. So that's not something we've done. So just for the history that's why we do them for those two groups because we're required by statute. >> Okay. Thank you. Um I but the students are
036our clients. So um that I think that might not be a bad thing. >> And there is a list of all the questions. Oh, I understand there's a list of questions, but I want the I want to know what the kids think. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. >> Okay. >> All right. Okay. Um and then um I have a one of the things that I'd like to ask is it I'm looking at some of the answers and I and and Dr. Stum, I'm I'm glad that you responded about what kids getting their first choice because I was I was kind of the representative for the Westwood learning community and I know that those kids got their first choices and and I went to the CAP ceremony um where the kids were in the
037in the in the bleachers and they had been assigned to theirmies and how excited they were about it um and then the team building exercises and things. So I I'm looking at this information. I'm saying this is not what my eyes are telling me. So So then I I I found out that the survey was not locked down that that if people used various devices that they could be involved in the survey more than once. So I'm I'm wondering how reliable the data is if if people had opportunities to answer the survey multiple times. And that would be what no matter I mean whatever perspective they were. So could you as a statistician could you talk about that? >> Yeah. So this is the hard and difficult part about survey and survey research with an
038anonymity involved. Uh you you have a choice to make and the choice you have to make u with software systems like Qualrix where we administer surveys in is if you want it to be anonymous you typically have a really hard time locking it down. If we want it to be one response per person, we can do that. But we got to tag it to something. And what I mean by that is you got to tag it to an email address. You got to tag it to an IP address. You're going to have to tag it to something so it no longer. Now, even if we tag it to an IP address, it's a very real possibility that someone can get on one machine and then go to another machine with a different IP address, right?
039And there's static IP addresses and there's dynamic IP addresses. So your machine might have a dynamic IP address and then one time you have this IP address next time the next. And so we recognize those things in a survey process. In these surveys, our staff, our community prefers they be anonymous surveys. And so we that's one of the downfalls of the anonymity of it all. And what I'll tell you is uh what we know is we didn't have over our population size responses. And what I mean by that is is you know there's 25,000 26,000 students at the secondary level. we didn't have 28,000 responses, right? So, that's a good sign. I will also tell you that with any perception data, any whether it's f focus group data or whether it's survey data, uh we
040always need to question what it's telling us because if you survey on a Monday versus a Friday, it can make a difference. If you survey the week after spring break or the week before spring break, it can make a difference. And so, what you don't want to do is over interterpret the signal, right? You don't want to say this is definitely telling us this, but you don't want to also say it's all noise if that makes sense to you. There's certainly some signal in here. The question is is what d what direction and steps do we take next? Understanding that some noise is within that signal. Does that make sense to you? >> Yeah, it does. Except I I know what my eyes tell me and and some of the answers that were on the
041survey didn't didn't match what I had seen at Westwood High School. And and so um I I think that we we have to be careful that we don't present this information as being um data that that is going to drive what we do. Um that there has to be there has to be some skepticism because people were actually encouraged to answer the survey more than once. >> So I I encouraged to me is a little bit strong. No one from the district went out and encouraged. >> No, I don't I'm not saying that, but but we know that people did. And so I I I I would encourage staff as well as the board to to maybe have some some healthy skepticism um as to the the percentages and also many of these things as
042a high school teacher, I'll tell you, you know, the kids didn't get their classes. That happens in any schedule. the schedule's offered, the the the the uh course is offered, it's offered at at a time that competes with another class that the kid wants or the or or it's full. That happens a lot. So, um I I'm look I there were a lot of things I circled and I said, "This is not what I saw." So, I I guess I'm I'm I'm reflecting some of the um skepticism that I saw that didn't match the survey. Thank you, board member Benson. >> I'm glad you pointed out there's a difference if you take it on a Monday or Friday or different uh periods of time. Um I have not had a chance to dig into the
043ALP or the uh West Ed either sufficiently, so I will ask additional questions later. Um I do I am curious though uh Dr. Eless on the ALP survey um the during the presentation I don't see how how are how were parents or the people in the focus group actually defining success other than academics. So like I is and in the full report that you that is um attached is there a definition of what success would look like? >> Yes, there's some there's some um quotes and things that came out of some of those focus groups. Um but the strongest finding was consistently described success as broader than academics alone. While academic preparation remained essential, the participants emphasized independence, resilience, communication, adaptability, and preparation for life after high school. Okay. >> And so that was the
044the three themes were the um the academics obviously and then three themes emerged which were equipping students to be adults, the pathways and economic security and the durable skills. Well, and I I hope in the f focus group that the preparing students to be adults uh is in partnership with their families because I don't actually think that's our primary role as educators. I think that's the the parents really should be preparing their children to be uh future adults. Uh and we do that in partnership with them. The um results for the um college career academy questions are um are Dr. Storm you mentioned um that Westwood has Westwood had uh data suggesting that every student that their first choice for their academy they receive their first >> choice in the fall. are were the other
045or did the other four high schools that have CCA do they also have that data? >> Uh yes, but what we're but what we're working on is standardizing the procedure across the district. We just had a first meeting uh about two weeks ago with all the high school principles uh to get to a standardized process that we know they're all collecting the data the same and we're reporting on the exact same data. And so I've directed uh Dr. Mesa, Dr. Eastless uh to provide some solutions sets by August headed into the registration process for next year so that we can speak with confidence across all sites. Yes, this is the way we're getting preference. Yes, this is the way uh that that we're making sure kids get their first preference. And then uh beyond that
046uh that the opt out process becomes smoother, cleaner, and easier for families when they want to take that option because that's not necessarily happening in common across our sites as well. So, we know there's some standardization things. Uh but I can speak with relative confidence based on what the principles reported to us that uh a high degree at every campus kids got their first choice. Now, their perception nine months later is that they maybe didn't get their first choice. But once again, that's the difference between, you know, a teenage kid nine months ago and nine months later. >> Well, but I think that is one of the concerns that u many of the people that um spoke last spring regarding CCA. That was one of the concerns that they had is that we're expecting 15year-olds,
04714y olds to uh to determine something that they think they want to uh they want to do for the rest of their lives. And I I think the data that you're potentially talking about that yes, they got potentially got their first choice, but 9 months later they were like, uh, I didn't really like that. Now there I think there's validity in that. Uh, and there's um that's good information as well. uh as long as we do have a process that allows fluidity and moving. And one of the concerns that I heard repeatedly was um well, yeah, I got my I I got my first um choice uh and I thought the core class was going to be really cool, but it really wasn't. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be. And um
048there were other kids that didn't get their first choice that were in this core class in particular that made the experience then miserable which potentially also affects the I didn't get my first choice. So, as long as we have I I think there is validity in allowing students um and again this is I think goes back to many of the concerns that we had and we heard last spring uh before implementation of CCA. I don't know. I don't want my child pinched pigeon holed into one career academy. As long as we are and and I I'm I'm going to take I I know that you and your team are working on making sure that it's clear how to move how to get how to move from one academy to the next or out of a
049core class. Uh and as long as that information is widely publicized, I think that's going to be beneficial as well. Um because there is, you know, like I I don't totally remember what I thought I wanted to be when I was 15, but I know uh you know, when I was way younger, I wanted to be a doctor till I figured out you had to go to school for like 20,000 years and then I was like, I'm out. Um which sometimes happens with kids as well. The um teachers on the Uh, I am intrigued also, Member Hutchinson, on your comment that you think that there were kids that took multiple multiple I I don't know how you deal with that when people want to make sure there there's anonymity with the staff survey though. Um,
050I assume that didn't happen with staff and I'm concerned with their question having only gotten um a 23% positive response rate on whether or not the block schedule is actually beneficial to uh versus a daily regular schedule, especially when I know how much the block schedule costs the district. So, could you speak to that? Um, is there indepth information that we're going to be gathering from for that as well? block schedule really being beneficial to the implementation of CCA versus a traditional >> so some of this is not in next steps but I'll I'll tell you some things that have happened uh already the high school team got together and have talked about these four day weeks and they have a new design for next year on how to handle four day weeks because we're
051on a block schedule now that's the weeks where Monday's off or Friday's off so we made some adjustments to the uh we've looked at the Wednesdays and come up with solution sets. Uh we're not we haven't deployed anything different on a Wednesday yet, but we're continue to have that conversation on what Wednesdays look like. Uh so there were some slight adjustments there. And then I'm going to reference back my my teaching career. I I lived the traditional schedule to block scheduling uh uh process as a teacher. And the second year is always a a little more comfortable than the first year. the third year is a little more comfortable the second. And so what we need to work on in in in the district is we need to work on our instructional design process and
052how in the instructional design process we're training high school teachers uh to implement block scheduling to make sure that all the instructional time throughout the day is maximized to the fullest ability that it that it possibly can be. And so and I would speak to the fact that some of these academy core classes are the same thing. It's literally for these Academy Core classes the first time we've implemented a curriculum in that class. And so the projects we run in those academy core are going to need development and redevelopment and redevelopment to ensure that those curricula are designed to the level and degree that we expect them to design uh be designed to in these integrated learning experiences in that fourth class that goes along with ELA and and history and those other subjects we're
053teaching in that in that four core experience of college and career academy. So, we know we have professional development work to do. And one of the things the team's going to talk about in a second is the instructional design work that we're doing throughout the district to respond to the fact that we know we've got to get teachers more comfortable. One of the my takeaways from the survey real simply was look at the parent survey, right? Then then look at the student staff survey. I actually think we have a lot more work to do internally with students and staff, right? To help them along in the process than even externally with parents. Some of the parent things are easy to uh accomplish. Uh but some of the staff things we've got to make sure we're
054coming back and constantly doing the PDCA cycle, plan, do, check, act cycle to get better in year two and then get better in year three. And then if we monitor these types of metrics year in and year out, they should be showing improvement, right? We should be getting teachers uh responding to the survey and saying, "No, yeah, the block scheduling experience is getting better and better every single year." So that's kind of we have some next steps embedded. We already planned some next steps with scheduling in the 4-day uh uh time frame for block. We're constantly analyzing and trying to ensure that we're making the process better for students and >> I'll pause for now because I haven't dug again I I did not dig into. >> Thank you board member Walden. >> Thank you.
055So some good things I want to start off with uh improving proficiency like moving the needle on that has been really hard. So that was encouraging to hear about some improvements there and on the parent and the teacher responses uh having having improvements there having the teacher saying you know I have the tools to do my job. Which one was that? Yeah. All right, I see I received the information I need to do my job effectively. You know, 6% increase there. That's really solid. And uh you know, a lot of parents saying that they would rate their their school very well. I think it was 91% or something. So, really good things. Um I do have a clarifying question about the retention rate versus attendance rate. They're both at 91%. So it says attendance rate
056measures no shows. Is that the same as the retention rate? Are those different? >> Where you >> Oh, it's at the beginning. >> Were you referencing no shows? I just want to make sure I'm referencing the right thing. >> Okay. >> Go back up. >> 18. >> Okay. So I I think I can answer and address your question. So the way we were measure measure retention rate with respect to enrollment is they were enrolled with us in the prior year upon year's end. And then they are still enrolled with us as of day 15 the next year. We let the beginning of the year process handle because there's a lot of 10day drops. the beginning of the year there's a lot of movement and so we question okay were they with us at the end
057of last year and are they still with us as of day 15 the next year 91% of kids that were with us right at the end of last year are still with us as of day 15 at the high school level so the 9% of kids that we looked at were the 9% of kids that were with us in the prior year years year's end in 8th grade 9th grade or 10th grade right or 11th grade and then they did not make it back with us by day 15 of the next year. That's who we were after, like where are these kids going for the 9%. Then on attendance rate, the way attendance rate gets measured, it's an average daily attendance rate. So let's say a kid's enrolled for a 100 days and a 10's
05890. You put 100 in the denominator, you put 90 in the numerator. Another kid's enrolled for 40 days and a 10's 35. You put 40 in the denominator, you put 35 in the numerator. Another kid's with us all 180 days. Okay, they get 180 in the denominator and then they attend 160 days. You put 160 in the numerator. So every day the kids enroll, any kids enrolled counts in the denominator and every day any kids in attending counts in the numerator. And when you do that, that's called average daily attendance. And our average daily attendance rates right at I think it's right above 91%. It's up about a half percent over prior year. Last year was like 90.8 and we rounded up to 91. This year it's like 91.3 and we're rounding back down to
05991. And so we have a half percent uh increase in attendance. Did that help at all? >> Yeah. No, that that helps. And because I was, you know, thinking about attendance, you know, did like the chronic absenteeism is a different different metric there. >> Yeah. Chronic absenteeism. The way we measure chronic absenteeism is uh students that miss more than 10% of their enrollment period given that they have to be enrolled for a certain amount of days. So we don't count in chronic absenteeism the kid that's enrolled for 8 days and misses one because one out of eight is 12 a.5%. So that'd be chronically absent but they were only with us eight days right so they have to make a minimum amount of enrollment with us right once they make that minimum amount enrollment then
060did they miss 10% of their days if they did they count as chronically absent that metric by the way is also trending down but not as fast as we'd like it to. We'd like it to go down faster. used to sit around 12% in the district, got as high as 33% during the pandemic, and now we're down in the mid20s. >> So, because it I'm I'm trying to find the slide on one of them. It looked like the 91% retention rate has been pretty constant for for the district. >> Yeah. So, we measure across all grade levels. The retention rate from last year to 15th day of the next year. And typically depending there's some years that are a little lower. Kindergarten to first is considered a transition year to be honest with you. And
061that one runs a little below 91. Uh there sixth to 7th is a transition year. That one runs below a little bit below 91. If we were specifically to look 8th to 9th, it runs a little below 91. But then there are other grade levels like uh fifth to sixth. You know, parents don't switch a lot fifth to sixth grade year because they have one more year elementary school and they're like, I don't want to disrupt this experience up for my kid. I just want them to complete sixth grade year. So, that one typically runs like 93 94% retention year-over-year because that's not a transition grade. >> And it was this this slide with the historical historical attendance, the one that says year-to- date attendance K through 12, it's 90 90% 91. Do do we
062know how how these metrics compare to other districts? like are we trending higher at retention compared to even maybe east valley districts? >> Uh from so I don't have current data but from personal knowledge having worked in other places uh typical retention rates range from 83 to 97% in districts uh that I've been in. Uh so 91's right in the heart of that. And then average daily attendance used to be on the state average used to run around 95%. In fact, you used to have uh in the state uh some follow-up steps if you didn't make 95% average daily attendance. Uh more recently, ever since the pandemic, no one's making 95% average daily attendance. And so 91% I would guess is around the average of other school districts uh in the state. >> Okay. And
063uh I thought the information on the surveys uh was useful about parents and uh people talking about communication because I talked to one of our teachers at which school? Drawing a blank. Mountain View that does the freshman academy and they had students that had opt out of the freshman academy but then they had them opt back in. And so I think maybe there was a confusion about it or uncertainty about it, but then when they learned from probably other families or students what they were missing out on that they've since opted back in. So definitely that shows to me that there's, you know, some communication, more education needed about what's what's going on in in those courses in that workshop that uh people aren't having to opt out and not back in that we can
064have, you know, more consistent enrollment there. So thank you. Good stuff. >> Thank you, board member Chaffy. Board member Hutchinson, I'm going to have you write down two page numbers that I noticed as I went through that report that talked about portrait of a graduate. So page 36 and page 71 really do integrate that and so it definitely does show up in the report and I appreciate that that that was part of the discussion and analysis. Um, it's interesting because I think that my interpretation of the disparity between student and staff perception versus parents is a little bit different because I think for me it's less about how do we better communicate to the students and staff that what is happening is working. I actually think our parents think it's working. They're hearing it. We
065obviously can see through the focus groups that our parents want college and career learning. They want vocational learning. I think how I see that data is that our students and our staff who are living into this model every single day are saying we're not sure that it's doing what we said it would do. We're not sure it's delivering on the promise. And um to the point of like what you see and and hear for me the reality was you know having a freshman daughter who filled out the survey to take her classes you know to sign up for her academy next year in class we didn't even have a chance to have a conversation about it and that was frustrating because that process I don't think is working for our families who are saying please
066communicate better obviously I am a significantly more informed parent in the district and So, we had a lot of conversations about it. Um, but even, you know, as a board member, I was frustrated to learn after the fact that she'd already submitted that that paperwork. And I know that there's a lot of work going on in the district right now to improve that process for next year. And I appreciate that that work is already being done to to make sure that that kind of thing doesn't happen in the future because we want to make sure that our families are opting in, that they are choosing this, that this is meeting their needs. And I appreciate that the district is is finally hearing that message. Because I think that that was a lot of the conversations
067last spring was parents coming in and students coming in and saying, "We hear that there's a lot of changes. Please ask us first. Please communicate with us first." High school is such an important time in our students lives and they want to make good choices. And the families want to make sure they're making good choices. And I think um in a district this size, it's going to be difficult to communicate all of those things. And I I know that it's going to require some really effective strategies to make sure that students are aware of the things that they're choosing and then that we follow up with them and that we have that feedback loop to make sure if it's not working, we make adjustments. Um I heard students who were frustrated that they were being
068required to take chemistry as a sophomore. And that's a big ask for a lot of our students who aren't maybe collegebound to require them to take chemistry as a sophomore. Um, I talked to staff members who were pretty frustrated if they maybe wanted to focus on sped teaching or honors level classes that they were being asked to teach integrated classes and that is a huge ask to then also ask our teachers to include vocational learning. I think for me as we evaluate this learning model, I want to make sure and this is this is not a question to answer right now, but is the model of block schedule where we are reducing instructional minutes going to meet the needs of our families in the way that we want them to? Is it going to allow
069us to improve tier one instruction, which I know is a huge focus, which we know is an issue in the district, and is it going to allow those teachers to implement some of this vocational learning? And then I think we have the larger picture as Mesa Public Schools that we have this incredible partnership with EVIT. We were talking about it. We feel really fortunate in Arizona and in the East Valley right now to have such a strong partnership with EVIT. Um are there ways that we can strengthen that communication and those pathways for parents so that they know that that's available so that they know that we do have this incredible partnership and pathway already that exists for vocational learning for our students. So, um I think for me it's kind of evaluating does this
070model at this moment in Mesa public schools, at this moment financially meet the needs of our students given the reduction in instructional time. Um and if so, how are we going to strengthen instruction? And then I think on a broader scale, I'd really like to see our communication strategy improve. I think we saw that across all three of these that our communication struggles and it is not a lack of effort from Jen Snyder. I assure you that she's doing a lot of great work. I think that our regional learning communities have a lot of work to do in in really connecting with our parents and making that happen. >> Appreciate the feedback. I I need you to hear that issue of having parents sign off on the choice of their students was in the meeting
071two weeks ago and something we're looking to standardize. Westwood had it happen where they parents signed off and then other schools didn't. So, it's just it Yeah, it's it's it's it's just a matter. Well, West Westwood designed it Westwood designed it so parents signed off prior and then they sent an email on top of it. Uh so, and then other other schools Yeah. why they did it. Yeah. And then other schools didn't have that parent sign off. So, we know there's things we have to standardize and I want you to hear that's the whole point of bringing the high school group together to work on standardization. And uh I just I uh want to thank you for giving us that feedback and we're going to work to improve is what I I want you to
072hear. >> Thank you. I know we are running low on time. Um just really quick, I do appreciate the communication. I know I see I u board member Walden said, you know, the increase in effort like that that our teachers see in the information to to to do their job effectively. We see an increase there. I did also um parents said they adequately labor informed. Um I do think we have done a lot of improvement on our communication and I think that we still have lots of room and and I appreciate that the high schools are meeting together. I think you know you have some that have been doing this a little bit longer and so I appreciate them sharing what's working and what's not and and all of the high school teams working together.
073So I appreciate all the efforts being made and I think it's great that they're learning from each other and how we can all be better. Um, just really quick on the ALP when we had 145 invited and 63 attend. Do we know the breakdown of the areas of what that looked like? Sorry, that's I should have prepped that. >> I could absolutely get that for you. >> Just curious and then that probably goes back to regional communities how we can strengthen if we have if I'm sure we can see a tie in or you know correlate the areas and so maybe how do we increase that participation in those regional learning communities. So, all right, back to whoever is next. >> Now, what we would like to do is we'd like to take you into
074next steps and we're going to kick this off with Amy de laator. >> All right. Good afternoon, Madame President President, uh, governing board members. Um, as Dr. Stum mentioned, oh, I always go the wrong way. Geez. Okay. As Dr. Strong mentioned, I'll be going through the continuous improvement process, and you've heard from me multiple times around this work. Um so we just want to take you through kind of where we've been um where we're going with the continuous improvement process. We're very proud of the work that we've done with that and the support that we've provided to our schools. So I'm excited to share that with you today. Um you've seen uh you have the presentation. So um as you can see the the continuous improvement framework is linked in there for you to review.
075What you are going to notice is that there are two sections. There's one for schools and one for departments. Um though the process is the sta same we're still using the plan do act uh check act process um there are some slight refinements for a department level versus a school level um so and and I will be focusing primarily on the work that we've done with our schools over the last couple of years um at this point all of our um preschool our prek through 12 schools have received training support around the continuous improvement process they are currently living in the plan section of the plan do check act. Um because of course we have not started school for that implementation component. Um we have walked each of them through professional learning um and provided
076support at this point through our leadership academy to be able to support them um with that. Um many of our departments um at the business side have also gone through this work and again I have not been the expert in that. That's something that Mr. Wing has guided his teams through um but really looking at um that through the department lens as well which of course is a little bit different. Um so that is where we're at currently as a high level of where the continuous improvement process is. Um so as we look at where I keep doing that where we have been with the continuous improvement process um again you've heard from me for a couple years now and the work that we've done there. So, I'm going to focus really on the work
077we did last year in 2526. Um, we continued our collaboration um around with multiple departments in this work. Through the spring, we worked with each of our school leaders and walked them through the continuous improvement process with some slight refinements that I'll go over in a little bit because again, just as our schools are, we should always be looking at where we need to make refinements to best support our schools. Um through this um we used data that was gathered from our schools from their areas of focus. So each school had to choose three areas of focus based off data. From there we utilize that data to align really a ton of systems and our professional learning. So leading learning for principles all came from the data gathered there with over 70 schools choosing um
078instructional design. And throughout this last year, you heard from several schools who have implemented instructional design on their campus and the success that they've had with that. Um, we also looked at when our district support staff from teaching and learning and special education were out on campuses. They were fully aware of those schools continuous improvement process and what they had planned so they could best align their support and their coaching for those schools. Also um in fact uh in our professional learning department um Josh Henderson really aligned even his support folks to regions as well as really looking at those areas of focus um for our schools. Um we also worked very closely with research and evaluation department because they are the data experts. So they would bring in the data for our schools and
079regular and ensure that there was access to that data on a regular basis for our schools because continuous improvement doesn't just happen and then we don't look at it again. It should be throughout the year we're continuously looking. Um at this point we have revised one slight revision that we did make was in our planning tool. Um last year when we implemented this process we thought about it a little probably a little too big. Okay. We had them choose their three areas of focus and we thought about create a plan of action based off your entire school year and through feedback and I think us as um principal supervisors or area superintendents were working with our schools we found that it was more natural to be looking at it in smaller chunks. So what is
080it that you're focused on and then what are you going to accomplish in the first quarter? What are your action steps for the first quarter? What data are you using to then drive your second quarter? So, we did make a slight revision to our reporting document for our schools to help them to really focus on just those components of quarter 1 and then go they'll go into quarter two and I'll go into that a little bit more on my next slide. Um, and then there was supervisor followup and support. Um, I can speak for myself as a principal supervisor and Dr. Mesa and Arinda Man. We regularly went through this work with our schools as Project Momentum schools which are schools I oversaw. this is required, right? They must go through this process and we
081must be talking about it and helping to align and ensuring that we're not going off in a bunch of different directions, but we're really focused on the three areas of f uh that you have they have chosen for their focus. And then um the quarterly datadriven decisions are something again that um we're really looking at eight work week cycles as we move forward. So schools and leadership academy just a few weeks ago finalized their quarter 1 plans. So they have a theory of action. They have their focus for quarter 1, their action steps for quarter 1. And in an 8week cycle, so right before the school uh sorry, quarter 1 ends, we will bring them all together. K12 principles will provide them additional data based off of where they're at. They'll bring in their own
082data, maybe walk through data, different components of data they've they've gathered, and they will reflect, take an opportunity to really think about what went well, what didn't go well in their action steps, and that will drive their second quarter plan without changing it too much, unless of course the data is telling you to completely change it, but really to take it into smaller chunks. And we've received a lot of really positive feedback on that that the schools needed that wanted that and see this as much more manageable for not only them as leaders but their teachers as well. All right. So as we move into um this year this school year um we will obviously continue the work with our regional learning communities um and really focusing on the continuous improvement. Um each of the
083divisions in teaching and learning are also working on this really looking at it from a systems level. What are some things that we as a district and support need to think about in our systems, our structures and additional supports um to be able to to ensure that the schools are getting what they need and then again our departments in the business side have all been also going through this process. Um, as we um think about the regional executive directors, I believe, as you know, we as regional executive directors are going to be on campuses at least twice a month. And so part of the work that we're going to do there is regular check-ins on their continuous improvement process, walk in classrooms to actually see it in action, and then process support, um, discuss different
084points of data that might be able to be brought in and just kind of guide that as they're working through what next steps are. and ensuring that they're constantly considering who are you who are the stakeholders that you're bringing into these conversations and how are you communicating that to all of them. Um again we are we just recently got data of all the trends that have come from um the continuous improvement work. So, we have really good data to show us um areas of focus across the entire district, area of focus for our regions, which I love because I can see now Westwood and what's their areas of focus and what are the trends coming out of the Westwood region to best guide what I do to support them. Um, as well as by school,
085what are their focuses and grade levels? So that is going that data is going to be used to drive really a lot of what we do next year with our professional learning for leaders, coaches, teachers and then as you know we have our support personnel that will be us at the campuses with us at the high school level. They will be very aware of what those those areas of focus are are and how to best support our schools um to ensure that. And again as mentioned we will be going on an 8week cadence with this. Um you can't look at this and never look at it again. It is really important that you are always using data to drive your next steps in this process. And one really important component is the reflection, right? Often
086we're just always going going and we don't take the time to really reflect and think about those action steps, what went well, what didn't, and asking our staff. So really that should also support some of the drive that they take in their next steps. And I am going to go ahead and pass it over to Eric who will go into MTSS. Thank you. Good. Good afternoon, Madam President, members of the board and cabinet. I have the privilege of standing in front of you today talking about a couple areas that arose um the work that we're doing in that came out of our continuous improvement process, not only at the district level, but as an aggregation of the information we got from the schools. So, for each of them, I'm going to give you a really
087kind of a high level broad brush strokes of what I'm talking about, talk a little bit about what we did this year, and then we're going to continue moving into next year. Uh the first one is the multi-tered system of support and really really broad brush strokes. This is really easiest way to think about MTSS is this is how you do school. These are the systems and structures we put in place to be able to identify early and react early to the needs of students in an effort to get the outcomes that we are looking for. I want to call your attention really quickly to that graphic right there. That is a kind of a summitive graphic of the MTSS proc not process MTSS framework at our schools. Um, notice the the blue circle around
088there is continuous improvement that it is wrapped in all of this and we need to make sure that that is a vital part of it. The other thing we're going to talk about is in the inside you see there are three big chunks. This is about the systems and structures to respond for academics behavior and then whole child and you're going to hear different parts of each of those in the work that we have been doing. So the what we've been doing this year is um what when you're in education you recognize that there are some terms and jargon that actually have multiple definitions and MTSS is definitely one of them. So we had to spend a lot of this year really level setting and calibrating what that meant. One of the results is our
089document here and you see the picture of the front cover which is our MTSS blueprint which is it serves as our grounding document that we can then point back to a resource and says this is what MTSS means in Mesa public schools and here are the actions that are associated with it. So we spent a lot of that year building this and then building up the capacity of district leadership principles. We we launched this districtwide um in our most recent June leadership academy. And then we've also been building the capability and understanding with our district support staff that we'll be in the regional model to be able to support that when we move into next year. And I kind of think we started next year in June leadership academy and that's where we started rolling
090this out. And and what I want you to hear is you're not going to hear specific actions we have to MTSS. We're not going to say go back to your schools and do MTSS. What you see is the systems that are components of MTSS are going to be cropping up and are all threaded through their continuous improvement plans. And this is kind of the glue that holds it all together. And so the one implementation we've asked so far is to have when you're starting to do things like instructional design or work with uh professional learning communities is where does that fit within the MTSS process and start using some of that language there. Um, so that is what our work is this coming year is to continue to expand that to continue to build the
091expertise down at the the school level with instructional coaches and then look at our district systems because we have to have district systems that align to the work that's happening in the schools. The second one we'll talk about and this is a continuation um from what I've talked to you before, but this is instructional design. Um, real broad brush strokes on this one too. This is simply the process by which you craft the learning experiences. And I know we were talking about that with the block schedule. And it is how do you take what you want the kids to know ultimately? How do you know you're going to be able to judge whether they got there? And then how are you going to plan the opportunities for them to get um go along that pathway.
092So I remember I've been up here and talked to you about this before. So let's review a little bit about what we've done this year. Um at the previous June leadershipmies when we rolled out kind of the instructional design process to be able to help support using the uh the core adopted curricula um with the planning we engaged in professional learning with coaches with principles with specialists across the board all throughout this year. I think we've gotten some really good results as people have started to calibrate their understanding of what this process looks like. We've also scheduled instructional rounds as part of the work we do with sitebased uh coaches. And what that meant is now we are looking for we're beginning to look at did your instructional design translate to things in the classroom?
093Is it actually changing the practice in the classrooms? Um moving on to next year, what we're doing is one of the the biggest difficulties in a school system is your professional learning is never over. not that you just keep learning as an individual, but as an organization, we have new people coming in all the time. So, we're never done with something. And so, we are incorporating instructional design work right into teacher orientation. So, when they come into Mesa Public Schools, the first thing they get to hear is talking about what does instructional design and how do we prepare those instructional experiences in Mesa Public Schools. um with my regional staff and academics, we are building up their capacity to continue to expand the support possibilities to be able to get out there and speak very
094clearly and help um with instructional design because it is a it's a it's an intense process um that takes a long time to develop. Um and then what we're doing is is we're refining and making sure all of our resources are aligned to that. And then if there is a little bit of focus, we are kind of transitioning a little bit of focus into that next the second part of the instructional design process, which is how do we collect evidence to be able to ascertain whether the students have achieved the desired outcomes. I'm going to turn it back over. Who am I turning it over to for attendance? Attendance. >> All right. So, I'm not going to spend a whole time ton of time on this either because you have heard me speak about attendance
095multiple times also, but I just want to point out that um with our MTSS process um just like academics, behavioral um attendance falls into this as well. And we luckily have a really nice um system in place really focused on the tier 1, tier 2, and tier three processes to to address attendance. Um so we have a proactive approach um document that has been rolled out for a couple of years now and we are constantly looking at refining and getting feedback. Um but really we're focused around what is first and foremost how are we creating a sense of belonging as well as highlevel um engaging practices so that students want to come to school every day. Right? And then what are some tier one strategy supports that schools can put in place and when students
096are maybe struggling with attendance what are some tier three tier 2 supports as well as tier three. Um so it really does follow that um MTSS process just as we are talking about and will continue to talk about. Um, one thing that when a student gets to tier three, and again not new to any of you, um, is we really start to engage with our truency department at that time to receive some additional supports on how to best um maybe maybe we've tried everything possible, students missing an an extensive amount of time and we know if they're not in school, they're not going to be learning, right? And so the the truency department can come in and have a conversation with the parent alongside those principles to be able to support the importance of of
097their child coming to school. So we have worked in collaboration with that department as well as with the city of Mesa. Um the city of Mesa has supported us with this work with our city prosecutor's office to ensure that if we do int if we do cite a family which is obviously last resort that this the court system will support us with that and not say oh sorry not going to do anything about it but we don't you use it as a punitive measure either. When the family does get cited to court, they are um maybe going to receive a fine or a charge, but they are told that if they improve attendance at a certain point that those would be dropped because we didn't want it to be very much um punitive, but rather
098still supportive. Um so really that's our work with attendance and where we're at with it. As we move into to next year, there are some slight changes to the attendance process. Um when a student has moved from school to school, their attendance has started over. So we are not going to do that any longer. As a student moves from school to school, their attendance will follow them. That's one shift. And then as students um reach certain days of um attendance concerns, absences, there are letters that are sent home to the family. Um they specifically state, you know, it's important your child's here, talk about the statute, things like that. um those letters stop typically at I believe it's 18 and those are going to continue um for 20 25 and 30 days. So those are
099the two changes that we're making for next year um that I think are nice tweaks that will support the process. Now I'll pass it over. Oops. All right. Uh good evening madame president, board members, cabinet. Um as far as behavior is concerned, uh we saw student outcome data and family feedback um that identified opportunities around positive student engagement on our campuses, creating that safe and engaging um place for students to learn. So prior to this past the 2526 school year, we did have as a design team that imple um came up with and implemented a discipline matrix. We're already seeing the impact of that in creating consistency around how behavioral incidents are defined and how responses to those behaviors are applied across all of our schools. Um we also in this past year you already
100um heard from Mr. Vonberg and Amy about how the MTSS framework is going to help establish stronger tier 1, tier 2, and tier three interventions for that increasing level of support for addressing behaviors. As we shift into this coming year, we're looking at um not only building consistency in how we respond to behaviors, but how we prevent and change behaviors. Um so through that MTSS framework, we're going to be focusing on strengthening um those proactive systems that teach expectations, build connection, positive relationships, and that early identification of students that might need more. Um so not all of this is is new. We have programs like Gus at Robinson who have shown and demonstrated the value of explicit teaching of behaviors um teaching regulation coping um behavior skills. So building on that continuum are also going
101to be implementing an alternative learning center at the elementary level within the Westwood region. Um, unlike the specialized placement like GUS, the alternative learning center is meant to be more of a shortterm intervention where students will remain to their home or chosen school while also learning those replacement behaviors rather than only being removed from instruction so that when they do transition back to their home or chosen school, we've hopefully developed some of those skills and helped them to be um more successful. So again, moving into more of that learn, relearn, and practice on those behavior skills to support um building systems that help prevent behaviors before they occur while also building along that continuum of support for students who need a little bit more. And I think here I turn it back to Dr. East.
102Correct. to quickly make the connection on the behavior side of things. In the survey, we learned from in the Westside survey that behaviors were one of the highest reasons that parents uh and and we've heard this qualitatively too that parents are making choices. And we've had strong Gus and GAP programming in this district before. And so we tasked quite a few leaders with designing a system uh and a region stood up and said we'd like to try to pilot that. And so that's what we're going to do in Westwood this next year is pilot uh kind of a solution set to help parents and even students understand that we we have to have high expectations of for behaviors in our classroom. And that means that u if one student is disrupting the learning environment for
10325 students, we need parent support and we need uh systems in Mesa public schools to help that student understand that everyone in that classroom has rights. all 25 26 kids have rights and you can't disrupt the learning for the other students in the classroom. So, we'll see if this program is successful. That's why we want to pilot it and then uh if it ends up being successful throughout this next year, uh Dr. Bas, Dr. East will give us guidance on how how we may envision expanding that program in future years. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. um board president, members of the governing board. Um the next steps, you've heard communication be a theme throughout all of our data. So um our communication priority will be focusing on engaging stakeholders and communicating access um
104improving our access um to information in a more transparent way and really ensuring that we are engaging our stakeholders. So um first with through our continuous improvement plan, we will be um in implementing uh district-wide internal and external communication strategies um engaging our stakeholders through listening sessions throughout our regional team um areas and increasing the awareness of our MTSS framework. We want to make sure that we are engaging um expanding those opportunities for all of our stakeholders to be involved. So through our regional learning communities, we will be specifically um utilizing our regional engagement and outreach specialists as well as ensuring that um regional directors are uh working diligently with with principles in their learning communities. We will be ensuring that our um school improvement action committees are up and running and that they are
105um very much engaging and and populated by our stakeholders in schools. But we're also going to be lifting community um network uh uh groups throughout each one of the regions that will include students that will include almost like a regional SCAK opportunity to really engage uh the community network um um in those learning communities. So we're really excited about that and we just want to continue to ensure that we're establishing consistent two-way communication between um schools, between the district and just between in within all of our regions. Um and last, um we've really heard about just increasing and really being reflective about what we're doing in continuous improvement. We want to make sure that we're taking the information that we've heard as far as um being more transparent and needing more communication um and information.
106So, we're conducting a comprehensive website audit to ensure that the communication that um we need to get out to families is readily accessible, that our websites um are easily mag, you know, maneuverable, and that we also have um in information that is similar across all of our websites so that it doesn't look different 52 52 different ways, but um you're able to go to websites and get the information that you need readily accessible across the district. And specifically related to our college and careermies, we want to make sure that we're responsive to the information that we've got about um making sure that that that information is readily accessible. Uh we will be like Dr. Strom said really looking at um ensuring that those processes are easy for parents that they are the information is more
107accessible and that we're meeting those needs um for parents related to those college careermies. >> One one quick link through on that. uh we've been working this year and then we've received feedback in these surveys about outcomes and we know that what we want to do at the high school level is we want to make sure that outcomes from these career and collegemies how many kids had work-based learning experiences how many kids had internships that they're displayed on the front page of the website right and so Dr. East has been working through the process because of the ALP feedback with Dr. Glassmire with Miss Lauria on what this come when this comes to fruition. We're hoping to get it rolled out in the fall sometime, but I don't want to overpromise and underdel. Uh but
108we think it's going to be really important to advertise, hey, if you come to Westwood, these things are happening here. This is happening. This is happening. This is happening. That's the loop of we get feedback from ALP. We get feedback from surveys. And now, hey, here parents, here's what you get at Mountain View. Here's what you get at Skyline. Sorry. >> Thank you. In reflecting on the data and feedback collected throughout the year, customer service is another area in which we can improve and we're looking forward to shifting from customer service to unreasonable hospitality. Uh we're hoping to apply the principles of unreasonable hospitality to intentionally exceed the experiences to everyone that we interact with specifically through thoughtful and personalized service so that experiences are more meaningful. Our intention is for schools and departments to
109understand the principles and design unreasonable hospitality opportunities for their constituents, for their school community, including students, staff, families, and again the whole community. Going into the 2627 school year, we have four departments and we're going to have three to five schools become our early adopters. The four departments who have already volunteered are human resources uh payroll is so um information systems as well as organizational learning and the three to five schools have yet to be determined. So we're going to our hope is that again that they will understand and develop and design the unreasonable hospitality centered around their community. Here are some quotes from the book. I'm going to focus on the first one which is language is how you create culture. We started already modeling this during our June leadership academy and how we
110welcomed attendees, how we personalized their learning experience during the professional learning of leadership academy and how we were took their personal needs into greater consideration than years prior. Uh this year the early adopters will receive professional learning and leaders will have the agency to personalize what their community experiences. So for example, another quote that is up there, third one down, all it takes for something extraordinary to happen is one person with enthusiasm. What that looks like, what that sounds like may differ from sight to sight, certainly school to school or within departments. So that leader will have the autonomy after understanding the principles and after some training to design what that might look like for their site. In closing, we know that the data reflected again that culture is an area for improvement and we
111firmly believe that unreasonable hospitality will positively impact the culture within our within our district. So, one other thing we want to end with here before we take the final questions uh and we have some time left for questions is we had a goal at the beginning of this year for a thousand positive stories and we've hit 1,300 positive stories throughout the district through our social uh media content uh and other uh things that have occurred through our communications department. Uh we've made our goal. We're going to continue on the positive story side of things. I am uh firmly convinced that in public education there's way more positive happening than negative happening. And not that we're not willing to address the negative when it happens. We are in leadership and when negative things happen, we're willing
112to confront them uh full steam ahead, but there are a lot of positive things happening throughout public schools in the state of Arizona and we want to make sure the city of Mesa knows and uh the citizens that even choose Mesa public schools out of Chandler, Gilbert and other areas know that there's a lot of great things happening here in Mesa public schools. Next slide, please. And so what we're going to transition into next year is going to continue the positive stories, but we are going to move with the unreasonable hospitality theme of a thousand moments of gratitude. And my personal goal, my own personal goal is I'm going to write a thousand handwritten notes to constituents that we interact with throughout the throughout the year, telling them how grateful we are for for things
113we've done. I started this in May. Uh and some feedback so far is one of the persons that does scholarships for uh kids that go to EVIT. Uh it's called the Bison Foundation. They provide scholarships through our ME education foundation. Uh I wrote him a handwritten note thanking him for all the uh contributions he he makes on behalf of that foundation uh for our students attending EVIT and he said to our executive director of the Mesa Education Foundation, that's the first handwritten note I've ever gotten from a superintendent. And so I think these things make a difference. I think thanking someone and having gratitude brings joy and joy brings delight back into the learning experiences for kids. So, as you see us talk this year about 1,000 positive stories when we talked about it pretty
114much every GAM uh we all GAM general administrative meeting uh we're going to start talking a little bit about a thousand moments of gratitude and making sure we're thanking for everyone who comes across our ways in our public school system for helping us out. Uh you know, if you ever want to complain about uh public schools, I would encourage you, listen, the first thing you can do is come and volunteer at one. Come in to volunteer at a public school and help us out. Help us get better at what we do. Help us get better at literacy. Help us get better at numeracy. and we will take as many hands on deck that clear that clear our HR process. Let's put that way that clear our HR process that we possibly can get. So anyways,
115thank you. >> Thank you and thank you everyone for all of your presentations and we appreciate all this information. I know we have 15 minutes um until we want to take a break. There is a spreadsheet that has been shared so if there is more questions um share them on that but I'll start to my left and I'll start with uh board member Chaffy. >> Thank you. I do appreciate this focus on gratitude. Sometimes I think as a board member I miss just being the fun parent in the classroom. Um but I I appreciate the work that we do to continually improve and I appreciate this focus from the district because I think that it is important. Um, one issue I just wanted to bring to attention about attendance is block schedule also poses some
116unique challenges with attendance. Um, again I like noticed my daughter had missed like a full day on a Tuesday. And then I was like, "Oh, you only missed half of your classes though. You only have half of your classes on that day, but it really represents a large amount of instructional time." And we all know how good kids are at gaming the system. And so they like never want to miss a Wednesday because then you're going to be absent like all of your classes. but really you only missed 20 minutes of instructional time and that we're counting that we're waiting that the same as like missing a Monday where you're missing 90 minutes of instructional time. So, I think it's something to consider. My daughter's going to hate that I brought it up. Um, but
117I I think it's important that we consider as we look at instructional minutes that they are missing a lot and we're not counting it the same. I also noticed this year that I received, not that my children are ever absent, but I did maybe receive the notice about the number of absences my children had had and it came through parent view and it was difficult for me to access. So something just to look through in our system, I didn't get a mail letter this time. I couldn't really even click on it and so I think for some of our parents who were new to the district, you wouldn't even know what it was and it was for me even difficult to like click through and find it. So that just came to my mind as
118I thought about that logistically. I love the focus on MTSS. I really feel like this focus on multi-tered systems of support has been something that I've been passionate about since, you know, my kids were young. I think it is the way that we meet the needs of so many students and I love that we're moving in this direction. Um, Dr. Mesa, thank you so much for your work on school improvement advisory councils because I know that that's a conversation you and I had and I would love to see our SCAKs engaged in this process of continuous improvement so they know what it is and this idea of like this quick turnaround and being engaged in the process. I think it will give them so much guidance and eliminate some of that friction that sometimes exists
119where it's like, oh yeah, we're looking at data and we're understanding what it says to us and then we're making improvements and I think that everyone can be engaged in that in a really positive way. Um, and I think as we look forward to listening sessions in both our schools and our regional learning communities, I just would really emphasize that we include students. I think our students are really wanting to lead out in this work and we have some really passionate students. you know, a lot of them responded to that survey and they want their voices heard and I think we want to make sure that they're included in that in that work. >> Thank you, board member Walden. >> Thank you. So, uh, I really like hearing the regional directors that will be on
120campus twice a month and I think, you know, it's important because we are open to feedback that that the principles and the employees do feel comfortable giving honest feedback, right? It's not all sunshine and rainbows. And I hope that our regional directors can, you know, work on being open to hearing the hard stuff, too. And I I am encouraged that they'll be able to because just in our next steps, you know, we took less than positive data and we're addressing it and trying to fix it. And so, I do see a lot of of that in in the district. Um, but I do want to make sure that our our campuses do feel comfortable letting us know what's not working and finding solutions for that together. Uh, in uh the school the website audit, that's
121a good one. So, there's a lot of consistency with their website, but I'm wondering if we can tie that to the 29% of the survey respondents or 29% reasons for leaving the districts at school culture. and maybe there's an opportunity to showcase more of the school culture on the website. Like I've gone to schools to try to find out what their school colors are and I can't find it on the website. So I just something simple like that, right? But maybe highlighting what makes this campus special or you know h how are we striving to serve you? And I think there's there's a lot of options here in the district. And so maybe if we were more open about the differences with our schools that would help parents in this sort of open enrollment environment
122make sure they get the right fit. Uh and then I have a question for Dr. Stum. Uh there's we actually just had a conversation in our check-in. There's a lot of books out there. There's no shortage of books that you can read and especially about education. What what was it about unreasonable hospitality that grabbed you that you're using this as a model? It's not a criticism. It's just an open question. >> What grab grabbed me the most is the statement you want to spend 95% of your money accomplishing the essential uh uh elements of your business unit. Now, this is a book about restaurants, right? I like to read outside education quite a little bit and then try to take some uh ideas and theories and apply them to to suggest like how can we
123make that fit in education. And so 95% of the money you spend should be spent on things that are essential to your organization. In our case, those essential things are learning outcomes for kids, right? Outcomes for kids. And then 5% of what you have funds for should be spent on the things that just take you over the top in terms of customer service and ensuring that that people get this unbelievable experience in in your restaurants. An example they use in the book is the fact that they were a couple was running late uh with with their uh meal and the waiter noticed that they were worried about their parking meter outside and they went out and put $2 that the restaurant had given them the flexibility used money to go out and put in parking
124meters which is something using your 5% of funds on and guess what they went out and put money in the parking meter to make sure that they could order dessert and that's unreasonable hospitality >> right just like in our industry working to make easy the opt out process is unreasonable hospitality. Right? It's saying we honor the fact that parents are the people that primarily drive the education of their kids and so we want to be unreasonable unreasonably hospitable and trying to make the experience to the best of our ability while observing the 95% of things we have to get done that are core essential to the district the learning and academic outcomes for kids. We want to make sure that the parents get a great experience uh and the students get a great experience. So
125that's one of the reasons I Mr. Wang's read the book several times now I think at this point. Can do you want to highlight any that that come across to you Mr. Wang? >> I mean I think the thing that's fascinating about it it's not a program. So as Miss Jenny shared uh it's each department and each school that's going to define what unreasonable hospitality uh means to them. And you know, I think of um I like the quote about um going beyond what the obvious is. And so, you know, just using maybe a not so good example or one that transportation doesn't want me to to share, but you know, I think, hey, we need to smile and say good morning to students when they get on the bus. That's customer service. What about
126knowing our students name when they come on the bus and identifying them by the name? To me, that would be an example of unreasonable hospitality. you got to know the students who are on your bus more than just the good morning which is ne necessary too uh but just going beyond that um standard customer service and really uh putting a extended effort into it. >> Yeah, that's really good. Thank you. I just wanted a little bit more insight about the book. I obviously haven't haven't read it. Um but I really like that you picked something uh that was actually not related to education but that could give you a different customer service focus. And I think that's super important and when we have a, you know, in a competitive market for school choice, too. So,
127thank you, >> Bo Vincent. Couple of quick things. Um, with the instructional design, even though we're going to chunk it in uh essentially 8 week um increments, I'm assuming still it's backwards design. So, where do we want them to be in April, May? either one of you. >> I I assume they still have an end point, but now we're >> Well, I just want to I just want to make sure that I'm understanding your question because instructional design, the 8week chunk, eight nineweek chunk was from the continuous improvement process and understanding what our school goals and what steps we're going to take towards those goals. And it may be that a school has a goal around instructional design in eight weeks, where are we going to be on that? And then they >> Okay. Sorry,
128I merged it all together. >> Yep. So we still though are looking at the end point uh depending upon what their continuous improvement is. Um Mr. Dr. Vonberg, can we get a copy of how MESA defines MTSS as well? Because I know that is one of the buzzwords out in the general um population that um is concerning and a negative um oftentimes when they when um constituents hear MTSS, they believe it's completely social emotional learning and an invasion of you know, Mrs. Delator, I love your face. Um she's like But that is out in the ether, right? That there is a negative connotation of MTSS. I know personally u when I was at Washington and it was introduced, I didn't see a negative, but I so if we could get a copy of how it's
129um read through and I will have some other questions and I'll just throw them on the website. But um Mrs. Jenny, I the um unreasonable hospitality, your um all it takes for something extraordinary to happen is one person with enthusiasm. You need to make sure you find your woos on your campuses and your uh different departments because a woo can sell almost anything. >> Thank you. Thank you for your strengths. And I think the reason um hospitality is so important is you know Ben Shapiro is very famous for saying facts don't care about your feelings but the inverse is equally true. Feelings sometimes don't care about the facts. So if we can have people it's always been intriguing to me when when you look at school districts that have underperforming schools but their parents love
130their schools. >> Well that's clearly a their feeling is outweighing the fact that their campus is actually not meeting student outcome goals, right? So, it is important, especially as member Walden pointed out, we're in a competitive school market. Um, and right now because the EIT nonsense with those other nine districts, we have the opportunity to regain some of those high school students that we've lost. So um I will probably have questions uh added to the um but I really appreciated the uh presentation and I do think continuous improvement is we do it we should be doing it all the time right um and providing constructive con constructive uh criticism that says okay here's what you're doing great let's tweak this a bit because this is the this is where you need to be. So, thank
131you very much for all of your work. >> Thank you, board member Hutchinson. >> I want to thank all of you for the hard work that went into this. Um, it's very important work. Um, and board member Walden, I want to echo um your comment about the unique nature of each site. Um, and I I'm hoping that we by standardizing some things that we don't lose the sight of the identity of each of each campus and celebrating what's happening on each campus. Um, uh, celebrating accomplishments. Um, I'm thinking about we've had some alumni that have got gotten in the news recently and what that they should be celebrated as being products of Mesa Public Schools because what is the portrait of a graduate if it doesn't have a face? And um, so um, I really
132I really appreciate your comment on that. Um, and and I think we've got some two essential questions that we're trying to answer here. Why choose us and why stay with us? and and so if we can continually answer those two questions, um I think it's communication with kindness. Um and so I I'm I'm really loving that we we have we our stress is on continuous improvement, but it's with listening sessions. Um, and that with the with regional engagement, we will have outreach folks that will engage our our our our our parents, our staff, our our our kids. Um, and and that outcomes being displayed on the website, I think, is is incredibly important. But but this um aspect of what what kind of hospitality are we going to have? Unreasonable hospitality. I think that's communication
133with kindness. And let's face it, folks, um we've got a lot of families that are dealing with some real struggles. And um and to have a a a compassionate heart um in the front office. Um the th those bus drivers, they know those kids. They pick them up, they've been picking them up since they were in kindergarten, you know, and uh and sometimes kids graduate because they're the one constant adult in their life. So um we have people who are experts in this and and I really appreciate the aspect of communication because if people have input but with impact then it's really meaningful and they're not done to they're part of the solution. And so I would I I really appreciate um with gratitude, a thousand moments of gratitude and and I hope that that
134um one of the things that sticks out to me in the staff survey is meaningful recognition. Um, we need to do a better job of of recognizing the good works that happen every day in Mesa public schools because as my father-in-law said, kindness doesn't cost one red scent. So, let let let's let's let's work and I think this is a great way to start off the the new school year. >> Thank you. I know we're just out of about out of time. Um, just really quick, a couple comments. Um, I had heard from a couple sites on the truency issue about us hitting a a limit on what the city will handle and I don't know if there's and I don't know if you want to take the time or the city is willing to
135support us with it. What what will be really challenging for the city is if we wait until March, April, May to submit hundreds, thousands, they won't be able to handle that. So that is I would say a continuous improvement of looking at how do we always look at this data and recognize it earlier so we can address it earlier. So they are more than willing. We actually had a sit down meeting when some transitions happen just to get on the same page again because we just had multiple people leaving prosecutor left all sorts of stuff and that was something we talked about. They can't get flooded at the end of the year with a bunch of truency issues and then be expected to handle that. So, we really need to think about how we're doing
136it throughout. >> Got it. Totally understandable. That's great. And one of those other things to keep in our eightweek plan, you know, as we look at different things. So, awesome. Um, I appreciate that. And also one thing that has come up, we've addressed it quite a bit, talked at in our parent meetings at Westwood, but with the block instructional time when those athletes or extracurricular leaving for games or things making sure that we're not excusing them from the last hour or you know what we used to say the last hour is now 90 minutes. They don't necessarily need to leave that early. And so making sure we tweak that so those kids aren't missing so much time. My kids did not appreciate when I brought that up at school, but they got over it. Um
137but I you know as as they're leaving early for games you know and I would love AIA to push some start times back but um I know that there's been some discussion on some of those but just a thought as we look at things um making sure those kids we want them in school as long as they can before they have to leave um and piggybacking on board member Walden and Hudinson's on our culture and um I love the idea of more on our websites and I have loved watching a lot of our school social media pages and seeing what all the different schools do and how they highlight teachers and how they highlight students and different things. And so I love that. Um and I also appreciate the importance of with MTSS everyone being
138on the same page and as we go into these regionals how much I think that's going to help us. So I just want to um echo what the board members have said and how much we appreciate you and the effort that's being made to to in all these efforts. Um as we just continue to get better and I always think as a person I always want to continue to get better. I want to continue to learn and so how do I I do that and that's from watching and looking and and learning. So thank you for that. Um board members again if you have more questions as you go through the information there is a spreadsheet. So do I have a motion to adjurnn the meeting? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second?
139>> I'll second it. >> Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none. Miss Kirby will please take our vote. I love how Courtney never waiting that with a vote of five. Yes, the meeting is adjourned at 4:48 and we will be back in about 15 minutes. Thank you. No problem. Did he see me? Good evening. We will start this meeting. I call this meeting to order at 5:06. I apologize. We're a few minutes late. A quick reminder, any citizen who wishes to speak on an agenda item or call to the public must complete the sign-in sheet in the lobby prior to the public comment time on the board agenda this evening. The pledge of pledge of allegiance will be led by Mr. Justin Wing, chief of staff. Please stand. >> Good evening. Please join me in the
140pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance >> to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. We'll begin tonight with a video on governing board procedures and then I'll read a statement. >> Welcome to the Mesa Public Schools governing board meeting. We appreciate your interest in the district. The five elected governing board members serve without compensation and volunteer countless hours. The president and the clerk of the board are elected in January. Under state law, the governing board may only discuss and vote on matters that are on the agenda for tonight's meeting. Agendas are posted at minimum of 24 hours in advance on the Mesa Public Schools website and in the curriculum services center. Copies
141of tonight's agenda are located in the lobby. At every regular meeting, the public may speak on any item of business on the agenda that the board discusses or requires the board to take action. During the second regular meeting of each month, the agenda will include a call to the public. This is an opportunity to speak to the governing board about a school district matter that is not on the agenda. If you wish to comment on an agenda item or participate in the call to the public, please complete a request to address the board form before the designated time as public comment. The form is located in the lobby. The duration of public comment and call to the public is 15 minutes. Members of the public will be given a maximum of 3 minutes to speak
142once recognized by the governing board president. The president may set specific time limits for speakers and the duration to maximize the opportunity for individuals to offer their viewpoints. We ask that all speakers show respect and courtesy to others. Comments must pertain to the matter that is within the jurisdiction of the governing board. This is not an appropriate forum to complain about an employee, student, or others. State law prohibits board members from commenting on or discussing the matters presented at the end of the call to the public. The board may ask the superintendent to review the issue or place it in a future agenda. A board member may also briefly respond to criticism of a board member or the governing board. If you would like the board to consider adding an item to a future agenda,
143you may submit your request in writing and the governing board president and superintendent will consider your request. Thank you for your attendance and involvement in tonight's meeting and for allowing this meeting to be conducted in a peaceful and productive manner. >> This is an official governing board meeting. The board has important business to conduct that is is essential to the operation of the district. Everyone is welcome to express ideas or concerns to the board in accordance with the agenda. The poster in the boardroom describes positive behaviors expected and behaviors that cannot be tolerated. Please speak and act respectfully and actively listen. Be kind. Verbal harassment, abusive or foul language, intimidation and disruption have no place in a classroom or the boardroom. Please no side conversations or reactive comments, they can be disruptive. It is the
144governing board president's responsibility to maintain proper order so the board can conduct its business in an orderly and efficient manner. If you're disruptive or interfere with the conduct of this meeting, you'll be asked to leave so the board can conduct the business of the district. Dr. Strong, will you please review the governing board calendar with us? >> President Davis, uh July 1st, 2026. Uh I want the community and even our internal staff to know we're switching from board docs to go venity a board a new board software for the district. We've worked over the course of the last year uh to get everything integrated make sure our historical archives are stored within goity and we feel like we're ready to move into the goity air uh July 9th. Note that there will be only one
145meeting in July. It's going to be a regular meeting. governing board approves the budget at that meeting. Uh public hearing on adopted budget and truth and taxation will occur August 6th. We're back at it. It's the fun days ahead. First day of school August 6th, uh we're uh building up for a great welcoming of students back into the Mesa Public Schools environment. Uh where we want to know each kid by name, serve by strength, needing, get them ready for college, current community. August 13th, we have a board study session at 5 and regular meeting at 600. And August 28th, we have a study session at 5:00 and a regular meeting at 6:00 as well. That concludes the board calendar for the upcoming months. >> Thank you, Dr. Stum. And just to note, that July meeting
146is a summer start time, which is 5:00 PM. Um, this brings us to public comment. Um, before we begin public comment, just a quick reminder that policy 1-302 says that call the public is limited to issues within the jurisdiction of the board and is not appropriate for him for persons to complain about a specific employee, student, or other person. Miss Chaffy, do we have anyone signed up to speak? >> We do. We have three people who have signed up to speak tonight. >> Okay. Thank you. Um we have three speakers. Each person will have three minutes to speak and Mrs. Chappie will lead us through this agenda item. >> Absolutely. Um I will read our three speakers names if you'll come and line up on the side of the boardroom. We will start with Karen
147Koskanimi followed by Marcy Baronburgg and we will finish with Jason Smithson. if you'll come up and introduce yourself and how you're connected to the district and your time will start as soon as you start speaking. >> My name is Karen Koskini. Well done with the name. Um I taught with Gina Nunes at Jefferson last year for the EL students when we gave the Ozella test and we were uh originally told this would be our first night to present. So that's why I came just because we had told parents just in case anyone showed. I wanted to thank you board member Hutchinson for bringing up the fan family literacy program because that is a very strong component. Miss Nunes and I had created a list. Um I think what Mr. Hernandez went with was more campus
148related to everything that was going on which was a tremendous support to the students. Um the last two years of this job I was full-time once at one year at SUSA one year at Jefferson. The first three years I was a truly traveling itinerant. And I just the more I thought about our list, the more I thought about what I really wanted to bring up was and um we have we do feel supported at ELAD. We do feel ELAD supports us and that you support ELAD. But when I think about going back for the scheduling that I'm going to be required to do between two schools, the one thing I will say with the massive difference is um the staffing because I'm going from having two despite our huge numbers that we had there, it
149was manageable. She took the smaller groups of the emergent students and I was with the um intermediate students which 40 of my students passed the test which is appropriate when you consider how hard that test is. And that having her there helped me push those students along. And now I'm going back to where every time I present it to a new school, these both schools that I'm going to go to are new. It's telling them that by this date I am required to see every student on my case load for 60 minutes a day and two and a half hours of seven grade levels. Mathematical nightmare. So as much as I've always loved my kids and supported my kids and I'm still very close with my families of students that I've taught at I've been
150at multiple schools at MA schools in Mesa. The more I thought about our list and how wonderful it was and the more I thought about this fall and it's doable that the best co best possible scenario is to increase the staffing so that the teachers are not traveling because it restricts me at one school. I'm not able to meet with those the other staff members in person. You have to pick one school or the other for Wednesdays and stay with due to PD things like that. we've tried switching back and forth and you end up missing important things. So, um that was just when when they did ask us to think about what really did make that program successful, it was the kids who took the test. It was the kids who did all of
151the work that we pushed them through, but we couldn't have done it. when I think about the first three years I had where I was so incredibly restricted with my time with them because two and a half hours a day including lunch special trips things like that it makes a huge difference. So I wanted to thank you again for that family literacy program the tutoring program. >> Good evening and thank you for giving me a few minutes to speak today. My name is Marcy Baronberg and I'm the mother of a child who is deaf in the district. I would like to take a few minutes to talk about the things that we have experienced this past school year. We've had to have five formal meetings, some of which included informal postmeating discussions to ensure we
152were all on the same page for the next meeting. The final IEP meeting of the year was May 18th. It was long and a lot of adjustments were made. Rather than sending another draft, the team re for the team to review, the case manager published the finalized IEP and PWN that did not follow the discussion of the meeting. Both the district and I recorded the meeting. It is now recommended that we do another IEP meeting rather than just fixing the errors that were produced in the final draft. This is expensive and timeconuming for all parties. Uh the team decided my son would promote from junior high to high school this fall despite my husband and I having reservations and suggesting retention. It seems like the school was quick to wrap up the IEP rather than
153focusing on accuracy because they knew that next year this is someone else's problem. One of the expectations listed on the district's own IEP agenda is that team members should assume positive intent. While I agree with the the principle, it becomes increasingly difficult when parents wait long unreasonable timelines for responses and corrections, when commitments are not followed through, and when the documents do not accurately reflect what occurred during the meetings. When communicating with the district level personnel, I find that I'm often waiting a minimum of a week between email responses. Most recently, I sent an email on June 12th responding immediately to an email that thanked me for my patience. This was an ongoing discussion, and my email required a response from the district. I have yet to receive anything, and tomorrow is two weeks. I'd
154like to know what the district's expected um standards are for returning emails because I've never worked in a per profession where two weeks was acceptable. It's also disrespectful for this person to thank me for my patience and then continue to ignore the ongoing conversation. I am tired. I am tired of being patient. I'm tired of endless meetings. I'm tired of fixing the mistakes. Most of all, I am tired because these issues take time and energy from what should be the focus, the education of the kids. My son deserves better and all of the sped kids in the district deserve better. I do believe that the district is trying to exhaust me and please understand that my commitment to his education is my highest priority and I will not give up. My son has four to
155five more years remaining at Mesa Public Schools. I would prefer for them to be collaborative rather than combative. I want that to be able to assume positive intent. But this requires accountability, accuracy, responsiveness, and follow-through. It requires that the district live up to its promise that every student is known by name, served by strength and need, and graduates ready for college, career, and community. Finally, I do want to thank Courtney Davis. She was instrumental um in helping me get conversations going when I was getting no response from the school or from the district personnel. I absolutely appreciate that. Last month, I was troubled by some of the comments made regarding public participation in the role of public comment. Tonight, I'd like to share why public comment is not simply about airing grievances. It is often
156the last avenue available. Approximately 6 months ago, after speaking at one of these meetings, I received a a blocked call threatening to rape and kill my son if I did not withdraw from the schoolboard race. While I believed it was likely an empty threat, I took it seriously enough to notify district leadership, my son's principal, and his teachers so they could keep an eye on him. I received no response from the district. I then reached out to members of this board, and only two responded. Over the past several months, I have learned educators and staff have been harassed and threatened by certain executive directors all to find out where I am getting information from. One executive director has even attempted to intimidate me and my son has also been targeted. Dr. Stum, I don't know
157if you're aware of this, but it needs to stop. I will tell you the staff being questioned are not where the information is coming from. I have attempted to handle this matter privately with yourself and Casey King, but Casey kept trying to pass me along, not taking my concerns seriously. I can handle criticism directed at me, but when my son and others become collateral damage, that's where I draw the line. When board members suggest that people should not use public meetings to complain about employees or district actions, or that the real point of public comment isn't to air grievances because there's followup that the public doesn't see. It ignores the experience of many parents, educators, and community members. When communication is ignored behind the scenes, people inevitably bring their concerns into the public. Public comment
158is not the first choice. It is often the last. Board member Walden, last month you stated, "This is our meeting. It's allowed to be viewed by the public, but it's not a public meeting." With respect, I disagree. These meetings be belong to the people of Mesa. You were elected by this community to conduct the public's business. While the board certainly has important work to accomplish, these meetings exist to ensure government remains transparent, accountable, and accessible to the citizens you represent. We also heard concerns that allowing every speaker 3 minutes on agenda items would make meetings unreasonably long. My experience attending Mesa City Council meetings suggest otherwise. Anyone wishing to speak on an agenda item receives a full 3 minutes. Most agenda items have few or no speakers. Only on rare occasion, perhaps once or twice
159a year, does a significant public issue draw dozens of speakers. At the same time, Mesa City Council limits general public comment to three speakers, balancing efficiency with meaningful public participation. I believe that model deserves serious consideration. I respectfully ask the board to allow every individual who wishes to speak on an agenda item the full three minutes provided by policy while limiting general public comment to three speakers if necessary to manage meeting length. It is one of the board's most important responsibilities to listen to stakeholders. It's not an inconvenience. The best decisions are made when the people most affected have a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Thank you, >> President Davis. That concludes our public comment for tonight. >> Thank you. Move into review of the consent agenda. All items on the consent agenda are approved
160with one vote with no discussion. If a board member would like to pull a consent agenda item, please do so now. >> Thank you, board members. Personnel, do I have a motion to approve the personnel request, including the addendum? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five, yes, you've approved the personnel request, including the addendum. Down to consent. All items will be considered as a group and will be approved with one motion. If a board member would like to spotlight or comment on a consent agenda item, please do so after the vote. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda according to the recommended action for each item? >>
161So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Seconded. >> Thank you. Miss Kirby, would you please take our vote? With a vote of five years, we have approved the consent agenda items according to the recommended action for each item. Down to action items. Do I have a motion to approve the proposed fiscal year 2026 27 budget? So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Mr. Moore, do you have a presentation you would like to share with us? >> I do. President Davidson, members of the board, uh tonight uh before you this action item is our proposed budget and I have a brief presentation to talk about the proposed budget in front of you. So why do school districts prepare proposed budget? Uh in short terms, this is required
162by law and this process of a proposed and then adopted process uh budget uh gives our public and our community opportunity for input and transparency into what the district is proposing and uh ultimately adopting for the fiscal year. Uh the purpose again uh to give the public opportunity to see how the district research are being used uh before final decisions are made. uh to highlight some of the K12 budget highlights um that were approved by the legislature on Saturday at 4:45 a.m. in a uh long 24-hour session um was not a lot of change in in short. So K12 relatively remained untouched um in this process. Uh and a lot of the um K12 uh initiatives that are being uh included in this proposed budget are included. Uh we did not have a time uh
163to switch to the uh final budget forms. We are adop proposing and adopting on preliminary budget forms. Uh because at the time the legislature approved the budget, the attorney general did not turn around final forms in in time for us to uh put the uh K12 budget on those forms. Um ultimately we will adopt you when we do our next revision, we will um move to those final forms. In short, um we did capture again a lot of the one-time initiatives that were discussed and approved by the legislature uh with the exception of one which I'll highlight later in this proposed budget. The pre preliminary budget forms did already include several assumptions that were um going to be approved by the legislature and were ultimately approved, including the 2% increase to the base level support.
164So, this is our uh main multiplier in the budget formula. though it's going uh an increase in 2% from $5,11326 to $5,2153. There was also an increase in the classroom site fund which is calculated by the uh JBL um and they already had that number calculated. So that is increasing from $842 and that is going to $883. So those assumptions we already calculated and captured into this proposed budget. Just reminding the board on the general uh timeline of the the budget process for fiscal 27. A lot of this work uh we have already been putting in front of you and and working through uh this fis this prior fiscal year. As you know, the maintenance and operations budget that is on current year funding. And so it is imperative for districts to get ahead of
165the curve and plan um well ahead uh before getting to tonight and ultimately our adoption. So again tonight we're proposing and then we'll uh formally adopt at the next meeting in December. Uh we will bring back a revision. Again we'll reconcile to how ADM numbers are are um trending. Um, and again, we are assuming because we have to operate on courier funding, uh, a 2400 student decline, and I'll touch on that in a little bit. Uh, but we get opportunities to revise this budget again throughout the calendar year. And then ultimately in May, we'll do our final revisions. So again, through this budget, this process started long before we got here tonight. and the board has been brought along this whole process uh starting in fall where we reviewed enrollment forecast. Uh we did uh
166projections and budget reduction strategies that we've identified going into this year. So everything we talked about in terms of staffing adjustments uh based on enrollment projections, those are all captured in this FY27 proposed budget including the organizational redesign, our stipen review and standardization and ongoing expenditure monitoring which includes our ZBB or zerobased budgeting process uh that we do uh internally. So again, the district has aggressively been proactively um proactively addressing our financial challenges with our enrollment decline ahead of this proposed budget tonight. Um again, this is not the beginning of the process. This is the result of months of planning, forecasting, and difficult decisions to ensure we have financial stability going into fiscal year 27. So again, just a reminder, the the large portion of the budget formula in Arizona school finance is based on
167enrollment, average daily membership. And again, with current year funding, we have to kind of predict where enrollment's going prior to proposing and adopting a budget for the fiscal year. So again, this was the pro enrollment projections that we present to the board in December and I believe January. And again, it projects a 2400. This is actually 23.99 100 uh uh student decline which is included in the budget forms in the proposed budget tonight. So what does that mean in terms of dollars? Again, you've seen this uh slide before. Uh we did a pretty good job of uh projecting what the um impact would be with that 2400 student decline. And that's basically that first line there. So the revenue control limit is the formula that the state provides us uh to calculate our budget limit.
168Uh and that budget limit again with uh 2400 student decline that we're projecting for next year indicates 11 million 11.3 million uh impact uh to that revenue control limit which is the formula. That student decline also affects our M override and you can see the impact there of a million dollars. our carry forward. Uh we're taking some uh kind of assumptions here because we are not at the end of the year, but we're uh trying to hold that flat again to be conservative in nature and have the flexibility if things come up in the year. Our DSAG dropout programs and tuition um those are all um kind of standard uh add-ons that Mesa Public Schools has been um including in their budget uh for for several years. the state aid onetime supplemental. This is the
169Prop 123 uh conversation. This did not get uh through the legislative cycle and so the state will still be obligated to fund this from the state budget. Uh and it'll probably be another conversation piece in the next legislative cycle to try to push this back to the state trust land. Um but they they are still um obligated to uh fund that and that uh is now called state aid. Uh but that was the former Prop 123. The one item we did not uh get on u was the free and reduce supplemental that did get final approved at the K12 budget limit. So we do get to add this back in uh at our next revision. Um but for tonight's purpose in the forms that we were preparing up until tonight um it was not on
170there and so we are going to propose and adopt without this supplemental but just know we get to add this back on at our first revision in December. So it does give us another buffer uh and a little uh conservative nature going into next year in case enrollment goes one way or the other. So in total uh the impact again that we've been projecting and uh are finally proposing is 13 million $1 13.7 million deficit again largely around our enrollment decline. But again, as we've presented, uh we have prepared and made the necessary reductions to our budget um to capture this uh budget decline uh and be ready for next fiscal year uh to operate within our budget limit. Transitioning to capital or DAA, this operates on a prior year uh funding limit. So the
171ADM is on prior year. Uh I wish M was still on this prior year. It would allow us to better plan. Um but that is the main difference between CA M and capital. Capital does allow us to capture interest earnings uh to be added back into budget capacity. And there's actually some conversation about this in several legislative bills about having M also have this capacity. So uh maybe in this next legislative session that will continue to have uh be be a conversation piece. Uh and then with capital uh this is really our only funding source right now as the bond pre our previous bond from 2018 has expired. And so um you can see the financial implications here. This funding source this budget capacity is actually going down. Our care for it is flat at
172this point in time but we anticipate going into next year uh that is going to be utilized. Um again this is our only funding our capital funding source at this point in time. With using more money, we anticipate less interest revenue uh because our balance will be going down. The DA allocation is the formula for capital. So again, it operates on a prior year formula, but it's the same conversation as M with enrollment decline. Um our budget capac budget capacity also declines. Again, it's formula controlled. Um so that anticipated decline at 1.4 million to the capital budget. So our total annual capital budget will be 28 million. uh from the state allocation. And then the onetime supplemental, this one we did also capture. It was it was final approved in the K12 budget during the
173legislative cycle. Uh and that's uh due to enrollment will be anticipated to be lower than last year. So we can see our capital budget uh will be declining um 1.8 million to $62.7 million for fiscal year 27. Lastly, during this process of proposing and adopting um the board, Arizona law does allow the governing board uh to levy uh property taxes for eligible improvements via an adjacent ways levy. Uh we've utilized this last year. Uh and I do have some highlights of some of the projects we've accomplished and some of the pro proposed projects with this additional levy for fiscal 27. Um adjacent waste fundings uh can only be used for infrastructure projects again based on the state law and cannot be used for operating expenses such as salaries. So this money strictly uh will be
174spent and is monitored by the school facilities division on the eligible items of improving public streets, sidewalks, uh rightaways, traffic controls, and access points to adjacent schools. Uh this is part of our long range infrastructure planning and needs that we've identified and continue to identify uh needs in this area. Just to highlight some of the the projects that we've accomplished this year. Um I want to give kudos to our um video and communications team. We've done I think a lot better of documenting our projects or before and afters um ensuring uh that we're capturing some of the work that we're doing on an everyday basis with our teams. And so this is an example of Westwood. Um and you can see uh several of the um improvements here. Again, a lot of this is redoing
175the asphalt, fixing cracks, repairs, but also if you you can really see the fire lanes emphasized. Um you can see the curbs again emphasized again providing ensuring the public knows uh where areas not to park to ensure public safety. Um looking ahead, we have identified um in order several uh more projects to continue and we do have a fire alarm going on in the adjacent building. Um so at these projects again uh continue our uh efforts uh to improve our public public rightways uh and um improve those areas with regards to uh the adjacent ways. I'm not going to highlight each one of these but you can see the proposed project and dollar amount. Uh if you wanted more information we'd be happy to provide some of that. Dr. Stum >> Mr. more I want
176to emphasize with the public uh adjacent ways only can be used and has to be approved through the school's facilities division for certain areas of a parking lot. We're highlighting the whole parking lot there because we strategically when we're doing an adjacent waste project since we're already going to have a contractor contractor firm out you've already mobilized. So why are we going to pay double mobilization cost to have them fix the fire lane and then come out and do the parking lot? We save money by being efficient. So the way we end up pairing this is you get the adjacent ways dollars to do the portion of the project that is legally allowed and then you take capital dollars and you do the rest of the project and you only pay one mobilization cost hence
177saving the district dollars on having to mobilize multiple times. I just that's a something that the general public may not understand and how we handle ourselves efficiently to get projects done and combine funds from several resources so that we don't have to pay contractors twice and three times to get out and do multiple projects. So moving to the the tax impact and understanding the tax impact. So what this adjacent ws levy would create is a onetime tax of approximately 11 cents per $100,000 of assessed value. Um despite the proposed adjacent ws levy, the district's overall tax rate continues to decline because of assessed valuations continuing to grow. Um our district again is about 75% residential. Um and so residential again assessed values continue to grow as well. Uh declining debt service tax rate and changes
178in assess valuation again offset this impact. Uh again 27 presents another opportunity to address the long-term infrastructure needs while minimizing the impact on tax uh payers. So looking at the tax table you can see our primary tax rate from 26 to 27 uh is is roughly flat 0.0053. Remember this primary tax rate would also in it also includes um the 9 cent tax levy for the onetime cash shortage um that the board approved at a previous meeting. And so again, there's two one-time um taxes in this FY27 estimated tax uh totaling approximately 20 cents per $100,000 assess value. So our tax rate going into 28 would even decrease even more. the adjacent ways levy we broke that out separate but that is included in the primary tax rate so I try to emphasize that by
179italicizing that um but that is not in addition if you're adding up down um and again that levy is is less than last year again because assess valuation is going even though we're leving the same dollar amount uh it costs our taxers less to levy that dollar amount the secondary tax rate again that's our bonds or overrides um that is going down as we pay down bond debt and again as our override formula is calculated with enrollment decline. Um those that tax inflation uh get is goes goes down. So you can see our total tax rate is down almost as approximately 9 cents per $100,000 of assessed value and that's estimated. There's a lot of um factors actually the county marob county superintendent's office finalizes um the assessed valuations and that final tax rate. This
180is our best guess and we're typically really close to that final tax rate taxpayers would see. And so just closing here um this proposed budget reflects a balance between meeting today's needs and planning responsibility for the future. Again, we've um over the past several months um carefully evaluated enrollment trends, operational needs, long-term infrastructure priorities, and we've made those decisions and brought the board along throughout the fall and spring to come to today uh with a balanced conservative budget uh for next fiscal year. Uh and as state funding, enrollment, economic conditions continue to evolve, uh we'll remain committed to transparenc. Again, we are already planning for fiscal 28 to continue our cadence of getting ahead of the curve and uh allowing time for the board to provide input into decisions regarding the budget uh well ahead
181of us getting to today where we're actually proposing and adopting on the form. So, with that, I'm happy to take any questions. >> Thank you, Mr. Moore. I will start with board member Hudson and we'll work around around the dice. >> Thank you, President Davis. Um, Mr. Moira, you you mentioned that um with this legislature um closing on June 13th at 4:45 a.m. um that K12 was relatively untouched, but um we have no renewal of Prop 123. There's no new investments in education and there were no reforms made to the billion dollar ESA voucher system. Um hence, um districts are given the ability to um levy adjacent ways. Um and you have a a detailed list here of of sites um of the many different locations in the district um and the approximation of how
182much the project will cost. So my question is how were these sites determined? Because um having been the district as long as I have um it's often said the squeaky wheel got the oil and so I want to make sure that that there were some um um judicious decisions made. >> Yeah. member Hinington. Uh these projects were determined by a group of people and uh our project managers um in our construction team have assessed our entire district. We've evaluated these projects based on need, not not want or the squeaky wheel. Um and so we have a validation process in which we um rank score these based on need and that's how this list is determined. So uh we've worked through a number of our our highest needs. this is the next um uh cadence basically
183of projects. Um and so again we have a a team that evaluates these and uh they prioritize these in rank order by need. >> Appreciate the explanation. Thank you. >> Board member Benson. >> U Mr. more for clarity sake when you say that the um the overall tax rate is going uh per taxpayer is going down because did I hear you correctly say that the valuation of property is going up therefore the impact is lower is that what I heard >> yeah member Benson there's a combination of things that impact a tax rate the assessed valuation right is is a big one and so as property values go up we need less um you need to tax the residential tax owner less to acrew the same dollar amount >> per hundred,000. Perund,000. Yeah, that's >>
184I just wanted to make sure I >> that's what I thought I heard you say. I just wanted to make sure for clarity sake. And then can you just um the the dollar amount for um M is affected by ADM which is average daily membership. that is does not uh actually directly correlate to actual enrollment. Correct. Because it's the numerator denominator thing. >> That's correct. >> Which is why one of the reasons why attendance is so important. >> Oh, that that's that would have been back in an older system, the 80s and 90s in Arizona, attendance did end up being affect funding and uh you could get audited on attendance back in in that era. Now it's just enrollment. So if a kid out of the first 100 days, if a kid shows up with
185us for 30 days only, we get.3 ADM. Out of the first 100 days, if the kid shows up with us for all 100 days, we get one ADM. And so it's just enrollment. How many kids do you how many days do you have that kid enrolled? Then there's these other things called BW weights on top of it, which convolute the situation even more. Uh, and BW weightights are specialized weights you get for kids in certain situations, including you get a different weight for high school kids than you do for kindergarten kids, and you get a different weight for a kid who needs autism services versus a kid who needs uh services for slightly learning uh disabled, what the SLD category is called. So, uh, anyways, there's a whole convolution of weights in there as well
186that then account for another ADM factor, but attendance is not part of how we get funded. >> Okay, so it's uh let's say the first 100 days because why pay education for the full 180 days that we have students seated in our classrooms? I don't know. Uh, so 100 days, uh, I don't enroll my child until October, I don't know, 31st. That's the affected ADM. It's not I'm enrolled October 31st through whatever the hundth day is. Um, and I'm absent 10% of that. Doesn't matter as long as they're enrolled >> in our district. Okay. >> Except except for there is a rule and we have to follow it because we do get audited on this. If a kid doesn't show up for 10 days in a row, we have to actually withdraw the kid because
187then the state's not going to pay us at that point for a kid being uh absent. and we don't know where they're at. If they're absent and we know where they're at, that's a different story. But if they're absent, we don't know where they're at, then we're expected by the AD to withdraw them and we don't get funding at that point. >> Okay. No, I knew that. I needed that piece as well. So, it is frustrating when we're on current year for uh M uh but we're postyear. So um for D uh DDA uh we can assume then next year our capital uh if a bond does not pass is going to be reduced based on what our current ADM for this fiscal year is. Is that accurate? >> Yeah, that's correct. >> Uh and
188I I thought I also heard you say the we did get the free reduced >> No, is that right? Did that get funded or no? >> The legislature did approve it in the in the >> bill. We have an additional two million back in our budget >> the next revision. >> Okay. And um I the only I I just want to make um comment on I do really appreciate the conservative nature by which our budgets are put together because we don't then um I I think it is easier to shift gears if our um enrollment actually increases next year versus declining where other districts might have an if they haven't budgeted fiscally conservatively, they're having to figure out, wait a minute, how do I pay for this? Where we uh are anticipating hopefully a larger
189loss than we're actually going to hopefully and I well what I mean by that is hopefully we're expecting a larger loss than we will actually get because it's a a pretty substantial number in the last two years. It's almost 5,000 students. So, I am hoping that we are really fiscally conservatively saying just in case because it is easier to move uh back to additional enrollment than it is to have a steeper decline than we anticipate. Correct. >> Yeah. Well, uh, yes, member Benson, when I first got to this district in 2223, we knew and understood that we were likely to decline in that year for 2324 by,600 kids. We knew that uh with with some variability 300 kids, right? So maybe 1300 to,900. We proposed in the budget this process that we were going to
190decline by 700 kids. The reason at that time we were able to do that is because we had a larger carry forward balance. So now what has happened to our carry forward is our M carry forward balance has been trimmed down a little bit not to point of emergency but been trimmed down a little bit. As your carry forward goes down, you've got to get more conservative with your enrollment projections that you build into the budget. And so it's not we're not in the position we were four years ago where you you know you're probably likely to decline by 1600 kids, but you put 700 kids into the budget and you can deal with the 900 extra uh if it ends up happening and coming to fruition. Now we're in a little different position. We
191got to take the higher number, right? We didn't take I mean there there are models that say we're going to decline by 3,3100 kids. We didn't take the highest number, but we also now didn't take the lowest number if that makes sense to you. And so we're tending trending towards the high the mid high range and hoping we come in better in enrollment and then we can add money back into the budget. So does that all that all is kind of >> well and I think that's the purpose of us being um conservative this this and and maybe aiming towards a higher number versus a lower number. It's by far easier to add staff than it is to cut staff midway through the year because our enrollments decline more. Um, so I will probably have
192more uh to uh add. I do um I would like to see perhaps a this is we have a a detailed budget, but it's not a uh like fine-tuned where are we actually spending money on uh in in its entirety. Um so I'll probably have questions about that later, but for now I just want to kudos. It's it's it's a difficult situation we're in. Um, and I do think I think other districts have not taken as conservative approach and therefore uh have had more turmoil within their staffing models than we do because we typically take a more conservative approach to u managing our money. So in our own with that I will pass it on to member W. >> Thank you. So um Mr. Mr. Moore, I just have a quick question. Um, going back
193to 123. So, I understand, you know, during the recession that the state cut base level funding for education even though the constitution of the state says that they have to increase it by one or 2% one or 2% or inflation, whichever is greater. And um, so that was a a shortage that the budgets got until the lawsuit was done. And then Prop 123 was passed to make the districts whole. So, but you said that they're going to they continue to fund that into did you say additional assistance? What what did you call that? >> The state aid. >> Yeah, they're calling it state aid on the budget forms. Um but essentially it's one two three. So does that continue because by creating that shortage in reducing base level funding, it's never really been holden because
194as it increases every year, it's based off of an amount that was previously short changed. Is that why that there's like use of the money that continues and goes into that fund? Cuz I thought so like 123 would would backfill the districts, but then if that money's continuing, I'm guess I'm trying to figure out like why does the the money continue in that way? And is it just because it created a a a permanent short change for the districts? >> Let me try to give you my two maybe Dr. Sh can add into u but the prop 123 when that was it was approved in a 10-year um I don't know if it was law or like voter approved. It was vote yeah to be funded from the state trust land. Once that expired there,
195again, this is when all the conversation happened about disagreement on what to put back into the street or what proposal to put back in. And so, but that is in law until 2042, I believe. Um, and so they're still obligated to fund that. So, the funding sources right now is the biggest um conversation and they want to put it back into state trust land, but that expired after that 10-year window. So I think by law but until 2042 they're required to still fund this and right now this the only other funding source is the state bud the state budget. >> I see. So the the shortage the lawsuit from the lawsuit the shortage continues or they won't be made whole until 2042 from the cutting of the budget. But the funding it from state land
196trust earnings was only for 10 years. >> Correct. >> But they have to pay it until 2042. Is that right? >> No, I they they basically have legislatively extended it for the next set of periods. They still we still have several other factors at play, including the Arizona Capital lawsuit uh brought forth by uh the Glendale Elementary School District and several other school districts that the state legislature is going to have to figure out probably they're going to appeal, but probably how to backfill funding uh through 2040 uh through through sorry through billions of dollars worth of capital dollars that were shorted to us in the great recession. Uh so uh I I I think what they're trying to figure out now is a solution set uh to to to how to get districts whole
197uh with funds uh that may not necessarily require voter approval uh and and be uh approved through the Arizona State Land Trust. now uh using Arizona State Land Trust money uh so that Prop 123 funding can continue. But I my understanding is not that uh the 2042 timeline is the timeline to make us whole from all the prior years. It's that there's a lot of people that hope that the funding continues and they're trying to find solution sets for the funding continue be beyond the legislative extension. This Prop 123 ran out in 2025 and so the legislative extension now is the mechanism of backfilling the general fund. And now they're trying to say like how do we use state land trust money in order to continue this on for forever uh uh essentially and ensure
198that uh districts remain with the current funding that they have and they just haven't come to a resolution on uh at the legislature on how they're going to do that. Uh and and then there's the interaction. Do they really want to take an initiative back to the ballot again or do they want to try to solve it legislatively? And I think there's a strong desire to solve it legisl legislatively as opposed to uh solving it through uh some sort of resolution. >> Yeah. Okay. So, that's what I was trying to figure out is the the part that for the lawsuit that's done. I know there's another one that's that's been appealed. Um but that funding does does continue and it's just not coming out of the earnings from the state land trust. And and when
199people hear state land too, I think it's important to remind people or maybe people don't understand that there's parcels of state land that are designated for education. They can only be used for education. So it's not education trying to take more money and take from another bucket. It's before the state was set up. This was how the Arizonans at the time said this is how we're going to fund education. And so the proceeds from selling or leasing land is supposed to benefit education, but it's not. Right now, it's there's billions in surplus that could be used for education, but my understanding is just kind of sitting there with the treasur's office. It's not the treasur's decision, but it's just sitting there. >> Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. >> And I want to correct myself that I
200was confusing myself with Prop 301, which is a classroom, which is extended to 2042. So, >> yeah. Okay, >> I would correct myself there, but >> that's that that's where I was getting confused. Prop 123 has an annual solution right now of the general fund being used to backfill the 123 money and they're annually needing to bring that back for conversation and they're trying to get to a long-term solution. I think they want to get to it legislatively and not through a through another proposition. Um, but it's not it's not got a sunset of time. It's money that K12 gets and they're trying to find solutions to continue to have K12 get it for for for a while. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, board member Chaffy. >> Note my sarcasm. You can
201see that education funding is exactly the same as your household or your business budget. Um, I appreciate my board, my fellow board members talking about the fact that we really do strive to reflect the values of our our community by having a a fiscally conservative budget. U Mr. Moore, in your opinion, do you think that this upcoming year is kind of a a unique opportunity to be able to um have this adjacent ways levy because of the declining amount in the taxes? >> Yeah, I do. I think that's one reason. I also think um with no bond funds, you know, our our construction team uh would be eager to uh have some uh funding sources to uh continue to improve and and enhance our district. Uh again, this funding source is a unique opportunity for
202the board uh to improve um and give us that opportunity. >> Thank you. And I think this is in alignment also with what we heard from our community and from us as a board that we really want to make sure that our school sites are safe and that this leans into that that vision of making sure that our safe our schools are safe for people to come in and out of. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moore. I um appreciate the information that we've been shared with us over and over. I don't feel like anything is catching us off guard like we've been fully aware of what what it looks like for our budget and um appreciate the information that's been shared tonight and the questions from board members. So that being said, any other
203questions before we go for a vote? Okay, Miss Kirby, I think we're ready for a vote. With a vote of five, yes, you have approved the proposed fiscal year 202627 budget. Do I have a motion to approve the 2026-27 pay for performance plan and guidelines? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Mr. Wing, will you share your presentation with us? I think Mr. Moore was jumping ahead on Proposition 301 to this uh presentation. >> I want to say 20201 voters approved Proposition 301 which uh provided uh performance pay opportunities uh for for eligible staff. uh this is through ARS in which case the governing board must adopt uh performance pay uh on an annual basis. In addition, it permits the governing board to make some changes uh to
204the paper for performance plans. uh for this year are the year we're going into uh it should be shared that uh we have uh made contact with our four employee associations MEA the max group ma massa and mespa and collectively we agree to continue with our current pay for performance model that model includes uh two components really in a nutshell it's for all of us individually and as a group or a team to get better. So we have two different goals, two different types. We have a performance pay, excuse me, a performance goal. Each uh employee will set a goal really looking at data to improve some of our results. Um while it's each employee, it could be a collaborative work as well. Then we have a work product goal, a little bit different where
205they're seeking an area to improve typically a new or different approach than what we're currently uh handling for. So I thought about maybe some examples looking back at the study session where uh staff and meaningful recognition that could be a performance goal where a department looks at how can we improve those results on providing meaningful recognition to our staff. Work product goal could be that unreasonable hospitality where it's new to the district a new strategy uh that we're going to be implementing uh etc. So just give an example of both. uh we do apply the smart goal op method uh when we determine our goal and there's just a little bit of differences I need to share with you as far as the uh uh the pay distribution uh depending on the work group you're
206at uh teachers must have a component uh a minimum of 20% from their evaluation results whereas the other employee groups are not required Actually, they're not required to have pay for performance. Mesa public schools does provide or has for I think since early 2000s, but I could be mistaken on that. Uh so, um so for the other employee groups, the other certified personnel administrators and classified is strictly based on that performance goal and that work product goal. Uh we do have um an evaluation system, an online system where employees by a certain date in September has to complete their goals. They have a in December a mid-year progress report and the end of the year um update uh regarding that performance goal and that work product goal. And then here's some timelines for next year.
207kind of already alluded to that as well, but what's not included is a midyear December timeline. With that, if I'm open to any questions. >> Thank you, Mr. Wing. And we will start with Mrs. Chaffy. >> I don't have any questions. Um I think just my guidance going forward is that I'd love to see more of this funding go into our staff base pay. I think that that is always a good move when we can make it. Um, and I'd love to maybe re-evaluate moving forward how we use pay for performance in the role of administrators and whether that is something we need at this time in public schools or not. >> Thank you, board member Walden. >> Yeah, I I agree. I think that's something to look at. And so, in in previous years,
208this this is my fourth year, and what we've heard from staff is just don't don't change anything. we're fine with with the way that it's set up. Is is that what we're hearing this year, too? Or are people asking us to just kind of leave it the same for now? I think it's not really about we don't want change. I think it's more about the district as a whole has been um under some change. Our organizational redesign being, you know, one example. And so, we can't change everything every year. And I think that was more of the um the primary reason of keeping it status quo and focusing on that performance goal and that work product goal. >> Yeah. And that that that's what I was getting at too. I mean because we have we
209we have undergone a lot of a lot of change and this was something that as I recall like in previous years had sort of been you know requested. It just the employees are they're okay with with the with this goal and the requirements of it. Um, I think it would be at this point like it's not something we need to change this year, but I think next year something to look at this year for the next school year, right? Um, taking into consideration what, you know, we're going to probably hear tonight from other board members, but some feedback. You know, we've let it let it kind of ride for a while, but I think going we're going into that territory now where it's going to be a good time to evaluate it. And then with
210this, because this was, you know, under under the state that required this, we put because it's a thousand dollars, but in some districts is higher because we put a lot of that funding into teacher pay into into salaries. Correct. >> That is correct. >> And that that was an option that the district had on how we wanted to to fund this. And we were trying to bump up pay. And I know we were one of the few districts, I wasn't on the board at the time, but Mesa was one of the few districts that gave the full uh 20 by 20 plan too and gave the 20% raises. So it made sense to me in trying to, you know, bump up pay that the pay for performance wouldn't be as high as in in other
211districts. Uh so so I think um that was a good move. Uh I'm I'm not interested in like I think it's too late anyway, right? But in in making changes right now, I think it's been good to let it ride for sure. But uh we look forward to seeing what you come up with this year and evaluating how we uh how we apply it to teachers, if we include administrators or not in that process. It's definitely something to look at. So I guess I don't have any questions. That wasn't really a question. Uh, thank you. >> Thank you, board member Benson. >> Um, I just want to echo member Chaffy's comments on um evaluating whether or not uh a majority uh we really should be focused on providing pay for performance for our classroom teachers
212that day in day out do the work of educating our students. the um 301 money classroom site fund can only go to teachers. Correct. >> Teachers and then some other certified personnel. >> It was expanded uh four years ago by the legislature to include any person that's under the function code 1900 which is still instruction but it's not necessarily teachers instruction. It's also instructional support. So anybody in the,900 categories are included in pay for performance >> which will mean nothing to anybody else but okay I I I mean people facing kids every day are the that is who classroom site fund was >> that's a good way to put it. So a 1900 person's like an in maybe maybe an instructional uh professional that is not necessarily the teacher of record but helping out in
213the classroom every single day and they qualify because they're underneath the function code 1900. Correct. That's a good way to put it. >> Um, so Mesa has made a commitment when we add um classified and we add in administrators and that's coming out of M&L. It's not coming out of 301 money. So that is another thing for us to consider. Um, I think we need to be able to um recognize our classified people. I I would not be on board of eliminating a pay for performance for them. They uh our classified people in particular they they serve a vital function on our campuses as well. They cannot are a teacher can't do what they can do without classified staff. Uh I do I would like to see the pay for performance um altered and changed
214so that it is more focused on student outcomes. The performant performance goal pardon me. uh it does say it's got to be a goal for improving uh district goals which should be student outcome oriented. The challenge with that is that we don't oftentimes get our student achievement data until after pay for performance is due into a system. So I think that also has to be taken into consideration. I do appreciate that with massive change we don't want to have one more thing to change. However, there aren't many things changing next year. So, I think that next year is a good year to re-evaluate. And actually, when Joe O'Reilly was on the board, he made a comment um our pay for per performance should be based on performance. We should it should be uh an incentive
215to teachers to uh go sometimes go above and beyond. Sometimes that is a motivator to people that uh I hey I'm really really going to do X Y and Z. I don't know. Uh but he was concerned um that essentially everybody got a pay for performance bonus when our student outcomes were not where they need to be. So, I would like to see that incorporated as well next year to really look at let's make this I I'm pretty sure 301 money the in the the whole um purpose of it was to really motivate teachers to get students learning and doing whatever is necessary especially in some of those harder schools. Right? So, I would like to get to the core of what pay for performance is supposed to do. So with that, >> thank you
216board member Hutchinson. >> Um I I'm I'm glad that we are sticking with the pay for performance um plan that we have now because there's the district has gone through an enormous amount of change this year and they've got to implement the change next year. Um when whether it's instruction, I mean just think of all the things we've heard about in tonight's meeting just in the study session alone. It's just like we were saying it's enormous the amount of amount of information that we got whether it's instructional design block scheduling themies the regional learning communities which are going to entail a lot of collaboration integration between schools um and then I and and then I think about all of the caring adults on our campuses who who are deal with our families and the family
217struggles that are that that the real family struggles that are in our schools right now. Um that that could increase. Um and we talk about continuous improvement. Um I I don't think that we can consider classified folks as not educators. I I I I really believe that they are educators. The bus drivers give us access to students. bus drivers give access to education to kids. Um uh there there these work products and the performance goals are ways in which they assist in the business of the district which is learning and I I really believe that next year there's going to be tremendous um innovation but yet that you know to have progress, it's going to come with struggles. So, I don't think folks need one more thing on their plate. I think the plan is
218a process. What people pick as their goal or their work product goal is reflective of their site and what their site wants to work on. So, um and that could be a department, it could be a school. So, um, I I would I would hope that we stick with the performance plan and guidelines and let folks design them with all of these changes in mind. >> Thank you. Uh, Mr. Ming, do you know how long we've had these same um the same plan and guideline? >> Four years. >> Yeah, I believe it's been four years since we've >> Okay. >> revised last time. >> Okay. Thank you. I agree with board all the board members. Um, I think it's we've seen a lot of change. Um, I think what we would love, I'm sure, you
219know, we want this to go back to our sites and to our personnel. Um, but you know, obviously student outcomes is the focus of what we would love to see happening. But, um, with that, any other questions? All right, Miss Kirby, we're ready for a vote. for the vote of 5 years. We've approved the 202627 pay for performance plan and guidelines. Do I have a motion to approve a district membership with Arizona Schoolboard Association for the school year? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Seconded. U with discussion. I'll start with Mrs. Hutchinson. >> Yeah. Yearly we um um vote on our membership with the Arizona School Boards Association, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan um statewide organization. Currently, um 207 governing boards are members of the ASBA and the organization serves over
220a million students. Um, I I was reflecting on what the ASBA has meant to me in the in the past year and I and and I think it boils down to um a quote that they have on their website which is inspire and be inspired. Um I I attended the law conference um I attended sessions that was in September um on the riff policy on the the bylaws the roles of school boards and special education. In that one session, I learned so much about our responsibility as a board to special ed kids um immigration um policies and and executive orders and what they meant for us um and and um policy evolution and and how you how as a board we should go about the process of formulating policy. um the delegate assembly that that
221in that conference established our legislative priorities. We had a county meeting um which was great where we just talked with one another from various parts of of Maricopa County and it actually led to a session in December on the AIA and how ESA students participate in school sports. the annual conference in December. This was a time when Mesa could inspire um we had a presentation, Mesa sponsored a presentation. It was based on our activate experience and how we were engaging student voices in our decision-making process. Um I learned about public school messaging from superintendent and got ideas from folks throughout the state. Um the advocacy day that ASBA had in March um was very informative. Um we've talked most a lot about this lawsuit in the court case. Um it was explained by the lawyers
222who won the case in Supreme Court and and um I learned more about students first and the building renewal grants and DAA and the two-tiered system in in Arizona. Um, and one of the best the things that happened that day was I met with other school board members as well as members of ASA, which is the administrators organization and ASBO, which is the business organization um um administrators and we met with our representative Lorena Austin and and we talked with her about issues and she informed us of some of the best and most effective ways ways to advocate. To me, ASBA is all about relationships and it was it's a really important way to be involved in relationships. Um, I think the Mesa voice makes ASBA stronger and I think ASBA makes us stronger. So,
223um, I'm hoping that we will continue our membership in ASBA. Thank you, board member Benson. This is, excuse me, this is one of the things that I think our um constituents o overall are concerned with um our Money going to. I did some really quick math and assuming that a case of paper would be 55 bucks a case, we could pay for approximately 332 cases of paper that our campuses need consistently all the time. um with the money that we pay for the association. Many of the things that member Hutchinson mentioned I'm sure are very very valuable uh and we can participate in those without paying for association memberships. I'm pretty sure I think they're uh many of their classes and seminars are open to um excuse me people participating without paying for the fee.
224We are no longer using board docs starting July 1st. That is one of the things that our membership pays for. We're no longer using their trust polic or their policies because we use the trust and we pay the trust as well. Do do we notic? >> So to me, this is a double payment that again it's a it it seems like a drop in the bucket moneywise when you're talking about a 600 plus million dollar budget. However, it's these little things that we can achieve the same networking. We can achieve the same education uh through different areas. The trust has um education opportunities consistently also that we would all also be uh able to participate in, correct? Without having to pay for an an ASBA membership. So, I'm not I I I think many of
225our our constituents would be concerned with u the number of associations that we pay for and the memberships that we pay for. Uh I don't I don't see the value in it. Personally, the ongoing education can be um we if we so choose to go to a a seminar or class that ASBA offers, we can do so. We pay a little bit more per session. Um, but I don't think it would make up the additional redundancy and payment that we're we would have if we have an ASBA membership along with the trust. There are other organizations that are by by far less expensive uh that we could also participate in as a district. So that's my impact or my um input. Thank you. >> Thank you, board member Walden. >> Yeah, thank you. So, so
226ASPA uh looking at their dues in the last seven years, their dues have tripled in cost and that's surprising because the main driver of their dues is actually is gone. It's it's uh not there anymore, but yet the the costs are tripling. I know that in the past we've used them for legal, but in in my research and what I found out is that ASPA hasn't had an attorney on staff for three years. So, if they don't have an attorney on staff, I'm not sure how worthwhile their legal services will be for us. Uh, I I agree with what board member Benson brought up with the training, too. We can still go to training. It's just not at a discounted rate. I don't know that enough board members have attended the ASPA training to make
227the membership cost outweigh that additional cost of the training. I don't see that happening. Uh there is a lot of other training that's offered too. So I don't want anybody to think that this is the end all and beall of board training. And we have a county superintendent too that's really enthusiastic about board member training. In fact, she's going around with the county attorney to do training on mandatory reporting. I think uh and what board member Hutchinson brought up like in getting training from those attorneys that won that lawsuit, our county supervisor office does have really good relationships and and they're very approachable. So, I think even if we asked for something like that and said, "Hey, we want a training on on this lawsuit. Can you get the lawyers?" I can totally see that
228happening. Uh and the nice thing about that is is when that office organizes it is is there is no cost to any school districts. And that's just one example. There's other organizations that have that have done training like the coalition of school boards. Uh they have ongoing training and they have a a big uh winter workshop every year too. So we we do have some options there. I think in the past, like when I first started on the board, you know, ASBA was was the legal and they were the policy services and we got the discount on board docs, but then the trust gave us the discount on board docs. We're using the trust for our policy services and the last one there is legal, but if they don't have the attorney on staff, then
229how are they even offering the legal services? So, I understand it's it's tough for districts because it's been a tradition to stay in asthma, but I think that there's a lot of other resources and this is something that's a you know, a tripling of cost over seven years I just feel like is just no longer justified. >> Thank you, Bo Member Chaffy. Yeah, this has been an interesting one for me to think about um because I do think that the the fees have increased and I think that we as a large district in the state need to kind of go back to ASBA and say this needs to be done at a tiered level or ways that are uh manageable for our districts as we are seeking truly to be fiscally responsible and we do
230have some redundancies in some of the other organizations that we engage with. Um my plan as a board member if we continue our membership is to attend both the trust events and the ASB events and provide some feedback. Um for me at this time um ASBA is one of the plaintiffs in the school capital funding lawsuit and that is such critical funding for our districts to know that we have not been adequately funded to know that we are in the middle of a lawsuit. Um and currently that decision is being appealed and ASBA is part of the work to um try to reach a settlement rather than extend this out through lengthy appeal a lengthy appeal process. So for me I'd like to stay committed to ASBA throughout this year provide them some really um
231specific feedback on what we need as a district and to do some comparisons but also to really um hold their feet to the fire in the fact that we need to have this money from the capital funding lawsuit. This is really critical funding for our districts and this represents a lot of money that we know our schools have not been receiving year after year. >> Thank you. Um like Burman Chaffy, I think I also have gone back and forth a lot on this and weighed the pros and the cons and sometimes um you want to make sure I want to make sure that we are being as fiscally responsible as possible. Um, and sometimes there's costs that come with being a large school district in Arizona and also wanting to make sure that we have
232a voice at the table. And I think, um, looking at ASBA and what it provides, making sure that we are in statewide discussions, um, and making sure that, you know, we're looking out for all of our students and their perspectives and, um, when we're representing what legislation, education policies are being discussed. Um, this has been a hard one for me to just mold over, but I do see some value. I've seen ASBA rec kind of build up after they uh had some rocky things happen. And so I appreciate the information. Um, I think I go with uh board member Chaffy and seeing and weighing out this next year and seeing what it looks like and the value of going to the trust and to the ASBA trainings and seeing what we see there. Um, and
233whether or not uh if we continue I like board member Chaffy talked about the tiered we used to I think it was a couple years ago we had a tiered uh membership system and now this is all grouped in one and I would love for them to offer that again and so you know providing that feedback back and seeing if we see some changes or you know if if it's time to go another way but um that's where I'm at. Any other questions or discussion? >> I have a question for clarity. So, our member Chaffy, are you saying that uh if the if MPS was to pull out of ASBA uh and ASBA is Did I hear you say ASBA is uh one of the plaintiffs in the uh capital funding? So, if MESA was
234to pull out from ASBA membership, are you did I hear you say that we would >> I'm saying no. I'm saying that I value the work, the advocacy work that they've done on behalf of not only our district but districts throughout the state in establishing the fact that we are significantly illegally underfunded as a as a state in education. So I appreciate the work that they're doing and I want to support that work especially as we are still in the middle of of an appeal process. >> Okay. So not that it would be Mace would not be because that correct clearly not happen. All right. Thank you. Um I just just have a comment to you know with the training and with the membership is that it I just want to add it doesn't feel
235like though it's in line with our goals in changing student outcomes. So I I haven't seen any real world application that someone's that were coming back from this training and coming up with ideas that that changes student outcomes. Like I think there's so much talent and skill in the district and there's so many resources that we can use to try to be effective, you know, come up with smart goals for our district, help help give our teachers the resources they need, but I'm not seeing that that value is going to come from this this membership. I just want to kind of throw that out there because this is this is the my my my fourth year. So I think I think every year we go for this renewal. I haven't yet voted yes on it.
236And you can probably tell I'm going to be a no on this tonight, but that's just something else I'm sitting here thinking about and I'm like, man, I I just I'm not I'm not seeing the value. So, I and I appreciate what's what's been said in the in the four comments, too. Uh, you know, we certainly want to be knowledgeable, but I wanted to throw that part out. >> Thank you. I appreciate everyone's perspectives. I think at this time we're ready for a vote. I guess I can get over This is making it clear with a vote three yays, two two nays. Uh we've approved a district membership with Arizona Schoolboard Association for the school year. Do I have a motion to approve the acceptance of gift from teach? >> So moved. >> Do I
237have a second? >> Seconded. >> Any discussion starting with Jaffy. Any questions? >> Yes. Can you tell us Dr. Eastless a little bit about what this grant does and where it's going to be used? Yes. Thank you, Member Chaffy and members of the board. Um, as you'll recall, about a year ago, we brought to you um an application and partnership with instruction partners and ASU um for a grant that would improve um towards student outcomes around collaborative planning, use of high-quality instructional materials, um using a process called unit internalization, um lesson internalization, and it is a three-year project. And we have currently three schools involved. Um Stevenson being one of those three. And they have just completed year one. They've been using um our SAVIS math resources. And um principal Kristofferson has um operationalized her
238teams in different um formulations to um build their knowledge around instructional design, evidence-based practice, and really that team planning um to improve outcomes based on how they're digging into those resources and and really looking at the standards and that and that planning process. It is connected also to the work of our instructional design. Um and this summer um principal Christopherson brought to us um and to the ITEL partners that we are are working with an idea to expand that work to ELA because her teachers were making a lot of progress in the work that they were doing um and in the the observational tools um in regard to what what they're seeing and measuring. Um, we have a partner also through Mathematica who's also doing the research with this project. >> Thank you. And I
239appreciate that we are looking at at other curriculum materials and ways that we can have high quality instructional materials. I think that's something that's been a focus of our board. So, thank you. >> Thank you, board member Walden. >> Yes, thank you. This seems like a really good opportunity to, you know, re-evaluate curriculum. I like that it is something that is being very uh strategic and deliberate about having something at one school so we can measure the efficacy of it and uh have more more hands-on a hands-on review of like what's working and what's not rather than you know sometimes you roll things out to too many schools at once and you have a lot of cohort effects and you're not sure what's working. So, I think this is a really really good start in
240uh evaluating our curriculum and what needs to change and this is a good school to to pick for this. So, I'm I'm excited about this grant. >> Thank you, board member Benson. >> Um I want to piggy back up, Member Walden. I also am excited about this grant, especially for the potential of um within the next several years, we're going to be looking at a new ELA adoption. uh that perhaps with this work at Stephvenson and the two other campuses that are both other campuses doing ALA or just um so we have Hermosa Vista who is doing SAVIS just um like principal Kaferson and then Whittier is um utilizing our foundations curriculum in ELA in K2 um because it was focused on the foundational literacy um skills through that that product. >> Okay. And we
241already have that. So, um, could you remind me what amplify CK L means? What's the CK? I know >> core knowledge. >> Thank you. >> Language arts. >> I know you said it to I know you you mentioned it yesterday or the day before and I was like CK, what does that stand for? Uh, I really like the including low technology foundation for um fundamental literacy since I'm on a push now to get rid of or to not get rid of entirely but to reduce our reliance on technology. So I really like that component of it. So I am also excited about the opportunities that gives us uh that we can actually move the bar with our students when it comes to ELA because reading is fundamental. >> Thank you board member Hutchinson. >> I'm
242in agreement with my colleagues. >> Thank you and agreed. We're ready to vote. With a vote of 5 years, we've approved the acceptance of a gift from Teach Plus. Do I have a motion to approve applying for the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority Bianual Grant for the 202627 school year? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. Thank you. Any discussion? We'll start with board member Hudson. >> Yes. Thank you, President Davis. Um I'm thrilled about thinking about um getting kids off of uh devices. Um this is uh PE materials and um equipment and um up to $75,000. Um and we have chosen a number of schools um that would be receiving the funding. Um so I'm I'm I'm thrilled about the opportunity to apply for this grant. However, my question is
243how were the schools listed chosen? I can assume but I I don't want to do that. >> Yeah. So the the the history behind this is Mr. Eubanks when he came into this district uh started applying for the Arizona sports and tourism grants for athletics and he works hand in hand with Deb Brandon Grazy who does K8 elementary PE here uh in the district and she noticed that he was applying for the grants and then last year asked if she could she could apply for the short form $5,000 grants on behalf of physical education. And we're big fans of this grant because onethird we we we spend the whole money and then they give us twothirds of the money back through the Arizona Sports and Tourism Grant. So that's like a 67% reduction in expenditures
244in the rebate we get back from the program. So last year we approved the schools that Mrs. Pangrazy put forward in front of us. She's the one that keeps the master list. And this year she's back with another set of schools and she's keeping all schools in mind and rotating through what they need. And you know they haven't had ropes replacements in this amount of time. haven't had uh cone replacements in this amount of time, haven't had ball replacements in this amount of time, and Miss Pangra is really the one directly advising us on which schools uh need which equipment at which time. And we although capital funds are getting limited in the district, this is one thing we're going to probably just constantly try to support because once again, we're getting product at a
245third of the cost through this grant. So there's your answer to your question. Uh Miss Penning is driving it. >> Thank you, board member Benson. Okay. So, for clarity sake, we're spending 75 but getting 50 back. >> Yeah, that's the way the grant works. Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> That I was my only question. I was like, "Wait a minute." As I was reading this the other day, I went, "Wait." Um, so I think this is a great opportunity. And I'm all for kids getting out and playing. And almost every child that's their favorite time of uh the school day is either recess or PE. Thank you, board member Walden. >> No, I don't have questions. Thank you. >> Thank you, Bo. >> No questions. Thank you. Again, I just appreciate us looking for
246different avenues and these different grants. So, thank you. Um, with that, Miss Kirby, please take our vote. With a vote of 5 years, we have approved applying for the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority Bianual Grant for the 202627 school year. Do I have a motion to approve the lease agreement with United Food Bank? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Seconded. >> Um, any discussion? Mrs. Chaffy, we'll start with you. Um, Mr. Moore, can you just give us give me like the three sentence version of why this is advantageous for the district? >> It fills vacant admin space. >> I think you went with like three words. >> Yeah. Um, member Chaffy, this is just a opportunity we're looking at to kind of as we um leave some of our administrative space
247and we're in the process of taking some of those to the ballot. We have a a kind of a gap in time in which we can leverage some of that space via a lease like this with a a great partner in the community who has approached us because of the board meetings and us talking about taking administrative space to the ballot. This was not something I sought out. This was literally a word of mouth um conversation. And so, um, we thought just again advantageous to connect with a short-term lease, uh, to look for additional revenue opportunities, continue the conversation like we just had with grants. >> Awesome. I appreciate these partnerships and I appreciate the work of the district to, you know, get out of administrative spaces and be able to find some ways to
248recoup some of some of this money. >> Thank you, Bo Member Walden. Yeah, I think just to remind the public, this is part of the planning the district has done and taking unused space and finding ways to bring revenue into the district. And there's a lot of empty spaces in public school districts and a lot of them don't seem to be doing the planning that we're doing. So, I really appreciate that how proactive the district's been in trying to uh utilize what's available. I just have a quick question. I think Mr. Mr. Wing could probably answer this in our long long-term planning committee and I know they're going to be rearing up to start meeting again in the fall. Is looking at lease agreements part of what that committee is going to be doing? >>
249The part A or version 1.0 of the long range planning committee is really to seek out or develop guiding principles what we call it on how we make decisions on version 2.0 know or or the next version. So, it could lead to that. >> Okay. Yeah. I I and I know that that's happening without a committee, but just wondering if that was a something they'd start looking at now, but um so yeah, I don't have any questions. This is uh this is good. >> Thank you. Board member Benson. >> Yeah, I just have a quick question. Under the renewal option, Mr. more. It says that within uh 180 days, so 6 months before the end of this uh lease agreement, they have the option to uh come to us or we have the option to
250extend the lease by two years. Is that correct? Um my eyes are starting to glaze over as I got into the, you know, later pages of the document. Is there a way if we chose to do that, which I assume we would want to if we don't have a um long-term plan for the building on Maine, do we have an out component if we renew for two years without penalty to us? >> Yeah. With within this agreement, it also allows the district to terminate the lease. >> Okay. And uh even if if we were to extend it for two, >> correct? Yeah. There there's still terms in here that allow the district the flexibility. It's it's both parties have the option to >> without penalty. >> Correct. >> Okay, perfect. That was my only concern
251is that we're if we were doing it six months before the end of their lease term and we clearly will probably not have any real significant long-term uh decision made at that point. I just want to make sure we're dotting all our >> member Benson. Any additional extension of this would be brought forth back in front of the governing board. So, >> okay. But my eyes would probably still glaze over at the length of the lease. >> Thank you, board member Hutchinson. >> Um, Mr. Moore, I couldn't agree with you more that this is a great partner, United Food Bank. I I know when I was teaching at Red Mountain, um, that the Thanksgiving food drive was not only for the community, but it was a great community building exercise in our in our school.
252and um and the United Food Bank is helping to secure food for our families and food security as we know is is is absolutely essential for learning. So, I'm I'm I'm pleased that um they came to us and that we can we can provide them a space um for the good work that they do in the community. and member Hudson said, just to clarify, we're not going to be serving food out of this location, but um they uh just >> Yeah, just a little background, they're doing some improvements uh and some modifications at their their place and they needed a temporary location for some of their um office staff to work out of while they make some improvements at their facility. And so, um just to clarify a little bit into the context of who's
253going to be, uh on the fourth floor. >> Thank you. Thank you, board members. With that, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five yays, we have approved the lease agreement with United Food Bank. Do I have a motion to approve revised policy 5-305, student code of conduct, effective July 1, 2026? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second it. >> Um, Miss Hutchinson, any questions, comments? >> No, I just like the clarity of the revision and I think we discussed it thoroughly the last time we were in session. >> Thank you. Board member Benson. I have no questions either. >> Thank you. >> All right. No other questions. Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? Maybe with a vote of five years, we have
254approved revised policy 5-305 student code of conduct effective July 1, 2026. Do I have a motion to approve the revised policy 4-201 employee code of conduct effective July 1, 2026? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. Second. >> Thank you. Miss King, will you tell us just a few um changes you've made since our last discussion? >> Yes, thank you, uh, President Davis. So, um, as you recall, uh, policy 4201 is the employee code of conduct and, um, we did make the addition of a prohibition number 32, um, knowingly submitting a false report or complaint of discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment, or retaliation. I don't think the board had any questions about that and we didn't make any changes since the first reading. Um the big change that you'll notice is to
255the new provision regarding social media accounts and after um the discussion at the last meeting it um became clear that our intent was maybe not as clear as it could have been um regarding the reason for this um policy. And so, uh, Miss Snyder and I work together to come up with some new language to really clarify that our intent is really, um, more so that employees know that social media accounts that are created, um, for the district at for a school, a department, for the district itself, um, are the property of the district and we have to have some control over that um, account. But um we tried to make it very clear that this policy in no way um gives a district any type of ownership or access to employees personal social media
256accounts. So um hoping that the newly worded policy really clarifies the intent and and makes it um easier for for employees to read. >> Thank you, Miss King. Miss Chaffy, any questions? No, I feel that the the clarity is there. So, thank you for your work and Miss Snider's work on that. I think it makes a lot of sense and and kind of outlies some of those concerns. Board member Walden. >> Thank you, board member Vincent. Any questions? >> No, I agree with member Chappie. I think uh when I read this, I thought it was very clear and very straightforward. uh as long as we are making sure that um the word official sometimes a coach or a teacher may not well it's not really official but anything that promotes in conjunction with their work
257we're considering official correct >> yes and and hopefully through training with um Miss Snider's department and her new specialists that they will be able to really work with schools and departments to make sure everybody fully understands the responsibilities under this new policy. >> Yeah, I thought it was by far more clear. Thank you, >> member Hutchinson. >> Thank you for clarifying. This this reflects u a policy that I had when I was an ASU employee actually. So, it was very clear to me when I read it. Thank you very much. >> I agree. Thank you for clarifying. I think it sounds fantastic. Let's uh Miss Kirby, we please take our vote. With a vote of five yays, we've approved the revised policy 4-201 employee code of conduct effective July 1, 2026. Do I have a
258motion to approve revised policy 1-302 governing board meetings and open meeting law requirements effective July 1, 2026? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Miss King, will you share the changes on this policy since we last had a conversation? >> Yes. Just again as a reminder, we um are bringing this policy revision to you based upon some feedback that we got from the Goldwater Institute that um our uh previous policy on public participation could have been construed to um um raise some First Amendment concerns. So we went ahead and just rewrote the policy and then at the last meeting um it felt like there um could be some additional clarity um between open call to the public and public comment. So um I tried to make it very clear where
259the additional changes were made by highlighting them. um really trying to to call out that the the rules apply the same when we do an open call to the public as when um members of the community wish to speak on an agenda item. I also um heard the feedback that the board wanted to um extend the time limit on the total time for open call to the public and uh a time where there would be maybe multiple comments on an agenda item to from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. So, um, added that and I hope I took all the feedback and and made those changes um, as the board was hoping to see. >> Thank you, Miss King. Miss Hutchinson, any questions, comments? >> Yes, I'm I'm very appreciative of you taking our suggestions and
260and clarifying them. Um I I do want to um reiterate some of the things that the board has done. Um we have sought to make our meetings more informative, more participatory, more inclusive, more productive while being civil. And we we we did a number of things um to do this with our meetings. And I I would be remiss, however, if we were to leave a an impression that public comment or call to the public is the only way to to have impact on decisions made by the board, whatever those decisions might be. and and I think we've heard in tonight's meeting a lot of the different ways in which um the board receives information but also receives opinions and and um assessments from the public and I think you also heard tonight ways in which
261the district is going to engage in continuous improvement and and I've heard things such as listening sessions um region regional engagement um and the regional um realignment of the district into learning communities is going to exponentially I think um impact the the um influence of not only parents but community members and maybe most importantly student students. Um, I I'm hoping that um that as one of our speakers said that taking a a concern to call the public be that of last resort and and I think that we've heard in particular our study session commitments um from the district that um communication will be um two-way in that we'll receive communication, we'll provide information, but we'll we'll engage in conversation because that's the most productive type of communication. But I think you also heard a commitment
262that information when asked for will be given in a timely manner. So, um I am going to I have I I have concerns which I expressed last time about um attacks particularly on kids. But I'm I'm hoping that the norms of this community will um make sure that people refrain from particularly attacking students in our call to the public. So um I guess that's where I'm at. >> Thank you, board member Benson. >> Okay. So, I appreciate you taking in and um clarifying that there is a difference between uh speaking directly to an agenda item versus open call to the public, but between bullet points seven and eight, I'm actually still a little confused. So a as to the way that it's written and I I don't know if it's that I am maybe overthinking
263it or um so seven says that uh both public comment on a specific agenda item or during open call to the public may be limited to three minutes and the total time for public comment on a specific agenda item and open call to the public may be limited to uh 30 minutes. So I appreciate the may are we saying that between both of those things so open call to the public and if somebody has comment on an agenda item that total time for comment is may be limited to 30 minutes or is it 30 minutes for open call 30 minutes for agenda items. >> My intent in the way I drafted it was that open call to the public could be limited to 30 minutes and and comment on any agenda item could also be
264limited to 30 minutes. >> Okay. So then um with eight, it says each speaker may address the board once per agenda item and or once during open call to the public. So on the evening that we have open call to the public, uh let's say that um Mrs. Christopherson wants to speak on three different agenda items and she wants to make a comment at open call to the public. Is this saying that that she would be allowed to have four different three minute times to speak? >> I will tell you that what was what was in my mind when I was drafting that. Yes. >> Okay. Well, that's what I would like to see. I would like to see so I I I I like I like more speech rather than less speech. I think
265that it it especially on agenda items, it does help um for those people that don't uh find it easy to email us or or whatever. Uh I like hearing what they have to say and uh open call to the public I think can be different. Uh so I I just wanted clarity in my mind. Are we saying it's a total of 30 minutes or uh and whether or not? So then if we're So then here's my other question then on our agenda part piece. Are are we moving call to or comment on specific agenda items to the agenda item or are we going to leave it or is that a discussion for another day? >> That is not specifically addressed in this policy. So, it's a discussion for another day. >> It might be. >>
266Okay. >> All right. That uh that gives me clarity on the way that you just wanted to make sure I wasn't overthinking. That's the way I read it, but I was like, >> "All right. Thank you." >> Mrs. Benson, could you clarify what part you're talking about? What's a discussion for another day? I don't know that I'm following your >> So, um, we now have public comment all at one specific time rather than >> So, tonight we had on our all of our action items. Um, the way it used to be done several years ago, if you were speaking like, let's say that somebody wanted to speak on the ASBA, they would sign up to speak and it would happen when we were taking the vote and discussion on ASBA. Now we have public comment
267and open call of the public all at the same time. So then if we're gonna say that Mrs. Christopherson can speak four times at one time that and I'm not sure how that works if we do it all at one time. Well, it I Okay, so we we have the we have this I know it's a little bit confusing that com that public comment and call to the public is at the same time and the reason that we did it was because there were people here till all hours of the night and particularly there were students >> who were here sometimes to all hours of the night because they were speaking on an agenda item and so we we have it all at one time in the beginning of the meeting so as to protect
268people's time and to make sure that it's at a reasonable time when reasonable folks can be at the meeting. We're we're clearly people here being here at all time all periods of the night. But but the idea was particularly to honor um the time of parents and and and kids. So we would have it all. So we would and we currently Miss Kirby categorizes when people sign up for a particular item, she categorizes them and we put students first for every for every agenda item andor um public comment >> and um and we we did that so as to make sure that everybody gets heard and that it's at a reasonable hour. >> No, I and trust me, everyone appreciates that as well. I'm just in my mind seeing how is this going to go
269forward if I can speak on three agenda items plus open call to the public. So, but that's a discussion for another day. >> Thank you, board member Walden. >> So, well, I I'm just I'm not I'm not sure if it's a discussion for another day because you're saying this the way that or maybe Mrs. King needs to clarify the way that the policyy's written will give somebody the opportunity to speak multiple times. Is that is that what is shaking her head at me. I mean I I >> with the potential of a possible three minutes per depending upon the number of speakers. I mean the president still could come back and say, "Hey, there's 60 speakers on ASBA. We're going to limit you to 90 seconds or two minutes or whatever." But they still could
270speak on multiple I in in my opinion it would the a a person could speak for three minutes on a non-aggenda item and three minutes on an agenda item. But Cameo's shaking her head at me because that's not the current practice. But I don't know that that has to be written in policy or not. I I I think there's flexibility for the the board president to conduct how the meeting's done. So, I guess this leaves it open, but then you would would determine or have the discretion on how how that public comment's going to go. Okay. And when it come like board member Hudson said, when when we get the request, it's all broken out by the different items. So I can see if there is multiple it'll show who's speaking and you know if
271if we had an like a lot of people signed up that's we' use our discretion to to limit that time but I think the system only lets you sign up one time or does it let you send it more than once. >> You'd have to fill the format more than once. But you can we've had people do it in the past before. But uh you're right when you said currently we only let them speak for the three minutes regardless of how many things they want to sign up on. So we just ask them to sign up on one thing and then they can use their three minutes or however long they get um to speak on what they'd like. >> Okay. It's it's been a while since I signed up to speak so I'm just
272having to have my memory refreshed. Uh I think we did have a really uh good discussion on this last time and you know our our meetings why we have these meetings this is all state statute. It's all written out in state statute. So it's not a preferences of anybody. It's the state has written and decides how meetings are to be viewed and the process for bodies to meet and conduct business and we can only conduct business in an open setting. I think that's good. I think it's a good thing. I love how transparent Arizona is and I want to say too that I I know that Goldwater contacted us about this and I really appreciate how quickly our board president Davis uh jumped on this along with Superintendency and you Mrs. King for making this
273a priority. But I have not seen any board president censor anybody. So this this policy changes is needed, I think, to to show our commitment to upholding people's first amendment rights. But from when I first started attending meetings, my my first meeting was actually under Ember Connley and uh from the different board presidents since then, I haven't seen Mesa censor somebody. Now, I saw a city council meeting where a woman was dragged out of the meeting for her public comment. Um, but those things haven't happened here. The only time is when someone's passed their time and then, you know, and we have the time clock and then the time gets cut. But there's a there's a lot of things that have been said. We've taken a lot of slings and arrows and that's fine. That's
274that's the burden of like, you know, sitting up here and that's fine. It's not a complaint, but there hasn't in practice has not been any kind of of censorship. And so I do feel like that regardless of who's who the board president is, there has been robust respect for that that process for people to be able to speak their mind in the public setting and to the board. >> Thank you, Walden. Board member Chaffy. >> Yeah, I agree with my fellow board members. I think this provides some good clarity and also a lot of flexibility. I think my rem my reminder to our public is to remember who you represent. We we represent Mesa. We represent Ma public schools. We are kind and we are respectful and we come and we bring our concerns and
275we work together to find solutions. And so um this is a place absolutely where we want to hear your concerns and we want to hear how we can help solve them. And we would love to hear your emails and all of the ways that we can support you. It's it's important to us and we just ask that you respect this time as well so that we can make sure that we get the work done that we do the business of education here as a board and here with superintendency. >> I echo all I think um it it was kind of hard to take some of the comments that have been made lately about the board president. I'm and as I sat and reflected like I haven't censored any public comment and we've let a lot
276of let things go in the fact so that we could hear people's thoughts and and we respect those thoughts and so um for things that have been published online and read and we've we've all seen it and heard it and different things um I I don't think I ever wanted to quiet in anyone's voice. we wanted to hear what you had to say and so and with there are many avenues that we are open to hearing and I go to lots of ball games and lots of plays and I talk to lots of people and I hear lots of thoughts and comments and so I don't think that any of us are wanting to not hear from our our constituents and our families and our students and so we are trying to find the best
277and and making sure that we can be accessible to all. Um, I think district's been very open as as we've made all these changes. I see them at all sorts of events and out in the public and talking to um our faculty and staff and our students and families. And so I appreciate that. I appreciate everyone being seen and out at different events. And so I think that's important. I think it's important for us as board members and for superintendency to to be visible and to be um approachable as we are out and about in our communities. and and that's why we're here. We're here to build our communities and to build our school district. And so, um I appreciate the clarity here and I appreciate our my board members and for their input and
278for um for helping build a Mesa public schools. That's what we're here to do and I appreciate that. And with that, I believe >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Sorry, now I'm confused again. >> Can they can based on the way it's worded because I heard Mrs. King say one thing and then I didn't see you shaking your head. If I wanted to sign up on speaking on the ASBA tonight and open call to the public, I can sign up twice. >> Potentially three minutes each. Okay. I I'm sorry. I thought she said you were shaking your head, not Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> You're good. Miss Kirby, ready for a vote? With a vote of five years, we have approved the revised policy 1-302 governing board meetings and open meeting law requirements effective
279July 1, 2026. Do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second it. >> Any discussion? >> We're almost a half hour early. >> I know. I know. I thought we were going to be a half hour, but thank you. Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? >> Rachel Walden votes I >> With a vote of five days, the meeting is adjourned at 7:08. Thank you and have a wonderful evening.