Governing Board Study Session - April 1st, 2026

001We're ready. All right. Good morning. If we please stand for a moment of silence. Thank you. You may be seated for for a second. Um, call this meeting study session to order at 9:34. We're going to go ahead and do uh the pledge of allegiance. Please stand and I'll lead us. I pledge allegiance. Thank you. And we have some exciting guests today joining us. Look at these smiling faces. Good morning. Come on in. >> Good morning. Come on in. We're happy to have all of you here with us today. students, teachers, staff, we're happy to have you here and welcome. and we are excited to hear from you. And I'm gonna turn the time over to Simont. Yes. Hi. Good morning, President Davis. School board, our board, thank you. Good morning. Thank you for having

002us. Cabinet members, thank you so much for being here. Um, we have a great presentation and our kids are ready to rock and roll. Um, they're excited, but they're a little nervous, too, but they're going to be amazing. So, let's see. Is it on? Oh, there it is. Okay. This way. Yes. So, talking about Hackivate. Um, my name is Jennese Montes. I am currently the principal coach of the district principal coach. I will be the executive director of the Dobson learning community. So, we worked as a group with Lindseay Lenoff as our career community specialist and Renee Parker, our director of community partnerships. And we had about 50 students from all of our secondary schools participate in our activate process. >> Um, just a quick overview of where we started. Um couple years ago, we

003partnered with City of Mesa and mirrored with what um they had used as their two-day model and brought it back to the district. Um utilizing and focusing on our district um goals and district initiatives and um we started with mental health with our students. Um, and then we expanded to include our junior highs. And then this year we incorporated both our activate and our student advisory groups into one, which we'll talk about in just a moment. Um, and we were able to bring together both um, our junior high and our high school students into a multi-day event this year. So, that has been a super exciting new process for our students. And then we were also able to partner um with our um parent group and we were able to bring our parents into the

004activate process as well. Um so originally we had a standalone student advisory group. Um, and what we did is we be a we took into account student time and um, bringing them off campus and those pieces and we incorporated our student advisory group into our activate because we figured they're talking about issues that are um, forthcoming to the district and so it was a great opportunity to include um, student advisory questions. So because all of our schools kind of start at a different time, we took that morning as our students were coming in for Hactivate as an opportunity to talk to them about different issues um across the district and give them a voice that would have normally been part of the student advisory process. And so that allowed them an opportunity to voice their

005um ideas and their thoughts um like we had with our student advisory groups. and we folded that into our activate process. We have our Oh, there we go. Sorry. Um All right. And so we've got a couple students that are going to um talk about their experiences um with student advisory um embedded into the activate process. And that is going to be Nielli from Kino and Tanner from Dobson and then Woodro from Red Mountain. So, if the three of you would like to come up. All right. I miss. So, who's going to go first? >> Do it. >> All right. Introduce yourself and then >> Okay. Um, hi, my name is Woodro and I go to Mountain. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um, >> about your experience. >> Yeah. Sorry. So experience at or doing activate

006was pretty good I would say and like it helped me like be able to like help my confidence in speaking by like just giving me like opportunities to like voice my opinion and being able to like elaborate with other people from around the district that you know I never met before and just going different places and how NPS should continue to use the student voice moving forward is um it's like the same thing it is a really good program and it helped me a lot and I probably wouldn't be like the same person I was before if I didn't have this opportunity and yeah that all okay thank you. Hi guys um I'm Tanner from Dobson and Oh go there we go. Is that better? Okay. Um let's see. So, a couple ways that like

007uh the first question, how does MPS student advisory shape up your confidence to speak up? Um, one of the good ones is you can meet everybody. You can meet people from other dis like from around the district from other schools, high schools, middle schools, and I think I is sixth grade still elementary? No. So, I guess it's just middle school and high school, but you can meet students from each um like around the district and then um you can like the adults well the adults ask questions. So, so you get that how do I put it? Um that comfort I guess um to stand up in front of people and talk to talk to adults. Then um working in groups, that's a big one. Most people don't really know how to work in groups in

008high school and a lot of people don't. And so if you, you know, do this, they'll teach you how to work in groups, like hear everyone else's opinions and stuff like that. Um, and then, uh, oh, real life experience experiences. They're they teach you different ways, I guess you could say, of doing things. And it's not like, okay, you're only in high school, so it's only this way just for high school. They'll teach you other ways to get out of your shell and stuff like that. And another one was public speaking. Uh public speaking is a big one because you need you need it for, you know, work, extra like curricular activities, and just stuff like that. So if you how do I put it? If you're good at public speaking, you'll be a lot

009of other things as well. And yeah, that's mine for the most part. So, [applause] >> uh, hi, my name is Na. Oh, >> okay. >> My name is Naelli and I'm from Kino. Um, and I think that MPS student advisory helps like shape confidence because you get to do things like this. Speaking to adults and like how Tanner said, public speaking is a big thing, but not a lot of people do, especially to adults. Like kids can speak to other kids just fine and stuff like that, but they get kind of nervous when they have to talk to adults, especially in kind of a formal setting like this. Um, and another thing that it helps with is helping students feel involved because then it feels like instead of just adults choosing what to do with

010how they go to school and everything like that, students feel like they get to choose what their schools are like and what their schools do. Um and it al that also creates like a sense of like value because then it it shows that they're not just like you know a student body altogether and like oh that's a number for like this many students in this school this many students in the school but it feels like every person especially themsel is an individual. Um and it also like again how Tanner said helps with like student connections. So, I heard like that some students shared socials with each other and that some of the high school kids also gave advice to the junior high kids about what kind of classes to take, what they should do with

011their schedule, like what decisions they should make with said schedule based on what they want to do and such. And um I think that that really helps with like relational capacity, that's the word, for not just with between students, but also between students and adults, board members like yourself. Uh thank you. [applause] >> Thank you so much. And socials means like their not their social security numbers, okay? They shared their Instagram, their all not Facebook but their Instagram pages. So [laughter] I just wanted to clarify. Okay. So why activate works? Um we really incorporated our portrait of the graduate, right? We have lots of skills, our attitudes, our um skills that we want our kids to really learn. And so through the activate process, they really adopted many of the skills of our portrait of

012the graduate. So we have Oh, where are my kids? Here. Oh, who was going to speak about Oh, right here. Come on down. Oh, my notes. Both of you were right. My student takeaway was taken away there. Okay, go ahead. Someone took my notes. Okay. introduce yourself. >> All right. Hello everybody. My name is Lauren. I am from Dobson High and I'm here to talk to you about what I took away from Hactivate. I'd like to note that um I've done two Hackivates now. I've done the city of Mesa Activate and the Mesa public schools one. I got to do the city of Mesa Activate my freshman year of high school, which was two years ago. I'm a junior now. and I get to bring those skills to this activate and kind of strengthen them

013in a way that wouldn't otherwise really be possible. One skill that I found I could really strengthen here was my leadership skill. I feel like I get to help my fellow students. It lets me express myself and my ideas for the school. This also leads to better communication. I'm working with people that I've never met before. They go to my school and I didn't even know them and now I have created a presentation with them and we worked to solve a problem here in our district about testing. Um we got to plan and create a solution together. We did a lot of problem solving, figuring out what would actually make a good solution. We went through a lot of steps. We tweaked stuff. We met outside of school to work. And I think that through

014this I really got to strengthen all my skills that I have and otherwise it wouldn't have been possible. Thank you. [applause] My name is Amari and I'm from Carson Junior High. So I have been to two activates. I've been to the one that Carson does specifically and I went to one last year. Um, Carson, not Carson. Activate helped me define a lot of my portrait of a graduate skills, especially leadership. When I went to activate last year, there's people from a bunch of different junior highs that have never met before. And we were all very shy because we didn't know each other. We only knew each other's names. So, I felt I was the one that had to speak out and introduce myself. And while we were there, everybody gradually started opening up and we

015were talking about like how we last year we talked about the phone policy and what we should do. So we were talking about the phones and we heard everybody's different opinion about what the phones were. And it was very like nice to hear every Yeah, I said this, but everybody's different opinion about their thoughts and what I disagreed with and what we both agreed with and how we could like work through this and see what the solution is. We didn't agree that our phone should be taken away, but we did agree that we shouldn't be on our phone. So, we had So, we like agreed that um everybody should just have their phones away, maybe not even bring it to school or like make sure that the teacher knows that they're not on it. When

016I went to activate this year, we talked about Miss Swash. She brought her in a guest speaker, her own brother, and he came in to help us talk about strategies. And I've I I do really think back on that because it does help me just outside of school and in school. Like when I was writing a essay in my ELA class, I was having a little bit of trouble. So I decided to think back on Activate and I started to strategize about the different steps and the process to doing this. Overall, Activate is a really great experience for knowing like getting to meet new people and knowing new things. Thank you. [applause] Okay, our next step is the what and the how of activate. So, this must be my wrong one. Who are my two

017students that are coming up? Two or three students. Who was coming up on the what and the how? How did we learn? And about the data. Who was coming out with data? Somehow my notes got mixed up. >> All right. Hello, my name is Stella. And so once we got back from Hactate, the district activate, we presented to our principal and we presented to the teachers. And we decided that we were going to make preparing for testing way more fun. Like not just the ASA testing, like making like a fun game out of it. And so we ended up doing this at our school. The data shows that students did very well. So for the non-honors English class, there were 21 students. 15 students are above grade level. Two students are on grade level and

018four students are below grade level. For the English honors class, there were 20 students in this class. 17 were above grade level. Two students were on grade level and one student was below grade level. For the math class, the average was 72%. with 1,550 questions, 1,600 1, 116 questions were correct and 434 questions were incorrect. And there were 20 students in this class. We would definitely do this again because this this helped our school so much just get to know each other better and just being there doing a fun game instead of just being quiet and listening to the teacher. and we all got to be together and doing this game. We would, if we did this again, we would definitely start sooner and have teachers submit scores weekly to do to see student improvement.

019Thank you. [applause] So, just a little bit of background on the data. They were given their school's data on assessment, their school profile. So every all of our secondary kids all got to see their composite school data and some of them were very curious and wanted to see what is my junior high my high school kids were like what did the junior high do? Whoa. And so they had some ahas. And a couple of them um did say this is data that all of us should be looking at so we can actually see what our our kids what we do, how we perform, how our schools perform. And then they were asking questions on why is school assessment important. So that was a big aha for them. And I think I discovered what happened. Tanner,

020thank you for problem solving for me. He put his packet on top of my packet. [laughter] Okay. Thank you, Tanner. Okay. Our next process was our community. So, not only did we use the activate process for the kids, we also decided to use the locations for them to learn more about their community, the resources that are there to be offered to our students, and the things that they can do to engage themselves and be part of our community. So we started off at MCC and they learned about that. Then to child crisis Arizona and learned about how to give back to the community. We went to the police and fire station where they were able to take a tour. So I am going to go ahead and have Leah come up right now and she

021is going to give us the student perspective on this and the takeaway. Hi, I'm Leah from Red Mountain and I think that a lot of the community spaces really helped our activate understand that there's so much you can do for the community and you can't you don't just do it by yourself. There's a lot of different partners you can work with and that there's just so much that you can do in your community. Um, as a sophomore, they gave so many different opportunities for upper classmen to get involved with the different community centers that will help the community in the long run. Um it also helped us understand that um we like everyone can make changes and as the school only it only takes a few people to actually make a change and also for

022the long run when you're older you can also just make a lot more changes in your own community and like we went to a lot of nonprofit we went to the police station and at risk youth and everything was very important and very different. So I think it's just important that we all got that experience. Thank you. [applause] Okay, let's see. So the impact, I have a few students that will be talking about the impact. So from their experience and their plan, what they took back to their campus. So I have Norma from Red Mountain and Katya from Dobson. Hello, I'm Norma from Red Mountain. Um I'm here to talk to you about how we implemented this at our school. So at Mountain, we talked to a lot of our teachers and some of our

023administrators and came up with solutions that we knew would be easiest to implement at our own school. So one thing that we did to find out what the main source of the problem for district um mandated tests were was surveys and talking to our students and teachers about what they see the problem is. So we made a survey that over a hundred people from our school and from the district um sign like um participated in and they gave us responses that they didn't know the importance of testing. So because of that, we know that our school at Red Mountain has different schedules and we talked to one of our administrators, Miss Benza, and she agreed with the idea that since we already have an assembly schedule that we could implement uh an assembly for students,

024parents, and teachers to all be informed on the importance of testing and each person's role in preparation for a student's testing. And um from that we present we um talked to Mr. Smith about it. He he agreed with the idea that we should probably include um the um that we should sorry um that people should be more informed about it overall. All students should probably be informed about it and parents so that they are more involved with their students and can prepare them better and teachers can um help their students during testing and before testing with things like test prep. Thank you. [applause] Good morning. My name is Katia. I'm a sophomore at Dobson High School. And here's the process of activate and how it's helping to uh actively improve testing scores in our school.

025So first we started in activate. We brainstormed with each other. We took ideas from different uh students from different schools uh middle schools and high schools. And we were kind of looking at what would make us score better if maybe if I was more comfortable I would be able to score better. Maybe if I had a good breakfast that day I would I would have done better. So, we took these ideas and we did face a few issues because of the Arizona state laws. You can't do this, we can't do that. Um, but the ideas that we could use, we took those and we presented them with our school principal, Miss Buckley. Uh, she heard some of our ideas and what we could do in the classroom, maybe more leg room, stretching time, some type

026of distraction, stress relievers. And, um, we tried to implement these for our juniors that are mostly taking the ACTs. and we tried to enforce it so that we could actively see the results of it. Um, Mr. Trip, our dean, he brought this up with our staff and I'm really grateful for that at Dobson. And we're we're looking at um kind of giving out surveys to the students who have tested and seeing maybe was there a difference in the testing. Did you feel better? Was it more comfortable? Do you think you score better because of it? Um, we I also did take some feedback from a junior at Dobson, Lauren, who was a junior taking the ACT. She said that she did notice a few changes such as people taking more time, being careful with that.

027There was less students sleeping, and the day before teachers were careful to kind of give reviews and not too much homework, being careful not to have deadlines on that day. Maybe the ACT should be the your priority at the moment. you shouldn't be focusing on your other classes, especially if you want to score well. Um, so that's what our plan and we're looking at the surveys soon to see the difference that students had during testing. Thank you. [applause] Okay, beyond our students, we then took activate to our parents. So, our family literacy, Norma's here. She's going to talk about um our family literacy group actually went through the same problem of practice and activate. Good morning distinguished members of the school board superintendency students and everyone else present here today. Um I had the wonderful

028opportunity to be invited to a couple of the activate sessions when I uh witnessed how wonderfully the students were working together brainstorming sharing ideas and and just to see that enthusiasm of them working together for a goal it was amazing. So there was something that we want to transfer into our parents and I think I missed the session when they were talking about public speaking. So I just going to read what I wrote and I hope you don't mind. Um, it takes a village. It's more than just a saying. It remind us that strong families, strong schools, and strong communities must work together to help children succeed. Today I am proud to share how the family leadership program continues empower parents as leaders and their children's first and most important teachers through a parent leadership

029ambassador training presented during this past fall. Families participated in six sessions where they explore what leadership means, how the school system works, and how to better support learning at home. They also build skills in cultural responsiveness and equity, communication, conflict resolution, and advocacy. This training aligns with our district's portrait of a graduate and reflects our goal to strengthen parent engagement and create meaningful opportunities for families to apply what they have learned through school-based projects. We were especially excited to be included in the district's activate project, giving our parents the chance to be part of something bigger. On February 4th, parents join a focus group led by Mrs. Jennese Montes and Mrs. Lindseay Lenov. Parents were engaged in discussion activities and reimagine what assessments will look like. They left inspired and curious, wanting to better understand

030how a standardized assessments shape their children's experiences, influence trust in school, and impact their ability to support learning. They return to their school sites when thoughtful question with thoughtful questions and a stronger voice ready to share their perspectives and contribute to meaningful change. As we move forward, our next step is to continue lifting parents voices. On Wednesday, April 8th, next week, we will host another focus group where parents will participate in activities designed to share their thoughts and experiences. They will work on suggestions and how the district can approach parents and students in relation to testing. This way, parents will be able to support their childrens for a successful outcome. Some of the questions we will explore are why should parents care about the the standardized assessments and school letter grades. It is easy to

031understand why assessments and letters grades are important to the schools but what is the impact on families. We will also uh talk about the importance of attendance and being present at school and their insight will provide valuable feedback to schools and the district especially around assessments and how they impact students and families. We are truly grateful to the activate project for recognizing the value of our parents and include them in this important work and we look forward to continuing this partnership in future projects because in the end it truly does take a village. Thank you. [applause] And then our last group who took it beyond our district activate. Carson, come on down with us. Don't >> tell me I'm very soft spoken. >> Good morning. Uh my name is Eric Carinas. I'm an eighth grader

032at Carson High School. Um when I went to activate my experience there initially when I got to the activate uh my first reaction was that I was a little bit nervous because I didn't know much about activate and I really didn't know the other students there. It wasn't you know something that I knew before. So anyway, after the introduction activities, I felt more comfortable and my confidence started to grow and grow and grow and and then I had a good opportunity to have a good relationship with the other students and peers that were there. I was able to uh learn from their ideas, listen of uh different perspectives and I think that all students at Carson should have an opportunity to participate and activate in the years to come. >> [applause] >> Good morning. My

033name is Jet from Carson Junior High. I'm in eighth grade. [clears throat] At the Carson Hactivate, 20 students were recommended from all the teachers and it was a really fun time for me. Um, at the Carson Hactivate, every student found a solution to a problem throughout the school. My problem was students or at least I get tired just sitting in a my seat all day. So I came up with a solution saying teachers should give students five minute a five minute break like just once a day. And some other problems that were Carson came up with were they need better sports equipment. And the solution to that was um fundraisers and um dances and all that stuff to make more money. Um, and another problem was a lot of kids think the school lunch is

034gross. So, every Friday they wanted uh like some type of food truck to come and kids could get lunch from there. Thank you. [applause] So I think moving forward um as a future district um uh director, executive director of a region, it would be great that each of us um participate, maybe see it on April 30th. The kids will be presenting. We welcome all of you to go. It will be from here in the boardroom from about 9:30 to 2. You're more than welcome to come and see the kids present. But I think future forward as a region, this gives us as executive directors an opportunity including our communications and our marketing, our division also to be part where they become advocates for kids and we get to hear our problems or our solutions through

035our student voice and we can take this back to cabinet and really think about how are we serving our students who at foremost those are our customers, right our kids in our district. So our future forward would be the kids want to continue to be together. So an idea is first meeting all the kids together because it builds that relational capacity between across our district but then each executive director with their division create other opportunities for us to problem solve our region or maybe a district issue and then we have a culminating event. Okay. So open for questions and they are ready for you for questions. could stand up here and anyone. >> Don't be scared. We're not scary. [laughter] First, I just want to tell you guys what a great job you did. I

036know that it's scary. I'm scared all the time when I sit up here. So, I know what it feels like. You guys were awesome. So, thank you for being here and for working on this. We just appreciate your input and information you bring to the table. So, thank you. I'm going to start I'll go to my left um with board member Hutchinson with questions. if each board member will take a question and we'll go around. >> Thank you guys for being here. Uh I know that uh we've worked together before and I'm glad to see you here this morning and you did a wonderful job. Um one of the things that we've done is we've turned Activate from an event to a process. Um, and you all in your own way expressed what the process

037meant to you, but could you please give us your greatest takeaway from the process of Hackivate, whether it be at the district level or maybe Carson, at your school level, um, what what are you going to remember most about Hackivate? How has it impacted you the most? what is most significant to you about Hackivate? If any of those ideas um elicit a response, I would really appreciate you telling us your greatest takeaway or your aha moment. member Hutcherson. My greatest takeaway was knowing that adults wanted to listen to us about our own thoughts and they wanted they wanted to know more about what we were feeling and they wanted to know how that how they wanted to learn how to fix it. Um, I would say my greatest takeaway from Hactivate is the idea that

038we can make a change. People will listen to us, but also the idea of resilience and how we can't give up just when things start getting hard. We had to do a lot of problem solving through Activate. Like it was said, um, some of the ideas we first came up with, they just weren't plausible. So we had to go through, we had to rethink, we had to work outside of the activate time sometimes, but it was all worth it. And I think knowing that it was worth it is just something that not a lot of other opportunities can give a person. So my biggest takeaway from Hackivate is that we need to keep moving forward even when it might not seem there's an answer in sight because together we can find a good solution. Hi.

039Um, I would say my Oh, there we go. Um, I'm going to say the greatest takeaway is um the experience you can meet, you meet new people, uh get new friends, you can, you know, see all around the like how do I put the like uh the places there we go. Um you go to different places for it. So you can meet new people, new you know go to new places and just I think just the experience is pretty great. [applause] >> Thank you board member Benson. >> Um thank you all of you that uh participated. Your presentations were great. Uh, and as a former gifted teacher, I love the fact that you're working through the problem solving process and really using uh critical and creative thinking skills. Uh, I have two questions. They're they're

040connected. um you guys mentioned that you um focused on what the importance of testing was and assessment and that uh in your solution finding you found that there were some limiting principles based on the Arizona revised statute. So could you somebody like what did you find out about why assessment is important and what were those limiting principles? uh do you see those limiting principles being necessary? Like should should we be advocating uh lawmakers to um look at that when it comes to testing and assessment? Does that make sense? So, I'd love to hear from any of you. And I totally thought you were an adult. [laughter] like in your own words, what is the importance of assessment? Why do we do it? Like what did you learn? Um the important of assessment especially um well

041across the country but in our own state is that we based on assessment score each state gets a letter grade um from the board of education and based on that letter grade that is how funding for the um for the state is set um by the board of education. So, the better um testing scores a state would have overall will determine the funding for resources like um sports, um extracurricular activities, um I know Red Mountain is big on sports, so any anything like pole vaults or our um fields like those are very expensive and pricey things. I know we're always told about how expensive those things are. So other schools like bathrooms, lunches, um there are a lot of students who get free or reduced lunch. All that is um affected by how well testing

042um scores are because that can increase the amount of money a district can set for budget for different things for each school. >> Thank you. [applause] um just kind of like the same thing, but testing is also important because to know where like the teachers are at and teaching us. And so just by the teachers knowing what they maybe need to teach more or what they need to teach less of and like the funding especially is super important. Um, something that was a little confusing to me for me to get like over is like how when you walk into a testing classroom, you walk in and it's like kind of like a dull classroom. Nothing's up that it's just like everyone just gets seated in a spot and you take out your computer, it's all

043quiet and at times it's a little awkward cuz everyone sometimes just looks at each other. So, I'm not sure how a way that we could do that where it could be maybe less dull of a classroom or just something like that, but just by making it a little bit more normalized cuz I mean it's a very big thing, but maybe normalizing it a little bit more. >> Thank you. >> So, can you give us anybody would would you be willing to tell us what your individual takeaway? So I heard the generic and overall umbrella how it's important to a district or to a state but what about you individually as students did you find um for you personally uh did you come up with in your own words the important of importance of assessments and

044why you personally should take them seriously? Does that make sense? So I I love the big umbrella. Uh but testing really does it like what for you personally what did you learn? Why is it important? Should you take it seriously? >> Um one thing I learned was that based on your state test, it depends on whether you get like if you're taking the science test, it could depend on whether you get like a extra science class or you have to like retake that grade of science. So, I was like, I already took it serious, but that made me more take it more serious cuz I want to have time to do my extracurriculars and not have to retake a whole other year of science. And then in my senior year, I'm stuck doing last year

045science while my friends are out doing like senior assassin and all that fun stuff. For me personally, testing or like assessments are important because um it really allows like I'm going to go to high school next year. So, it shows my future high school what grade level I'm at in writing, ELA, math, science, and everything like that. And if I need any extra support. So, if I were to do well on one test, they'd know to put me in a higher level class for that. But for a subject like math where I struggle, and they'd know to put me in a bit of a lower level class because I need that extra support. And I feel like that's really important so that students don't get misplaced in wrong classes and then they have to deal

046with trying to keep up with curricular that doesn't make sense to them. So my personal takeaway on the assessments is it really does I agree with the previous people who spoke. It really does measure where you are at if you need extra help or if you are going above and beyond and you're above your grade level and it will also really help indicate if you're eligible for like certain scholarships maybe like your scores are really high you'll get funding. Certain colleges and universities might give full ride and offer that. Going back to your other question, um, member Benson, I really do want to point out that we should advocate for the the legislature and the lawmakers to kind of like be to kind of change the state testing laws because a lot of the the

047ideas that we pulled were really rejected and given back to us with we can't do this. So, if you're asking for students help, we're giving the advice that we personally have. It's not really of much use if we can't really do much about it with the state laws that are in place right now. >> Two two things. One, do you have those >> Thank you. >> do you have those laws recorded anywhere? Because I don't want to put you on the spot, but if you would get them up to uh Miss Montes uh uh then they can get them to us because we do have lobbyists that work on that type of stuff. So, if you have those recorded anywhere, we'd love to figure out those things. uh some of those efforts for the public

048to know are federal efforts as well, like they're driven by federal government statutes and laws. But we'd like to learn from you, get them up, and we'll figure out how to go to work with our lobbyists on that. The second thing, I'm I'm a teacher when it boils down to it. So, I want to say something to kids in here. The the imminent purpose of assessment is really not even any of this formalized judgmentbased metrics that we get out of this. Do I qualify for scholarships? Do I Does the school rate this way? is the school rate that way. The real purpose of assessment when it originally started was it was a learning process to build these neural pathways in your mind, right? You can go read a guy named William Rodiger. To build these

049neural pathways in your mind, you should constantly be self-quizzing yourself. That's why with Cornell notes, the thing that they try to get you to do, you take your notes, you ask yourself questions on the lefth hand side. Avid methodology, sorry. Ask yourself questions on the lefth hand side and then you fold your notes over and you ask yourself the question to see if you know it. and then you open up your paper and said, "Did I get that right?" It's this constant process of testing your metacognition. And that's the dilemma for educators is we have all these tests that judge us, assessments of learning, and then we have the actual process for learning. And so, and I need you to hear like the process for learning is just as important as the process of learning.

050You should constantly be self- quizzing yourself to say, "Do I understand? Do I get this concept?" Um, so I appreciate all your feedback on the assessment of learning process and I want to encourage you to continue assessment for learning in your own mind and constantly self quiz. >> I just want to say thank you again to all of you uh the work you put into it, the adults. Uh I love the family literacy piece as well uh and potentially expanding that to more parents involvement um rather than just our family literacy parents is I think going to be amazing. So, thank you for all your hard work. I'm excited to see what you guys did on April 30th. >> Thank you, board member Walden. >> Yeah, I I was interested in the family literacy group,

051too. There were six sessions. Did the students participate in that as well? They did not. Were you briefed on any of the takeaways from that? Were the students briefed? We haven't come to the back but we as a program uh we said that ambassador uh training and as you mentioned that not only the parents participating in the family literacy are getting all this knowledge and this training but they're now ambassadors and they're going to go out to their communities their neighbors and even others parents at their schools to talk about what they're learning. It's part of the project. We want them to spread the word and see what's going on and uh so we haven't doing it together students and parents but there's something that we're hope for and probably parents can see how students

052are learning and voicing their thoughts and sex students are are doing it. Our parents do take the tape test which is the uh test for adult basic education so they know what is about taking test. So when we were talking to them about what students do at school, it was like an eyeopener. It's like, "Oh my god, we feel nervous. We don't know what to do and we get stressed out." Our kids are going through the same process. So we're just trying to see that this is just for us to see how your growth and how you how much you're learning and how we can improve as a teachers and you as students. So it's basically sim similar to what the students are doing at their schools. So >> and then how how did you

053find the parents for to participate? Were they like from SAK or >> Well, no. Our parents are part of the family program. They're get recruited through their schools. Uh every parent and the Messa public schools districts who have a preschooler to third grader can participate on our program and uh our parent is uh our program has four components which is the adult education component when they learn English skills. um parent time when they get all this parenting skills and how to support their children's at home and also pack time which means parent and child together. So parents go to their children's classroom, sit by their side and learn with them for 45 minutes twice a week and we also have the um digital piece of it. So they have um uh online class on Wednesdays

054so they can also uh do it in person and online. So, it's all working together. But, yeah, every parent who wants to learn English or improve their skills are more than welcome to come and and enroll. >> All right. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you, board member Chaffy. >> One thing I'm curious about is whether you as junior high and high school students experience testing fatigue or testing burnout. I think you do a lot of testing throughout your education. I'm seeing a lot of nods. [laughter] Could [gasps] could one or two of you just talk about what that feels like as a student and what you've done personally to kind of try to motivate yourself or overcome that? Hi. Um I'm from Dobson. My name is Lauren. I'm a junior, so I know

055a lot about testing fatigue and so do my friends. Um, junior year has all the testing and we have a lot to do and I'm in AP classes. So, I understand testing fatigue. It's just this feeling of no matter what I'm going to do, the test is still going to be there and is this really going to be worth preparing for? Do I really want to keep going? I've been testing basically my entire life. It's right here at the end. I know I should keep going, but it's like, you know, I really have the energy to keep going. And I see that a lot. Um, it's a lot of burnout. There's stress on all of us. We have this pressure to do really well on stuff. And to help combat that, I tell myself, do

056it bits at a time. Study one piece at a time. Set time limits for yourself. Don't overdo things. With the block schedule at school, I space out my homework so I don't do everything on one day. I make sure everything's spaced out. I recommend the same thing to my friends. We take time where we go as groups to hang out. And then maybe afterwards we talk about school. Hey, what do you think um we need to study for? I've planned study groups before, especially before AP tests. I think it's really helped. Um it helps to have someone else with you. that helps keep you motivated because you're like, I'm with this other person. I need to keep them motivated. They keep you motivated. And it also takes some of the tension off of the situation.

057So, that's one way I've kept myself from burning out. And I have seen my friends do the same thing. >> Thank you. Um, question. I know we talked a little bit at the beginning about when students came and it was everyone was kind of nervous and didn't talk or and as we go and we continue this model, what is your suggestion to help get students to participate? >> So what I would suggest most is ice breakers. Like when we did activate last year with Miss Lenovo, we did a lot of ice breakers and it was very fun to talk with the other people and it helped a lot because then you could hear what other people thought and what they did in their free time and then if you guys like both like reading, you

058could talk about the books you read and it helped like everybody open up. Especially when like um you have like an extrovert person and then the other people are introverted. It helps. It helps a lot when that person like decides to step up and speak out because most of the times they might not be introverts. They might just be shy around people they don't know. And once like you introduce yourself and you start talking about your hobbies, it's like easy for them to open up. And we spent like a whole like like seven six hours in uh Activate last year. So it was more there was more time for us to open up. But if you have shorter time, it's still it can still be easy if you just have like like a little break

059where you can just everybody can talk to each other. Then maybe like the students can ask you questions about like what's like to be a board member, how you got this job, and just stuff like that. >> Awesome. Thank you. Thank you again for coming today and for sharing with us. We appreciate this information and for you being here today. So, thank you so much. And Oh, yes. We're gonna we'd like to get a group photo with you all and um everyone that participated in activate. So um if you guys can you guys are actually perfect and we'll coordinate you guys to scrunch in a bit but um if the board and Dr. Stum if you all could come up to get a photo. Thank you. >> Any principles can that participated in this as

060well if they want to come up. Don't even really at least download. All right, we'll do a quick break till 10:35. So, 4 minutes and then we'll be back. Okay, timekeeper is keeping me on time. We're going to continue on. Sorry. We're gonna turn the time over to Mr. Moore for capital planning. >> Yes. Good evening, members of the board, members of the cabinet. Uh today we'll be uh going over the capital planning board retreat number two. Uh so we've gathered a lot of feedback and we are back with some updated information as we continue our capital planning for the future. Just reminding our board the purpose and objectives. We're planning responsibly for the district's long-term future. This process is uh the idea is to establish a shared understanding of district needs. uh finalize priorities

061across our schools, align our capital investments with our enrollment and community realities and feedback and then provide direction for future capital planning leveraging all those things I just talked about. So taking all these and being uh a little more transparent in this process um because I think we'll get better results with regards to our future and capital planning. Here's our agenda. In the spirit of a continuous improvement, I've been told I'm long- winded occasionally. So, we have uh some strict time guidelines that I'll be adhering to today. A few um updates. So, related to capital, but kind of in the news and kind of not is the capital lawsuit. And so, I felt it was relevant to bring a quick update on where we are at in this process. So the current status, the Maroba

062County Superior Court ruled that Arizona schools capital funding um system is unconstitutional. The court found the state failed to maintain a general and uniform systems uh and and fund the system. Legislature ordered to fix the system within 8 months. That's the current um situation. We are fully anticipating an appeal to that and uh that could extend this uh for a number of years. For context, this lawsuit originated in 2017. So, it's almost been a decade since we've had uh this level of action. And so, um if that appeal or more or less when that appeal happens, uh we anticipate this being extended out for several years. So, what does this mean for MPS? Timeline remains uncertain. Um, districts must continue to plan with existing limited resources and then the state may eventually take action, but

063local prioritization um, aligning our capital plan or our priorities um, should not uh, wait until this is resolved. As a reminder, uh, this is our capital funding in red. We get about $28.6 million a year. We currently have no bond funds. And then for context, if we were on the charter funding model, you guys have seen the slide before, we'd get approximately 113 million. Uh we continue to advocate for that at the legislative level, but again, it takes money to fund that. But I want to uh highlight again the 28.6 million because this next slide, I want to emphasize uh some of the the standard metrics or some of the situations that we're currently in and what the cost of underfunding means. The current industry standards uh to maintain a facility is just under $10,

064but for um clear rounding purposes, I use $10 per square foot. So for our square footage, we have 8.3 million square foot of of building space. So that would require again for round numbers purposes. 83 million annually to just maintain our buildings. Um again, I just showed you our capital funding. The MPS receives $28 million annually. And that not not only is intended to fund maintenance, but it also intended to fund educational materials, curriculum, um everything that is defined as capital within the law. Uh and so in this situation, I'm I'm showcasing if we used all that 28 million for capital funding, even though we know that's not reality, we would still have a deferred maintenance gap of about 55 million. And that's annually. So you compound that year after year and we get to

065the situation in which we're currently having 1.4 billion in needs and this large gap. [snorts] So we're not just playing defense and saying you know boohoo us. We are also looking at opportunities and and challenges and how we can close the gap internally. Um the reality is we cannot consign sustain current facilities at the level our staff, students and community expect with existing funds. Um some of the strategic approaches that the board has been aware of are trying to are um efforts to reduce building square footage. Um, we have a lot of portable square footage and you know, Mesa Public Schools, the probably the most unique district in the state with the the amount of portable square footage that we have and the ability to reduce square footage and not affect the general brickandmortar building

066of a school. We're actively moving through that. But in addition, I want to highlight some of the um other spaces that Mesa Public Schools owns in terms of administrative spaces. So, these spaces are are immediate opportunities. Uh, they're not classroom spaces. they don't affect typically the site level, the school level community. Um, we have identified several properties uh for potential sale, lease or redevelopment to generate revenue. Again, this is a low impact on students and communities, but an opportunity for us to provide additional capital funding to try to close this gap. So, we've done some initial preliminary evaluations of of these properties with our current real estate advisor that the board approved, I believe, in the fall. Um, and I wanted to give you guys a little bit of a heads uh a kind of

067a context on where some of these properties would sell. Uh, again, we would we would evaluate whether we sell or lease them. So, um when the time comes, but here's just some general information. So, this property um wasn't originally on our list, but the leaser um that was in this place uh Copa Health uh exited their lease early. Uh they much like us were reducing their square footage and they did not need this facility. Uh they were consolidating their uh footprint. So, uh this is called the Sunridge site. It's 3.2 acres. Um, and you'll see one thing I want to point out is you'll see all these market value ranges are are land. You'll see parenthesis land. What this means is, um, our real estate advisor has reviewed all these properties and basically said the

068the building on it is junk that you'll get more value with the land that you own. And so they're all really appraised um for for a land sale. So this property 3.22 22 acres. Um, currently market value about 2.5 to 2.8 million. We have option two. Um, and it's not necessarily options, but these are potential options that we hope to bring forth to the board um later this November or excuse me, May for um potentially putting on the ballot. Option two is SSC. Um again this is part of our effort to reduce our district office space and consolidate to the building that we're currently in CSC. Um uh SSC is approximately 3.9 acres. Again the land value is is 2.3 to 2.9 million. Our maintenance and trades guys would greatly appreciate if we can get

069out of this [laughter] building. I I just uh not to correct Tyler, but I want to make sure everyone understands the term junk. Uh you know, these buildings are maintained to the best of our operations crews ability. Um with that being said, this building's got 35-year-old mechanicals on it. Here's the hard decision. Uh from a business perspective, we've gotten quotes on this building. That's why I stopped in this building. And the mechanicals are going to cost 9 to1 million to replace. If we wait the longer we wait, it rises towards 11 million. And uh we only get $28 million of capital funding. We only have a certain amount of reserves. We need reserves because if we don't have reserves and we're on current year funding and all of a sudden enrollment declines more than we

070think, we we can't get through the school year and we got to cut jobs mid school year. This district's never had to cut jobs mid school year. We'd like to keep it that way. We'd love to keep it that way. And and so uh with that being said, what are we going to do as an administrative team? Are we going to bring a $9.5 million PO to you for replacing mechanicals at an administrative building? I don't that doesn't probably sit well with our community. Probably wouldn't sit well with many of these board members in here. Uh and that's what we're meaning when we say the term like the realtor's telling us, hey, guess what? uh so many mechanicals, so many infrastructure problems in the envelope are past their point of useful useful life that any

071good developer is going to come in here and they're not going to try to replace the building. They're going to take it to the ground and build something new. And so I I don't want the community to think that we haven't been maintaining these buildings. You walk into that building, you're going to you're going to see that it's very livable, very workable. We have our administrative meetings there, our general administrative meetings. This year we transitioned them from off-site where we're paying uh uh rent rent to go to a place for a day to on-site where we don't no longer have to pay rent to go to a place for a day. So we have our administrative meetings there. It's a good building to to be in, but there's just so much work in the envelope

072in the infrastructure that a realer is telling us like any good developer is taking it to the ground and building new. Does that make sense on that that word? >> Yeah, thanks for clarifying that. Yeah, that again. Yeah, echo. Our trace guys are keeping these operational um and there's no um issues with uh people in the building working in the building. But when looking at a reinvestment opportunity, again to Matt's point, uh these would be leveled more than likely. Site number three, uh this site is uh the what we dee call Riverview site is where the adult ed is currently at. They're transporting to historic Irving. There's several portables on this site. It's pretty much a lot of land. There's not much physical buildings on this site. Um, you'll see the the the current range

073of this is 4.5 to approximately 6 million, but it's strictly based on the number the acreage there. It's 6.5 acres. It's a large piece of land in a fairly industrial area. The next one, uh, Mckelup site. This is where Brain Foods at. also copy repair uh who is currently relocating in the process of relocating to MDC. Um and the copy repair is in a portable right now. We're looking uh once they move, we're looking at removing those portables. Um and then uh Brain Food will continue to be there. Um we have honored that. But this site again if we don't look at it at a long-term range right and have the flexibility to leverage this site uh at a later date when potentially there's more campuses where we can transport brain food um and keep

074them operational with NPS. Um this site is 2.9 acres about 1.2 million 1.5 in range and market value. Do you want to add some? >> Yeah, just real real quick. The at the end the very ending slide this afternoon when we get done will be you have about a month to tell us in individual check-ins and guide us on what we want as action steps in May for an election in November. With regards to this, even if the board gives feedback so that we take an action item in May to take this out to a vote of the public because that's first step we have to take out to vote of public to see if the public allows us and then the second step is to go to the board to say what do we

075want to do with this property. I need everyone to hear and I've already had conversations with a brain foods director. A brainfruit will have a home in Mesa public schools. need everyone to hear that and the timeline of all this is probably several years. So it's not an imminent, you know, it goes to the ballot and by January we need to have a plan for a brain food. It'll take years to get this done if that makes sense to you. I just if anyone in the public, Arizona Brain Food supports our community to such a large degree and provides food to really the most food insecure families. And I I need everyone in the public to understand we're not looking to part ways at all with a brain food. Um the the last site uh

076uh administrative service center ASC um probably the least acreage uh but again that's a prominent footprint downtown again due to the age of the building um the value is relatively low u because it does require some investments if somebody were to either long-term lease that the majority of the building um or potentially purchase it from us. I want to echo uh Dr. Trump's point with these five properties. Um this is all part of the capital planning. It takes uh several years. There's the the election um where first the board to call for election to put these properties on the ballot. Second for these to be approved on an election. And then uh even if they're approved, we do have uh now that it gives us the the uh ability to now capital plan these uh

077in a in a a long timeline. And uh but we we're taking those proactive steps to have these ready to go when the time comes uh and allow us to leverage um our resources uh more wisely by getting ahead of some of these items um and and getting being proactive. Not only does it give us ability to sell, but it allows us to long-term lease past 20 years. So I want to point that out. Uh we would always look for the best opportunity for Mesa Public Schools in terms of revenue generation. Um, and then even if they're ballot approved in November, again, to Dr. Trump's point, they do have to be brought back to the governing board, um, if they were to be sold or long-term leased like we currently do. So, >> if it's

078related to this, Yeah. >> Yeah. So, when you're talking about whether leasing or selling, does that have to go to the the ballot to say lease or sale? What what would the or do you have that option? Does the voter just approve it's not part of Mesa Public Schools anymore and then you have the option to lease or sell or do you have to decide that for the ballot? So the typical ballot language includes uh lease, sale or exchange and then again it provides the district that flexibility when the time comes and evaluating that land uh to bring back to the board one of those recommendations. And so you don't have you can determine that prior, but most stickers put all three so they have that flexibility. >> All right, that sounds good. Thank you.

079>> Okay, so as as we navigate this, we eventually we're going to run out of administrative buildings and we're going to we're going to get to a point where we've removed all the portables we can remove. Uh and so phase two would be [clears throat] a longer term approach which would be evaluating school repurposing. Right? This is a more complex decision. It's going to involved uh several stakeholders and I want to point out in the community budget meeting and maybe Mr. Wink can um add any information here. They did indicate in that meeting uh and one of the closing activities that a long range planning committee uh would be necessary to establish some guidelines and start being proactive in having this conversation because they know uh the extent and the time that would need to

080be set aside to have these discussions assuming did you want to add anything? [clears throat] >> We're going to meet with our parent council in middle of April to share some of the outcomes from the citizens budget committee. uh including what stakeholders need to be involved in long range planning and so we'll bring that to the board at a later date. >> Mr. Wing, can you just briefly tell about what we've learned from two other districts? There were two different approaches and we're going to take the one district's approach. >> Yeah, we so um shared with the citizens committee with the parent council we we we gave two examples. the Scottsdale example where within a few months they made decisions to close a couple schools. Then we also shared the Kyne Elementary School District where

081they took a year and a half approach and involved various stakeholders. Still difficult decisions either way. And so that was uh part of the the challenge we provided to the citizens budget committee. And our approach is going to be more of the the longer term versus the quick decision- making. uh we did share when we talk long range planning what are some guiding principles we need to consider prior to needing to make decisions and I leverage the reduction of force example the best time to have uh create a reduction or modify the reduction of force procedures is when you don't have to do a reduction of force and so the long range planning uh committee would be an opportunity to decide some guiding principles that would guide whatever future decision- making excuse me would be

082made uh by the district and the governing board. >> And so the public doesn't get their uh timeline set, please know we have 2627 planned for, right? We have a 2627 budgetarily planned for. We are not closing schools in 2627. Please know the first step of this long range planning committee would be to come up with guidelines and guard rails, but that work is better done prior to having to get there. And we think right now we think we can plan for 2728 without having to go to school repurposing uh as well. And so we're working through that budgetary process right now. We're committed to keeping as many schools open as long as we possibly can. Uh but at the same time to ignore the fact that we aren't any longer 74,000 students and we're

083now 54,000 students would not be very would not it wouldn't be have very much foresight. And so we're trying to get ahead of it, have a lot of foresight and understand uh with community involvement exactly how in each region we may repurpose a school to an alternative uh option, right? or uh uh combine two schools into one and things along those lines. We're hoping we can delay this till the 2030s, right? We're going to try to do that as long as we possibly can. But Justin said a year and a half. I don't want the community to think the that a year and a half is when we'll be having these conversations. I want the community to understand our first steps just to get a committee together to discuss what our principles are. uh the

084other district did it all we were using example was one district did it short time frame another district did it long time frame and we're we're preferring to do it long time frame with a lot of community involvement >> may I uh pardon [clears throat] me so I like the idea of um solid community involvement but with our going into 20627 knowing our budget uh has a significant shortfall to be fiscally responsible and responsive to the community. Our long term, the long-term piece of it shouldn't be too long to to guide our principles, right? Like I'm I'm concerned when you say, "Well, we'll look in the 2030s. We probably need to just to make a >> we we receive your guidance and I hear you." uh you know these schools are community hubs >> and

085so I think sometimes our heart gets to us an awful lot and uh uh what that means is that you know we have the utmost of desires. I will tell you we plan a budget this year for 200 students down next year. If next year we are only 1500 students down that could delay it into the 2030s because now all of a sudden we're 900 students budget positive. So if enrollment shows up more positive than 2400 schools students down that's the tricky part since we're on current year funding like we can't plan too far ahead and but we can't ignore the fact that we have to plan ahead and so you have to do enough work but you also have to if if we I want to be really clear if it happens the opposite

0862400 students ends up being 4,800 students down next year then the time frame gets a lot >> accelerated >> quicker >> well and I think the um presentation we had from our students that participated in Hactivate. And I I really do love the connection to uh family literacy because that's getting parents to understand um in communities that maybe for them personally testing was not something that was of importance, right? And so they um expanding the knowledge that parents have so that they can support their kids. That's that's where I would love to see Mesa innovate is we're in declining enrollment and it's accelerated pretty substantially since 2020. But if we can be proactive like uh and involving and actually turning around our student um outcomes, we will draw people back because Mesa has a great

087history and we have great great uh educators here that have the desire for students to learn, right? So, if we can get that messaging out and reverse the trend by listening to our community and repurposing, we don't have to close necessarily a neighborhood school. We just have to maybe get a a new flavor, right? That draws people back in. That's how we should be really focusing our innovation, not in like different teaching strategies. Uh, as Michael Schumacher indicates, we know what effective learning looks like, right? So, if we can get that out and we can we have 20,000 kids that we're not capturing right approximately in the city of Mesa, uh we just need to get back to them being able to trust us again that we're going to educate every child in this district.

088Uh that's how we mitigate this. One of the things though that I'm worried about is is um and you talked about guiding principles. I I think I'd like to know more about um Mr. Wing what you what you mean by guiding principles and how those are derived. Um but I I'm worried about serving our kids. We're all worried about serving our kids, but are our resources spread too thin if we prioritize keeping schools open rather than making sure that our kids are are are served well. Um and and and piggybacking on board member Benson's comments, um um we we have we do have programming for for um different modes of learning. We have programming for different um curricular um learning. Um I just got my um note from our Agra Science Elementary School for example.

089Um, I want to make sure that our kids have educational experiences like the arts, like the specials, like um assistance as one of our students mentioned, I think it was the Kino students, supports when they need support. um families like the family literacy program that they have support. But if our priority is is to keep schools open, then do we sacrifice programs that make Mesa what it is? And that that's that's what attracts parents to our schools as well. just not the schools but the programs and the excellent staff and the means by which we are serving kids by strength and need and really keeping our promise. So I guess I need more clarification on on the principles because while I'm not in favor of closing schools, I'm I'm definitely not in favor of limited

090educational experiences for our kids. before Mans I think that's a what the question member Hutchkins just posed is an absolutely essential question you know we do EQs in the learning environment all the time that you can put in front of a long-range planning committee and say this is the this is part of the essential questions the dilemma of what we're dealing with right now is resources and how to allocate uh uh because we are on limited budgets uh you know we don't get an infinite budget from the state of Arizona nor our local property property taxpayers and we shouldn't. Uh so I think that'd be a good EQ to take before you talk to the guidelines. >> The long range planning I we really don't have a list of principles right now. We're going to

091have the committee build them with various stakeholders. And I just want to give the parent council an opportunity to share with us their recommendations on stakeholders. And in return, we'll take both the citizens budget and the parent council uh recommendations to the board. And really just a really simple uh an example of a guiding principle would be is, you know, we we want to maintain the brand new school versus the school that has $50 million in needs. That would be the a common one. You know, I guess I'm assuming they'll bring up a border school versus a central school trans. I mean, I can see I can see so many guiding principles just things we need to weigh in and what you shared, Mrs. Hudgington is in his example of something we need to take

092into consideration. >> All right, jumping back in. So what we've discussed is we are looking at every opportunity to reduce cost and generate value through you know these things administrative site reduction portable reduction we're stretching and opening you know um looking under rocks looking for every opportunity to save cost um keeping it lower impact uh near-term actions that do not affect the classroom at this time that that is our emphasis but again back to refocusing on the core question what is our capital investments and what should we prioritize? Um through a lot of stakeholder feedback and again we've shared this graphic several times, right? We've gone through our current assessments. Um we've used thirdparty assessors as along with our internal trades guys and currently, you know, we're 1.4 billion in needs. That's current needs, right?

093Any item that needs to be replaced at its current dollar value would equate to this 1.4 billion. We've um through several different um means we've um looked at various uh gathered various impact and engaged several stakeholders including you know the first board retreat parent council budget community meeting internal leadership uh we've had various discussions and the consistent themes across all the groups um number one safety and building systems rose rose right to the top you know that includes you know finishing the gearfront lobbies as we know there's several sites that still do not have, you know, secure front lobby. That theme came up. Um, HVAC, plumbing, roofing. Um, there's a general understanding that those are top priorities because they can directly affect classroom instruction and the student experience. Uh, fix what's failing within reason before

094replacing new, right? Strategize total cost versus replacement value. We have several, you know, I use this example all the time, the Carson Emerson, right? We have several facilities that are well past their useful life. We've done a great job of keeping them operational, but where is that um cost benefit between um you know demoing and replacing with new versus renovating? Uh CTE, career and technical education, you know, align workforce readiness and then interest and efficiencies, reuse and transfer transferable investments. So much like the conversation we're having here with school repurposing, um making investments and and strategic investments and not um if there was opportunity for additional capital funding, not putting that dollars into an area where the school might be repurposed. >> So items such as furniture, um technology that can be easily movable, uh

095those those items also rose to the top. Um looking at uh some of the priorities again just an example I'm not going to read all this but again you can see across uh a lot of the groups you know HVAC plumbing secure front lobbies much as what I' I've already emphasized rose to the top and then at the the bottom technology specifically K2 um was significantly at um consistently at the bottom and I know through uh our cabinet groups we are looking at that um and looking how we can strategically discuss or intentionally maybe bring back um what that looks like for the future of of technology in our district. But for the sake of this presentation, we've um heard again we found 1.4 billion and shared um priorities. um our realistic funding that where

096we're where we're kind of landing on is 490 million which um through this process of taking in feedback required a significant level of prioritization. Uh if we have 15 roofing projects that are in need we looked at maybe what is our top 10 right and applied that across the board with all our metrics. if we have um HVAC, what is our worst top 10, right? And we le we we went across our board and uh did some realistic prioritization and got to a $490 million number. What what that does do, it still leaves a $900 million gap. And that gap doesn't go away even if the board chooses to to go with this $49 million. Um but I want to say I just want to point out that that gap will continue to exist and

097year after year more than likely compound or grow. Um but the general theme it means we cannot fund everything and we and we cannot do everything. Um so how this shaped our approach we narrowed down to these five categories based on again the stakeholder feedback. Um we did not reduce um in the next slide I'll show you dollar values for each one of these categories but did not reduce evenly. We looked at again priorities and what mattered most system safety and core operations and student experience. So within these categories uh we defined some key projects and uh the dollar amounts and where they aligned based on that uh prioritization process were this. So 77.2 2 million into the safety, security, and technology category. This includes this would include uh school lobby renovations that would finish

098off um the remaining schools security um uh upgrading our security cameras, technology. Uh we've reduced this to strictly high school devices as well as staff and technology infrastructure. That kind of summarizes a little bit of what's in that category. 32 million in career and technical education. These are strategic investments across our high schools uh and various CTE programs to one either renovate and bring up to current standards or um add new programs as the workforce um uh um climate or kind of the workforce u industry is ever changing. And so that's what that represents the 123 million in building infrastructure. These are our building systems. So these are our roofing um weatherization of a of a exterior campus, plumbing, electrical. And again through this process uh we we have in just HVAC we have over

099500 million needs. But we looked at prioritizing our top 10 worst uh schools and worse I'm using just the top 10 needed and looking for those top 10. if we were to renovate or replace those infrastructures that it would provide the biggest bang for our buck in terms of efficiencies um money back in terms of utilities. And so that process um that building infrastructure category represents all of those um items with that 123 million the 185 the school facilities optimization category represents the Carson Emerson conversation right that two for one potentially being more um if we're looking at school repurposing three for one four for one um in there um is that Carson Emerson concept as well as another K6 to be named And in addition, um we know with the high school renovations, um

100the next high school that needed uh drastic renovations is Red Mountain High School. And so that would that is also in that category and that uh set aides approximately 30 million. Uh and again, most of it's infrastructure based. They don't have a secure front lobby. They have aging HVAC. They still have carpet on the walls. Um so there there's a number of of things that would be um renovation in nature. Uh but that I just want to point that out that um dollar amount is in that school facilities optimization category. And then the last category the school every each site need we're committed to having um something in a capital plan for each site and that category student and in community experience. So 72.8 8 million. Again, that represents furniture. If there was a We

101do have a um a very lengthy furniture replacement plan, and so that represents furniture for those buildings. Um there's flooring in there. There's uh various items uh with regards to um each site need. There's athletics, that's where that landed. So, the replacement of our athletic fields um specifically the turf fields is in that category as well. uh and several of the um theatrical uh renovations and and um performing arts uh renovations that need to be either brought up to current standard or renovated due to age. Dr. John, >> does that amount solve every problem? And I know the answer to this. I'm asking because we just rambled through athletics and uh theater and then the the public or a teacher out there might think, "Oh, good. I'll I'll get this fixed or this fixed." And

102so I just want to be clear, 77.2 million does not cover every theater issue and every athletic field issue and every Does that make sense? Am I clear in that? >> Yeah. Back to my last slide, this is not the solution to cover everything, but we feel through prioritization that this covers a good portion of some of the needs, but it does not cover every need. And there will be things missed out of here. Um, but what we heard in terms of feedback was that we need to prioritize and that the community U parent council, even the board, like we cannot fund everything. Um, and so this is a reflection of that and what we heard. But now I want to take at least maybe a couple minutes and stop talking for a second and

103allow the board uh to uh provide some feedback, maybe two minutes per board member and reflecting on these categories. What am I and maybe one thing I'm missing or one thing you wish you would have saw in here? >> Courtney, do you want to leave that? Yeah, thank you. I'm going to start I uh with Can we go first? Oh, well shoot not prepared. Are you ready? >> Yeah. >> Okay, I'll go to board member Chaffy. >> I was just feeling bad because you always go last. I was like, you could go first today. Um I really appreciate the transparency. I came into this meeting being like, I'm really grateful that a lot of this information isn't a surprise that we've had a lot of conversations. It's helpful. It's helped me kind of guide my

104my thinking. Um, I kind of took a look at these in order of how much we're spending in each area and kind of putting it in dollar amount order. And I really appreciate that based on the conversations we've had as a board and with the community that we really are focusing on some very important infrastructure needs. I know they are not the exciting or sexy parts of renovation, but I think it's become apparent that we just have a lot of infrastructure needs within our schools. And so I appreciate that we really are dedicating a huge chunk to the buildings and creating a place where our students can learn and where learning can be um focused and not disrupted by some of those things. One question I have that doesn't need to be answered right now

105but just kind of in in conversations is how will decisions be made within each category when we talk about each site need who are the stakeholders that will be involved in those decisions to make sure that we are still prioritizing you know we know we can't do everything how are we going to make sure that those decisions are made and involving stakeholders at the sites um and then I'm going to ask a tough question which is do we have a plan B option where is there any way to shrink that 490 to closer to like 450 because I know we went out for a bond before closer to the 500 level and I would love to be able to go to the public and say yes we have all these needs but is there a

106way we can really prioritize and look more at like the the 450 number >> a quick response to that so we would just go through that same prioritization I just talked about instead of our top 10 we would now go top eight right and we would take that process throughout um the whole list right um again there there might be some untouchables like I'm assuming we'd want to continue to prioritize the finish you know the continuing finishing the school lobby renovations right but maybe instead of again our top 10 most needed HVAC issues we go top eight we we we prioritize um again right we go back to the drawing board and and keep going so I appreciate your feedback one more if that if that's the if individual board members over the next month

107give that feedback and check and we will direct the operations chief of staff, chief of business officer to slim down. I we we live in a very financially conservative community. Uh the board pays off their bonds in 10 years. Uh the community bonds in 10 years. We save a lot of interest by doing that. Uh so just continue to give us that feedback. I will also tell you that the Carson Emerson project is planned out right now in our minds financially to fit with the idea that declining enrollment may continue to occur and we want the flexibility of it not being a two for one but maybe being a three or four for one. If if we have to reduce budget in that category, we can do that as well. But now all you're going

108to do on a building is you're going to take square footage away. And as you take square footage away, then you're capping it ever being a four for one. It might be a three for one. And the idea on going two for one and three for one is that you can save money on the M side of the books, which then helps you pay teachers and support staff in the salary because you take away some of the front and then it gets back to the idea of miss member Hutchinson and that you have a larger school so more resources can be deployed to that school. So I just want you to know there there is flexibility. the 185 million we can look at as well and go okay let's not try to plan for maybe

109a four for one and we don't have I need the community to understand we don't have schools targeted we know Carson Emerson we mention a lot because they have about $90 million in needs to fix those two schools and everyone kind of knows that so we've mentioned those a lot but you know as this pro if if the board was to approve going out for bond and if the community was then to approve it the project would develop itself uh from there but if we reduced that 85, then we're just talking about a a lower square footage footprint and then we might only be able to go three for one. So, >> yeah, I appreciate that and and I want to make it clear I I really wish we just had the adequate funding that

110we that we need to support our schools. And I understand that the bond system is the system set up right now that we're under. Um, and I I really appreciate that we started this meeting talking about just how many capital needs we have because of the state funding situation that we are in. Thank you, board member Walden. >> Yeah. So, I think I'll have, you know, later on in the presentation is, you know, capital override versus bond. I'll probably have more discussion on that. I I don't always like when I look at the past agree with how maybe money's been spent, but then nobody in leadership right now was here to do that. But in looking what I think maybe was an overallocation of resources or uh of people, it didn't if we cut all

111that, it didn't equate to giving you the extra 55 million in capital needs a year that you needed those. Like I hear from the community a lot, they think, you know, cut administration, we've got to make these cuts. But the data says that we need 84 or 83 million a year to maintain our facilities and we're getting some, you know, 20some million. So all all that other money is not coming in the budget. So I think even if we you know made some of the cut sooner, it wouldn't have equated to the 84 83 million that we need every year to maintain it. So I think that there's there's definitely going to be a need for something, right? Because the deferred maintenance is is really high. And in the previous retreat, I mentioned how deferred

112maintenance grows and snowballs and then costs you more more money down the road. So, I think there's we're going to have to do to do something to catch up to that. Um, later on the presentation though, I'll get to my other questions on on that. Thank you. >> Thank you, board member Benson. Uh, I think this is where the conversation about um delayed timeline versus a shorter uh term fits into the um conversation because the longer we wait to determine which schools are we going to either collapse into one or close uh I think our community is going to be looking at that like the percentage of capacity of our buildings and the number of students that are in them and then going out to uh solicit bond funds there. I I think the big

113question we're going to be asked is twofold. Um what about student outcomes? Uh and why are we prioritizing keeping space open that we don't actually have students in classrooms? So, I think that's uh going to be the two sticking points for a majority of our community. Uh I met with a group of students last night at uh read better be better and when I look at the technology um piece of here uh I'm wondering if we can get just a student survey on uh student technology uh and at the high school level and whether or not it is actually beneficial. Now, there was just a small group of kids. There were seven there last night, but every single one of them said they don't like digital learning. It is not improving their outcomes. It's a

114struggle for them. uh and one of their teachers introduced them to um and I don't remember the neuroscientist's name but he uh has they've done research and um again this was brought up by a student they're concerned that this generation is actually um their cognitive development is behind their parents and it's because of digital issues. So I found that fascinating because we assume as adults that kids want technology and they want to learn from technology, but that's not actually what those seven kids said. Now it was seven kids. Uh but if if they're finding that their learning is not actually benefited from onetoone devices or here go read this on a tech on on on your laptop uh or here here's a slideshow I created. I mean, I heard from those seven kids, they want

115actual face-to-face interaction. They want discussion. They want they want teachers, not a machine, teaching them. So that potentially we we want to hear from our students what's beneficial to them. What do they think is important? How can how can we as a board improve their quality of learning? Perhaps a little survey. Do you value the onetoone devices? Do you like all of this digital learning? Is it the most effective way to teach our students and get them to actually learn what they need to in order to be effective citizens or quality citizens? So, I I thought the timing of this was uh unique. I they mentioned it. I'm like, that's fascinating. That's really and uh I don't know which teacher it was uh that introduced him to that neuroscientist, but I loved that that happened

116because it was a great discussion apparently in their classroom. So, I I I think maybe get some information, a brief little survey. It doesn't have to be anything, you know, ex exorbitant. Maybe kids don't want all the technology that's in their room. >> Thank you, board member Hutchinson. >> Maybe we need to activate it. Um, so the um um and we could do that in an individual school, you know, like Carson does. Um but um the other thing that I I I just keep coming back to where the money comes from and when Mr. more started off with the capital lawsuit update. Um I I think we need to remember that outside of maybe a bond election or an override election. Um the money that we are talking about um the the lack of money

117is based on state funding. And we have the superior court who has ruled that the current capital funding system is unconstitutional. And you you mentioned that this has been um a lawsuit maybe 10 years in the making. Well, but this is this is an appeal from a previous lawsuit and this is a 30-year maybe even more neglect on the state of uh on on the part of the state legislature. Um, and I think my hair color gives away just how long I've been involved with public education. And originally, when Mesa Public Schools went out for bonds, we went out for bonds for bells and whistles. We didn't go out for bathrooms. We didn't go out for HVAC. We didn't go out for the things that kids need. I I too met with some students this

118past week. I met with um some of the public service academy kids at Red Mountain and restrooms are a real issue. it it's not a classroom funding thing, but how how can you learn when you got to go to the bathroom and the bathroom's closed because there's there's a sewer problem. Um, and these kids mention this to me and at a 5 minute 6 minute passing time it's impossible. So, so I'm I'm looking at a legislature that is not funding us properly and and and to his credit, Superintendent Stro has mentioned this over and over and over again, but then we are the stewards of that money and and I think that our our public knows that we are doing we're trying to do the best we can, but we are not funded properly. and

119vouchers only add to that problem. It's estimated that's cost Mesa public schools $40 million. It's costing the state over $1.1 billion. It's 12% of the K K12 budget. We've got to write the ship in the state. And there's a lot of things that need to happen, but I just want to make sure that we we keep the focus on where most of the money is coming from and that we are doing the best we can with the best minds and this false narrative of administration and that administrative costs are so high. Arizona has some of the lowest administrative costs in the country and Mesa has some of the lowest administrative costs in the state. So, we are trying to make sure that our kids are served. But it's damn difficult. Excuse my language. I shouldn't

120have said that. But it's difficult when you're not given the proper funding to do the job and our hands are tied behind our back and yet we're still trying to do the best that we can. So, I guess my question is how are we advocating for more money from the state? And and maybe that's a a question that we can keep asking um as we proceed through this the difficult decisions that we have. >> Thank you. Um I also want to thank this wasn't a surprise presentation that we have been briefed on this frequently and the information has so it's not shocking. So, I appreciate that. I do appreciate the breakdown. And maybe the question would be is if we were to lessen it to 450, maybe if we saw like a spreadsheet or something

121that would take out what we would lose by not by dropping it that that amount and then we could see is it worth that, you know what I mean? See the tradeoff and at least give us a visual as to what that looks like and so um we can make the best uh decision there for that. That's all I have. member, we do have that spreadsheet. It kind of leads me to the next slide, which is um some of the things that we've heard back from one the governing board and and throughout all my stakeholder stakeholder meetings with the community is that transpar transparency needs to be increased. And so while we um have a proposed kind of amount out there and we know we need to visit with individual board members to to finalize

122that um we've kind of proactively created a dashboard uh to address that transparency piece and create a visual representation um showing the line item detail of a proposal if it were to be in place. The link is here. I'm not going [clears throat] to click the link right now, but I'm going to show you some screenshots. Um, but we will include this in status so you can play around in there. Um, I do I would appreciate any feedback um as we continue to finalize this. But here's a couple screenshots. um our talented um or the data team um with Jonathan House has and and their team has been um advantageous in helping us uh leverage a lot of u analytical information to uh and and coding to put this kind of together. So we have

123at at the top just to cover this briefly actually top left the glossery. This was an oversight by me, but it was constant throughout the community meetings and budget like what are these items? I naturally for me working in public ed, I know what 90% of the items are that we're dealing with and that we need to fund on on a daily basis, but the community did not have the information. So, we um have proactively added a glossery. We've also through some of the activities and feedback we've shared that glossery which it has a uh all the information on what uh some of these items are. What is what is a switchboard? What is some of the uh infrastructure that we currently have and what is the purpose of it? Um through this dashboard um

124you'd be able to select a school look at that particular school uh via the dropdown. You would get a a school capital summary um based on what uh when we finalize those plans. This is a a kind of a giraffe right now would be and then you got on the as we move down the page you have the school information school website and I'm going to go to the next slide because I think it gives a full picture of that the year built uh the square footage at that school and then we have uh to the right of the school information the funded improvements via a visual pigraph but then down below um all the capital expenditures that are being proposed at that site. by the categories that we just talked about. You can also

125drill down if somebody's very interested in looking at those categories in detail. You can expand um the building infrastructure and start to drill down into those informations. And so um you mentioned spreadsheets and information like we have it. It's publicly it will be publicly available. Yeah. >> Yeah. So um again I I don't want to take credit for this. there's been a large team within within MPS that has helped build this uh and we're still building it and we're refining it. Um but we do want your feedback and we'll continue to uh make this better and hopefully uh u it'll be important for our community or it'll it'll be a option for our community to have and and give them some education with regards to what when we do get to a final proposal what

126what we are what we are proposing and what we're committed to funding. Madam President, may I make a comment? So, I I just want to commend your team uh for the level of this had to been an amazing amount of uh work to organize, arrange uh and put uh I love the visuals because I I think people love that. Uh and again, this is the kind of innovation that public education needs and Mesa can be the leader in that. This this takes our Transparency is going to rebuild trust with our community and it's going to re build uh trust with our um partners. The level of transparency I've not seen it and I think member Hutchinson would probably agree with the length of time that we've been in public education. This level of transparency to

127our community has never existed to my knowledge. uh and the being responsive to our community and the frustrations that they've had in the past and the uh funding of the sexy things, the things that look really cool, but they don't actually impact student learning. An AC does, a bathroom does. It's not sexy, but it's necessary. So this approach and I just want to commend leadership has been responsive and I think our community is uh I think that they overall are appreciating the level of transparency that uh they are being afforded. So thank you >> just so you can see long run vision with this uh and there is a little risk in what we're doing. I I want to I want to present the risk to you in a second, but uh the citizens budget

128budget oversight committee would then work off this dashboard with the chief of staff with the chief business officer and we'd annually quarterly go through here's the projects that we're trying to accomplish this semester, this next semester, so that we have transparency that we said we're doing this project and we're actually doing this project. That's one of the purposes of the citizens budget committee. The risk is this. Uh we built in and some some of the community members might say it can't cost that much. Well, when you're planning a bond, let's say it's a five-year bond cycle to a seven-year bond cycle. Uh when you're planning a bond, you might not do a project till you're six. >> And you have to build in inflation because if you don't, then all of a sudden you're not

129going to have enough funds to do the project six years from now. And so that could be one of the reasons pricing is a little high is because on certain projects we know we're not going to get to them till six years from now. Our system can only handle so many projects in a year. And plus the tax rate, let's say that real clear, the tax rate can only handle so many projects. If we were to sell off $450 million of bonds in one year, we'd spike the tax rate and that's not what we want to do to the community. So we only sell off bonds in a certain pacing. And so the risk is that inflation runs hotter than we ever thought it would or we planned for. And if it runs hotter than

130we ever thought it would, we're going to have to come back to the I just want you to be clear like five years from now, we could be back to the board and go, "Hey, we we promised this project. We're, you know, $50,000 short. We're either going to have to borrow that from capital to actually do the project or go back to the community and explain, sorry, due to inflation, this is one of the projects we couldn't get around to with this bond. next bond, it'll be back on the next bond uh if and when that occurs. Does that make sense? That's that's the risk of doing something like that. And so I don't want like we're being responsive, but I also want the board and the community understand that the risk is that inflation

131runs hot and we can't get to some of these projects. So hopefully it doesn't. I think if that happens though because of the level of transparency that we have established from the beginning the community is not going to be going wait like now it it um sometimes appears as though it's been a mismanagement of funds or a mismanagement of priorities but we're from the beginning setting out and I mean everybody individually knows the impact of inflation so unfortunately So with that, we made it to a break. Thank God. [laughter] >> How many teacher flowers? Can we pull this presentation back up? >> I got it. I'm gonna kick it off. >> Ready? All right. All right. So, while we uh while we eat lunch, >> we've emphasized stakeholder feedback uh and we took an additional

132step that uh Miss Public Schools is used to and engaged with a outside consultant because um why this matters is because bonds and overheads, whether the board approves those or not, they require voter approval. And so, uh community perception directly impacts the successful su success of any funding plan. and understanding um our voters opinion as well because they may not all be parents. They may not all be um members of our uh Mesa public schools is an important concept uh in navigating this process. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to uh Paul Benz with High Ground Consulting as he conducted a survey uh to get our community's perspective or our voters perspective. Thank you. And uh you know I know this is a working lunch, but I like to also believe

133myself to be the lunchtime entertainment. So uh again, my name is Paul Ben. I'm the senior vice president of research and strategy at Highground Public Affairs uh here in Phoenix, Arizona. I am also a Mesa Public Schools grad. I went to Elma and Roads and Dobson. So I went completely through all of that and happy to be here. Always happy to be in this room. Uh generally when I was in this room it was to get a state championship in speech and debate or some other recognition. So I always love being in the boardroom but I appreciate you uh uh taking the time to be here today and giving me the opportunity to present. So, a little bit about survey. As Tyler mentioned, one of the things to note is that uh when when you're

134looking at the overall audience, certainly you put parents uh at the top of the list of the folks that you care about, but the vast majority of your electorate, the folks that would cast their vote in any upcoming election don't necessarily have kids under the age of 18 at home. In fact, only in this survey, you'll see only about 27% of respondents have kids at home anymore. And then we asked, "Have you or anyone else in your family ever attended a Mesa school?" We get closer to 60%, but that means that there's 40% of the electorate that does not have any sort of direct relationship or direct understanding uh from the district or from the schools or getting their information from the schools. And I think that's just an important framework of why you do

135survey research like this. Um the other thing to note is that of the adult population in your area here, only about 70% of adults are actually registered to vote. So that means three out of every 10 folks that actually of course of course I'm registered voter are actually lying to you. Um but more to the point when we talk about high voter turnout uh that you know 79.9% in the presidential election or anything like that is of that 70%. So it's a little over half the adult population. We're in a midterm cycle which means the the governor's at the top of the ticket but in the midterm cycle fewer folks participate. U turnout goes from 75 to 79 down to somewhere between 60 and 65%. So we are literally talking about half the adult population.

136So uh we conducted a district-wide survey. This is a 400 person sample which means we called and completed 400 interviews. We obviously called a lot more folks than that to complete 400 interviews. Um but these are 400 live persontoperson surveys which is the gold standard of uh research. That means this was all conducted by human answered by human beings. No AI, no push buttons, no computers, no web. This was all done. We direct dial cell phones as required by law. We call home phones, but the vast majority of the sample is cell phones. Uh we conducted the survey February 16th through the 19th. So it's a little over a month ago that we conducted the survey. And then we balance it to base it to look like what your electorate looks like. A couple things

137to note is that 36% of your electorate is going to be over the age of 65 with another 23% over the age of 50, 50 to 64. So, you're talking about 60% or so of your respondents will be over the age of 50. We balance it that way to reflect who's going to show up. If younger voters started to show up, if other people show up, it certainly could impact the data. But our goal is to give you accurate and unbiased information based on what we know and the history. So, these are likely voters. What that means is these are people who have a history of participating in the election. So, we know that we don't know how you voted, but we do know if you showed up to vote in an election or not.

138And so we make sure that we pull from a pool of likely voters uh that reflect not only sort of the age, but we also do balance it by party to give you an understanding. This, as you probably know, is a little little bit more of a heavily conservative district. So we reflect that in the audience. We also use uh geographic areas. In this case, we use the city council districts, county islands, the little bit of Chandler that's part of the district to uh balance it out because school boundaries, I would love to use school boundaries quite frankly, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is school boundaries are not overlaid with the voter file. So instead, what we use is sort of the other geographic areas that we have at our disposal. Um, and

139by the way, this is all from the file. We don't ask people their age because they tend to feel a little younger that day. We don't ask them uh their registration because they may be feeling like one party or the other, but that's not how they're registered in the file. So, we balance all of this. We don't ask these questions. These are all from the file itself. Uh the first thing that we do then is a couple of warm-up questions. The first question that we ask is, do you think your local community is headed in the right direction or wrong direction? Just to get them talking, getting them to answer um these questions. You can see it's about 53.6 total percent right direction versus 24% total wrong. Pretty consistent. We did a survey in 2023

140that had about the similar results. If I were to ask the direction of the country right now, it would be in the 30 to 35% range. If I were to ask the direction of the state, it would be in the 40 to 45% range. All of my historic surveys. And by the way, we not only do school district surveys, we do local surveys. I do a lot of surveys for the city of Mesa, for example, but we also do statewide, local, uh, regional surveys as well. If you ask the direction of your community or the direction of the city, you see that 50 to sort of 55% range. People are more comfortable and much more happy with their local government than they are with basically any other level of government. It's they're incredibly popular. Your

141partnerships with your local community reflect that. That's uh you see optimism across the board partisan wise uh for the direction of the community. Uh next we have a consistent question where we ask direction of K12 education. And one thing that I will note on this is that um it's about 25% 26% total right compared to 50% total wrong. That is two things that influence this. Bear in mind as I mentioned less than 30% of respondents have kids in schools. But this is a marker or a measurement of the general belief in education as a whole. Uh certainly it's been pretty consistent. It was about 29% last time we measured. Postcoid you'll see that 2019 number where it was 40.3. Postcoid almost every school district that we've measured has fallen down at its high watermark prior

142to COVID. The best number that we ever really saw for a right direction for K12 education was about 45%. Total. We've never seen it above 50. So this is not a a drop off that we've seen uh that is you know it fell from 60 or something and was positive and now it's very negative. It's been negative for a long time. This is a global view which is a reminder that a lot of opinions about K12 education are instructed by what's they see in the national news, what they're seeing on cable news, what they're seeing on Fox, what they're seeing other places with only 30% getting regular information that from the district. And bear in mind, everybody had an opinion on this. Uh, and you've got opportunity for improvement. Certainly 25% a quarter were honest.

143I don't have kids in the school. I don't really know. But this is just a general feeling. It's helpful for us because it gives us an environmental uh perspective. It's also instructed by this next slide. >> Can I ask a quick question on that? When historically, when was the first uh survey that you're talking about that um because you just mentioned that no survey you've done uh had above 45% as to education headed in the right direction. So longitudinally like when was the first >> that goes as far back as 2015 I'd say >> that's the earliest survey you've done as this question. Yes. >> So it uh and we ask it uh o over I've pretty much asked it in every survey to get an idea of sort of what the pessimism is within

144the elector. It's certainly just sort of the national discussion here is more pessimistic than some. Um I will say in a lot of places uh the total wrong direction is a little bit better at closer to 40%. But it is also instructed by sort of the balance and the makeup of your electorate. There's certainly more pessimism among uh Republicans as you see 19% total right direction compared to the all the other segments being closer to 30%. So having a heavily Republican segment impacts this. One other thing that does impact this is also the perception that education funding is too low. Uh we ask in general do you believe funding is too low, too right or just about too low, too high or just about right. Um you'll see the number is up from 54.8% in

1452023 up to 58%. So it's not just people wrong direction because of something that's happening in the district. It's also contributed by the fact that there is a portion of the electorate that thinks that funding is too low. Uh we're we're at the pretty much the high water mark of what we're seeing here. 58% thinking it's too low. only 8.7% thinking it's too high. Little bit more among Republicans, Republicans are more likely to think it's just about right, but pretty much every other segment um is tends to believe it is too low. Um when you look at the age groups as well, and some of these have fallen off the page. I I apologize a little bit. We can send a PDF version of this that has it a little closer. But for example, um

146younger electorate 65% too low. But even the 65 and older, 50.3, half of the 65 and older segment still think that funding's too low. So it does contribute from both directions. It's not just people pessimistic about what's going on in schools. It's also people overall pessimistic about the funding. From there, we tested a wide variety because we're talking about capital improvements. We're going to go through two sections and in a minute here. And we usually test the projects after the capital after the test for this, but since they were both capital related, what we did instead is a battery of the variety of different types of projects. And so this is not necessarily instructive on, you know, whether or not a project should be in the plan or not, but really what understanding what's motivating

147voters. When I walked in earlier, I heard people understand the need for air conditioner improvements. people understand the need for roofing improvements. Uh people need understand the need for electrical improvements. And the the fact of the matter is you're 100% correct. That's what we see in these overall uh results here is we measure all of these programs. So anything from marquee replacement to playground to security enhancements on a scale of 1 to five. And every voter gets every list but in a different order so that we don't introduce any bias. So the one doesn't become better simply because it was always asked first. Uh so each person got every question but in a different order and in this case one a scale of 1 to five one meaning not at all important to five meaning

148very important. I implemented this uh because years ago what we found is a lot of districts would do one of two things when they'd list their programs. They'd either list them by the size of the budget. So whatever the biggest ticket item was they put at the top of the list or they do something like list it alphabetically. If you go out for an override, for example, if a school district had all day K on their list, they would started that the list would start with that because it started with A. Well, what we found is because all day K impacts such a small segment of the electorate, is in fact one of the least popular items, not necessarily that was unpopular, but less popular. And so we actually found that you this is very

149helpful in even just the order in which you talk about the products or the order in which you present them to the audience. So um anything above three is well regarded. Anything above 3.5 is considered a pretty popular project itself. Uh some fall below that. It should be, you know, thinking about how you communicate that. Marquee replacement, for example, is one of the lower items that we measured. Um playgrounds at 3.78. So we're looking at that score to the right, those number scores. Uh 3.78 for playgrounds does a little bit better than outdoor learning environments. Uh we measure some of the same qu uh issues a couple of different ways because words matter. Um, I know there's a temptation, for example, to do pupil transportation vehicles because they give you more flexibility on how you

150spend the money on transportation, but I will tell you in general, school buses do better. And so, we we test different items a couple of different ways. Um, technology is another one. Technology generically does better than laptops for students, for example. So, we measure it to give you an idea here. Um, on this slide, playground was sort of the best. Two of the three highest issues that we measured is um go forward here is uh secure front lobbies was the third highest issue that we measured. 4.20 uh emergency management systems uh at 4.23 was the second highest issue that we rated. School security near the top of the list. Um both of those gave you a very important of 76.5 and very important of 76.8. I put that number underneath there to help you understand

151what the impact of a mean score. The takeaway you'll see is voters think every one of these items for the most part are important, but there are degrees of importance. And so when you're thinking about which ones to lead with or which ones to focus on, there are gradations here. And these are two of the top two. They're well above four. Um classroom furnishings at 3.73. You can see that's the difference between about 15 points worth of total importance. It it knocks the score from a 4.2 to 3.7. Uh 3.7 is still a very positive number. It's above that 3.5 that we like to see, but it just it it does give you that intensity and give you an understanding of the intensity as we go through this. Um, IT and infrastructure at 4.06, uh,

152a little bit better than kitchen facilities at 3.6. Pupil transportation bus fleet 4.0. I would guess if we did buses it would be a little bit better, but we did put buses in there. Electrical and plumbing per the previous conversation 4.11 top tier of those sort of fundamental improvements do very well basically at 4.11. Uh roofing is in that top tier as well as HVAC. HVAC in fact was the number one measurement that we we tested overall. Uh now this is a big one just to note as you're talking through the conversation that you're continuing to have. uh new school constructions at a 3.14, but when you talk about replacing aging schools, it's a it does much better at 3.5. So just even how you frame the discussion can make a big difference in the

153overall uh perception from the electorate. Now this is these are the phrases that we read. So it literally was replacing aging schools. There's no additional context. There's no it means this or that because you know we've got a good maybe 15 minutes with a voter at the most over the course of a survey and we give them all the same information and we see how they react. That's quantitative data. Qualitative is when you sit down with somebody and have a conversation with them and get sort of the ins and outs. But quantitative is just really how they match up together. So we do all that to do this. We put these all on a scale together so you can see sort of what rises to the top and what sort of the mid-tier lower tier

154items are. just to help you understand what stands out to voters. So, basically anything above four, but really that top tier, HVAC, emergency management, secure front lobbies, roofs, roof, electrical, and plumbing are that that top tier with that pretty much threequarters of respondents giving that a a five. Uh the next tier, it transportation, bus fleet, playgrounds, classroom furn furnishings, sort of that next tier at 3.7. uh outdoor learning environments and uh kitchen facility upgrades uh with bathroom renovations and replacing aging schools at sort of the next tier. And then the last tier, athletic facility improvements, auditorium improvements, new school construction, athletic facility lighting, and marquee replacement. So all of them with the exception of the marquee, which I know is a small item, but they all are really sort of above three. So, I just

155want to emphasize that voters have a positive view on all of the items that we're talking about or that we're exploring. There's just different levels of positivity and certainly some things stand out more than others. So, if you only have a chance to talk to voters about a couple of things that you're doing at any given chance, you know, I always say it's like the three stooges. If you try to give them too much information at once, they all get stuck in the door and they can't get in uh together. So you take a couple of those items, the HVAC, the emergency management, that secure front lobbies, roofs, and electrical. That's sort of what you lead with. This are those are the fundamental things that we're doing. And voters tend to understand that more powerfully

156than if you give them the full laundry list. From there, what we did is we measured two different types of proposals. We did uh the additional assistance and the bond. And I want to be clear about one thing. Half the folks got DAA first and then bond and then the other half the folks got the bond first and the DAA. The reason we do that is to eliminate any bias. If you've you know you you've looked been around a while, you've seen when you have if potentially if you have two issues on the ballot sometimes you can see a little bit of degradation between the first and the second because people say I'll give you one but not the other. So to eliminate that and say oh this one's marketkedly better simply because it was

157first. We take that out of the equation by asking half first and then ask the other half. Um, so everybody got every question about DAA. Everybody got every question about bond and then we switched them. [clears throat] So when they did the full survey, everyone got asked every question. But we start with uh I'll just start with DA because that's just sort of how we did it when we were crafting the instrument. So one other thing to note here, this looks like a lot of text, but this is what the voters are likely to see if they was presented to them. If you ask people, would you like more money for education? A high number of people say yes. When you ask people, would you like to spend more taxes on education? Fewer people say

158yes. But the fact of the matter is what they would see is this this statutoily required language, you know, an amount for capital purposes that exceeds the district's additional assistance budget limit by lesser of 40 million or 10% of the district's revenue control limit. I have to put the revenue control limit in there because that's what they'll see. Um, do I think voters understand what the re revenue control limit is? No. uh but we have to have them respond to what we know they're going to see. In fact, the ballot language in an election is the only thing you can guarantee that a voter will see over the course of the election. So that's why we ask the ballot this way. And it's again to give you that information where things are. Certainly with public

159education, it can be better, but just really where we stand. And so when we ask them that knowing just what you know right now, would you vote yes or no? We always start with a pretest because we want to see where people start. sort of the uneducated version of it. Um because we don't want to bias that. So you know how steep the hill is and where you're starting with. So you're starting with a uh 49% yes compared to 40.3% no. Obviously we like to see issues in the 55% range. The margin of error on a 400 sample survey is 4.9. And it's a good standard. By the way, I'll do statewide surveys at this level. So it's a powerful enough number to represent a district. Um but the margin of error is about five

160points. So we issues can be five points higher or five points lower. So this could in fact be um in that 55 54% range or it could be in the 44% range. Uh if I did the survey 95 out of 100 times it would come within that margin. So um we like things to see start at 55 so that it withstands that margin of error. That means it's above 50%. Uh the challenges you'll see is there's a little bit of a lack of understanding. That revenue control limit uh has a high don't know at about almost 11%. Don't know how to answer it. And it's got um I gave you sort of the partisan breakdown and the age breakdown. Here you can see uh on the Republican side a majority at 57% opposed the proposal.

161A vast majority of Democrats more than 2/3 73% uh half of the unaffiliated PND party not declared. uh we do not have an independent party in the state. Those folks are actually registered as an other or independent. Um so in PND are not declared unaffiliated. I like to say unaffiliated uh is about 50% yes 36% no. Other all other categories green party libertarian 33% yes to about 60% no. Uh you can see it trends downwards as you get towards the age. The 39 and under are much more positive towards the proposal. There is a plurality of the 40 to 49 year olds, a slight plurality in opposition among the 50 to 64 and about 48% opposition in the 65 and older. So that's where the softness comes from. As you know, as I mentioned, uh

162about 60% of our respondents come over the age of 50 and they lean slightly more towards no than yes. Uh educating them about that does you'll see um improve the overall number. uh but as a starting point it's it's a little bit soft compared to what we like to see. So then what we go into is re reason statements. And the whole goal behind these is if I asked 400 people, what's motivating you to vote yes? What's motivating you to vote no? I would get 400 different responses. And even with chat GPT helping me callull through and find major themes, it still doesn't really get at the heart of of what we're looking at. So we take sort of the argumentation and reasoning that we see a lot in the over the course of a

163discussion and what we hear trending in the environment and we measure those. And one thing to note is that we don't always just measure the positive statements. We measure the negative statements, too. The reason we do that is because you don't go to the doctor to find out what's right with you. You go to the doctor to give you a full rundown, a full checkup. And so, we test uh negative arguments as well based on not what we would wish they would say, but what they're likely to say because we need to know if there's things out there in the environment that are impactful. So, uh pay as you go. This is the fiscally responsible way to fund school construction needs without having to incur debt or pay millions in interest. It only lasts seven

164years and allows districts to pay as you go to fund uh projects. That's a 3.5. Again, if this is a scale of 1 to five, one meaning strongly disagree to five meaning strongly agree. It falls in the agreement range. Uh but only 20% gave that a five or a strongly agree. This one has a higher unknown. That's why I say between that and the unknown on the uh pretest, there's just a lot of questions. The voters, you'll see when we get to the bond, better understand what a bond is and how it works for DAA. They don't have any sort of basis of reference. So, there's a little bit of a higher unknown on the pay as you go. It would just take additional public education on that as a topic uh because it's it's

165a little bit soft to start. Uh many of the schools in the district are now well over 50 years old and in need of repairs and improvements. We need this funding to keep our students safe and meet the modern needs of a 21st century education. That's a 3.9. So aging talking about the aging facilities is a strong motivator 3.90 with 45% strongly agree. So between the two right now there is an institutional understanding that schools are getting older but there is not necessarily an understanding that a DAA is the is the fix that would do that with the pay as you go methodology. On the negative side of things we did measure uh you know schools are out of control with a progressive agenda and they don't deserve any more taxpayer dollars. There are segments

166who believe that. In fact, there's a Republican contingency in your area that does tend to believe that, find that believable. That is not the motivating factor um among the electorate. What we actually find out of the two is not necessarily sort of the just general anti-school out of control sentiment. What we really see is it's an anti-ax sentiment. There is a a tax sensitivity right now um that we're seeing across the board. And um quite frankly, I would say if I were to guess right now, uh it's probably even higher with gas rates above $5. So gas rates, as I do statewide surveys and research, concerns about costs of living, you know, overall affordability goes higher and lower. Um certainly as the the economy does different things, but one of the things we do see

167because you don't drive down the road and see the stock market every day, but you do drive down the road and see gas prices every day. And so for whatever reason, gas prices are directly related to cost concern. So sort of the anti-ax sentiment, anti-cost concern is something to be mindful of because people are thoughtful about it. It's not as impactful as aging schools. When you measure aging schools to cost considerations, aging schools wins out, but it's still something to be mindful of that you're going to run up against. So in that little bit of education just about what uh a DAA is that pay as you go idea there are aging fix facilities to be fixed you can see it goes from 49% up to 58% so it's a pretty sizable gain um over

168the course of a survey we typically see these items they'll sometimes they'll drop off a little bit in fact bonds typically fall a little bit and overrides tend to go up because people don't know what an override is when you explain it they owe okay and they tend to go up this is a DAA which is the type of override does sort of fall into that category. It does have a pretty nice gain across the board. When we look at it from a from a different segment, it's got 20 point gains across um you know the the unaffiliated voters, the other voters are in that 10 you know 15 to 20% range. Younger voters move uh positive and in fact I would note that 50 to 64 goes to 54.8% 8% yes. And you move

169that 48% remember it was opposed in the 65 and older to a 48% positive. So a plurality in po in favor among 65 and older. But note that 65 and older is not above 50%. It's still below that number but you have a higher number of unknown. But that shift especially you can see that size that um eight point shift among 50 to 64 and that eight-point shift among 65 and older is what really makes the difference between a 49% and a 58%. That's the bigger more sizable difference that's an outsized uh influence on the overall numbers themselves. on the bond side. Next, again, half the folks got the bond first, but again, like just with the DAA, we have to use the language that was required. So, class B general obligation bonds and a

170principal amount not to exceed. And we put a number in here, 450 as a general number, and I'll go to that in a second for the purpose of raising money for modernization, school renovation, other general capital expenses. I get asked a lot. Why don't we ask a bunch of different numbers from folks? Um, I was given a number sort of as the general one to pick to kind of see how the reaction is to it. Because if I were to pick a higher number than this and say, let's say it was 600 and they say no and say, okay, well, what about 450? And they say yes. That is the door in the face negotiation tactic. It's like buying a car, right? You start with a higher number and then you come back with a

171lower number and people say, "Oh, yeah, well, I would do that." You don't get to do that over the course of an election, right? Most you don't you would never be like, "Hey, we were going to ask for six, but now we asked for 600, now we ask for 450." That's not how it works. And unfortunately, if you were say, "Okay, well, we'd like to do a lower number. Let's say it was going to be 300." Oh, you're good with 300. What about 450? That's the foot in the door technique where you, you know, your kid asks for one piece of candy, you say yes, and then suddenly they're asking for five pieces of candy. So it's a conundrum we have with quantitative data to not I know we'd love to see what's the sweet

172spot what's the range right and with quantitative data time and time again when you do that what you end up with is people sort of settle on a number but it's not necessarily a data driven number I did a lot of research for uh transportation and transit over the years and we asked people the these are the four categories that you can put items in and lo and behold what we found is most people left to their own devices without additional information divided it into equally into fourths 25 25. So um it's just sort of in in this data from an intensity level. You can find it from you know your when talking with your bond groups and other folks and maybe find a a slightly better way to achieve this number but we start

173with a number because it's we we want something that they can react to. So in this case we picked 450 million. The uh this one as you see starts at 60.7%. So the starting point is above that 55% that we like to see. It's in fact a little bit above that. The definitely yes at 28% 10 points higher than the definitely no at 18%. The Republican number is still a slight plurality in opposition, but you can see the number went from about 30% up to 45%. A little bit more even split among Republicans. You'll also see that in the 50 to 64 range and the 65 and older, we start with a majority of those two segments. So, it's part of this I chalk up to the fact that people understand what a bond is

174compared to folks don't necessarily understand what additional assistance means. So, uh and it has a little bit lower of don't know 8% compared to almost 11% in the previous one. >> Paul, do you I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you remember how the district pulled in 23? I do not know off the top of my head. I knew I was going to be asked that and I didn't pull it up before I left. I apologize. >> Uh the uh so I can look it up, Tyler, and get back to you. I just don't know off the top of my head. >> Um I don't have it in front of me. I will double check it. We did in 2023, if you recall, we tested both an override and a bond.

175And we do know that the override impacted the bond. And when looking between teacher pay and and and uh we know that to be the case. And in fact, historically, basically since then, almost every district that has in in a similar makeup as you has seen almost identical results where their override passes and their bond does not pass when you put both items on the ballot or in places where they both didn't do well, the override was much closer than the bond was. It's sort of that's what the conservativeleaning audience does when it comes to sort of the staff versus the construction. used to be the opposite for for prior to 2019. Almost always what we saw is conservative voters were willing to build stuff and they didn't want to do the rest of the

176items. But it's really sort of switched in more recent years. The other mitigating factor I would point out is that a budget continuation a you get the continuation language which is very much helpful for you when you're measuring an item. In this case, we're actually no matter what, it's a tax language going to be tax yes, tax no. So, um we just looking at that uh going from there, the uh statement wise, saving taxpayer dollars, you know, schools are beyond their useful life and it costs more to maintain them than to replace them with new facilities. Consolidate schools on a new campus, saving taxpayer dollars and millions in repairs. Uh that's a 3.45 with the strongly agree. Again, a little bit of a higher don't know. This is an opportunity for education among the public

177to let them know this is what we're talking about. This is what we would do with it. Um, this long-term investing in assets protects our community long-term assets. The bond would modernize aging facilities, improve safety, and maintain property values while schools remain usable for decades to come. That's a 3.97. Very believable argument. On the con side of things, schools are closing. We did measure this this idea that schools are closing. Uh districts across the valley are announcing closures and enrollment is shrinking. We should not build new schools or improve facilities that will benefit fewer and fewer students. This is something to be mindful of that the older demographic 50 to 64 65 and older do tend to believe this. So um the consolidation argument does help with this quite a bit and I'll I'll show

178you that in just a minute. Um sort of how they stack up, but that is something that is on the top of mind. And then as I mentioned, interest rates are high. uh now is not the time to be issuing bonds and taking on debt with high interest rates. Um sort of the cost concerns really what we see is there are other factors out there. Just the general negativity of schools being out of control is less on the list. Closures is sort of in the middle. Cost considerations would be sort of your top factor as you think through what what your opposition or what folks are looking at through the course of the campaign. On the post side, it stays at 59%. As I said, there was a little bit of fall-off, but we started

179at 60 and fell to 59. So, the bond overall in and of itself has pretty solid support across the board here. We did see a little bit of fall off among Republicans. As I mentioned, fall-off is pretty normal what we see over the discussion, but it's still well above that 55% threshold that we like to see on all of these items. Investing in long-term assets at 3.97, fixing agent schools, those are your top tier. It's really talking about the facilities, which is something I already heard you doing and communicating with the public. I think that is really where folks understand and seem to uh resonate with them. Um, pay as you go at 3.53 is a little bit better. Um, saving taxpayer dollars 3.45 again. So, focusing on the tax, focusing on the money, as

180I like to say, is playing in an away game. It's it's talking on the talking points that the folks that have the greatest concerns, you know, you need to address those, but it's getting back to here's what this will do. And that transparency that I saw coming in and going through sort of that transparency is going to be incredibly helpful with building that voter trust that they know you're spending the taxpayer money wisely. Transparency works better than litigating taxes. It's important to talk about that you could do this without, you know, the the impacting the taxes, but that being said, it's most important to focus on what we see as the benefits of it. Inflation and cost concerns and anti-ax sentiment are sort of top tier. School closures is something to be mindful and address.

181I think you address it with the consolidation. And then, uh, schools are out of control. Again, it's it's not as big of a driver. You'll hear it. It's a very vocal vocal vocal minority though. Just bear that in mind. That's not the driving force that's out there. It's more of a cost consideration than anything else. So then we ask a question. >> Paul, I did find that survey that you did 23. >> What's that? Oh, okay. >> The [clears throat] bond pre-est was 56.8%. And then post test was 61.5%. But we'll link that in status for the board. >> What's the uh did we do the f override versus bond? The next question after that then >> must not have been in the presentation but >> I'll presentation. Yeah, >> because this is the big

182question. This is this is where the rubber hits the road though. When you when you do a part A and part B like I did here, >> this is what you asked them after the fact. Okay. So, which of these opinions comes closer to your own? I would vote yes on both. I'd vote yes only for DAA. I would support only the bond or I'd vote no on both. And so at the end of the day here, uh, the DAA that support falls from that 58% down to about 56. So the there is an impact on having multiple items on the ballot. So that's why I wanted to look at the 2023 data and see and the bond if they were both on the ballot would be at 53%. So falling below there. Um, again

183polls are a snapshot in time. It is February. This was be there was an international conflict between now and then. Um, certainly things change in the environment overall. What polls are for is the viability. what is most viable, what has the best chance of passage. Um, it's a fiscally responsible way for a board to consider, you know, if the if the issue is at 40%, then it's probably not the right environment to do something like that. So that I, you know, I again, when we look at an item that, you know, in the past was closer to 55 or 56 to start and ended at 49. Um, certainly environment happened. There was also a no campaign, I would point out, and there was opposition that was organized. Um those are things that you don't necessarily

184take into account uh with some of this data here. Uh but as I said the uh 27% had kids under the age of 18 at home. 58% of the respondents uh or you or any member attend a Mesa public school. I will tell you that's very high. Most places around the state don't get a number like that because most folks don't have that generational uh approach where you have maybe you don't have kids in school right now but you went to school or you're you're from the area you stayed here. A lot of people stay in Mesa a long time. There is that historic pride in the district that you don't see uh in a lot of places or that the places have grown so much that they don't have that that uh ability to

185sort of latch on to that. Um ideologically it shifts about as you would expect uh about 10 points towards the conservative scale here. Um if you expected like a bell curve where the vast majority would be moderate and then it breakout you know it shifts a little bit over to the right where we're considering a little bit more of a conservative overall electorate. Uh so with that uh I know that's a lot of information to digest and discuss but I'm I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Are we going to go in a certain >> Sorry. Well, go ahead, board member Vincent. >> Um, [cough and clears throat] thank you, uh, Mr. Pence for the information. I have a quick question on the, um, opinion question. >> Sure. >> Which of these opinions

186comes closest to your own? Uh it looks like there is a strong support um for I it's not a majority but I would likely support both a district additional assistance and a bond. I'm wondering if and I don't know if you have any insight into this, but because the district assistant said it's a pay as you go. I is do you have any sense that they the people that answer because I'm surprised by this that they would support both? Um do you have any feel for whether or not the idea was let's do a bond but it's let's just do the bond as a pay as you go type thing. and they melded it together. Does that make sense? >> Yeah, it does. And unfortunately, we literally read the words verbatim and just asked them

187what So I'm, you know, we asked them which the goal of the question is to get an idea of who's your yeses who is the which either way and what which one do they present now that they've heard about both of them. Is there do you is there one that you would prefer over the other when if given the chance? >> That's interesting. I I'm just surprised that they would do both. Does that make I mean >> there's some people that are starved that basically want to do I I don't and they're not necessarily saying both at the same time. It's that either way that they would support whichever one it is. Uh but the um the idea is that there there is a preference once they've heard about both. There is typically a preference.

188We like to see the both at about 40% range. Ideally, your both is 50%, so that you either way you went, you've got a strong base that's going to be with you no matter what. But the reason we ask it to get an idea is there a preference between the two. And you know, it does it is instructive if you were to put put both on the ballot. I would not recommend putting both on the ballot uh simply because it does impact both one another. And then there's that uh it's it's challenging, not undoable, but definitely more challenging uh to have both on there. But you can see like when you given sort of the choice, they they both do well in and of itself. So if you only do one, I would go to

189that post test. That's your post- test number. That's what I'd look at. If you were to have both, I'd look more more at this, which DAA would do a little bit better. Thank you, board member Alman. >> Um, I don't really have any questions. I think kind of an observation that Sharon touched on, it seems like maybe people don't understand what a capital override is. That's what >> 100% accurate. If you were to go with the capital override, there would be a significantly lar much larger public awareness effort that would be required because it is not a well-known or wellused tool. Whereas a bond, the city uses them. We just had a countywide hospital bond. Bonds are much better known as the overall electorate. So there is a much steeper learning curve for a capital

190override than there is for a bond. Yes. >> Yeah. That's all. Yeah, I agree. I had a conversation with someone and I said, you know, we're looking at this override and they said, didn't we just pass an override? Like there's just a lot of confusion there. Um, was there anything that surprised you in these results? >> Um, that's a great question. I typically in every survey that we do, there's something that surprises me. I think quite frankly having 60% of your respondents having some longstanding experience with the district, we don't always ask the current former because a lot of places there just have so many transplants and people who didn't attend school here. Um, education's experiential. Everybody went to school, right? They b walked uphill in the snow both ways. Um, you know, they moved

191here to get lower taxes and they paid, you know, wherever they're from, the the school itself was generally more associated a lot of places with like the city or with the county. And so understanding how the districts work is a little bit more confusing for electorate. So to have 60% it's it's, you know, makes me proud of my hometown that folks stay here, understand it. So I think that was a little bit high. Um the the improvement of the DAA uh was a a surprising number. Typically when we see an improvement it's four or five points to have it go up almost nine was a pretty sizable improvement. But I do think that there's a lack of understanding. I think long-term people will start to understand what a capital override is. But the issue is

192that word override and it's something I've tried to work with folks about um for a long time. It makes it sound like you're spending money that you don't have. It makes it sound like you exceeded your amount and so you're asking for a credit card and that's not what it is. It's all based on the revenue control limit which was passed in 1980 which most people don't understand. And so um that's why I always test the language that way is because folks don't know what a revenue control limit is and why it's there. So it's just it's a it I think it's longterm going to be things that we hear more districts talk about. It's just, you know, the districts that use it right now are generally areas that are a little bit more progressiveleaning,

193a little bit more long-term education friendly, and you'll know almost exclusively. They'll have things that pass year after year after year, and then they'll go out for a DAA um after everything else has passed, you know. So, it's it hasn't been used as a replacement in most places. Almost exclusively, it's been used as an augmentation in most places. Thank you. Appreciate this information. You got Okay. I think just making sure we got all our questions. Do you think overall are you doing this for any other districts right now? >> Yes. I've been doing survey research a couple different. So I this is the only DAA that I've tested right now. Okay. In the last few years, I I've a lot of districts are talking about going out for their for renewals of their overrides right

194now. Then I've done a couple of bonds. uh in general. >> I was wondering on the DA if that was if any other districts were testing that at this point. >> I think some are. I at the moment I don't know of any but that have it on there. Most of the folks are uh looking at continuations. There's a lot of uncertainty in the electorate right now and so that's caused some folks to think twice about what they want to do. Um so I haven't seen as many DAAs but more but and I actually have not done an override increase yet this year. I have done almost exclusively uh budget continuations which is my the word you should always say for your override if it's a continuation um and uh done bonds and the other

195observation I will make is that um most districts that are going out for bonds or thinking about bonds right now are not doing to their full capacity right they're looking at smaller amounts that are more digestible than going up to their absolute limit of what they can do I know that's similar to But, you know, I put you in that category as well. They most of the districts I'm talking to are looking at sort of that middle of the road type level. >> Okay. Thank you so much. >> Yeah. Just just so the public understands uh the amount of bonds that uh we can go out for is determined by state statute. I think it's 30% or is it 20%? It's 30% of our assessed valuation. And for us in Mesa Public Schools, that's in

196the billions, right? >> I want to be really clear with the public, it's in the billions. So, our number that we're talking back and forth with the board today is well below our capacity because we completely understand that going out for our capacity of bonds would not be the best thing for the citizens of Mesa. >> Awesome. Thank you so much. Any other questions? >> Okay. >> Thank you so much for coming today. Appreciate it. put the presentation back up. [cough] [clears throat] So, this brings us to funding the plan. While we understand the board uh will more than likely uh well we would appreciate um individual feedback on the uh actual plan that we talked about and I know Miss Chafy mentioned you know one option um we'd appreciate more feedback so we can

197um finalize that information and ensure that it aligns to our board but we can also go through our process of prioritization. Um I just want to rem remind the board of ways we can get additional capital funding and we've talked about these. I've also done board presentations in these. And so uh the five really key the really five options are building renewal grants which Mesa Public Schools has been a huge advocate in leveraging um the state grant program. Again the board approved you know over 13 million in roofing this last fall. Um, we do know that program is two years behind. Um, and but we continue to put in applications for needs and we'll continue that pro process regardless of the board calls for an election or not. Um, anytime there's grant opportunities or or

198monies available for districts, uh, we'll continue to leverage that. Uh, voter approved bonds, I have a slide about that I'll talk about in a second. Vote approved capital overrides. I'll talk about that in a second. The other two kind of options that are not voter initiatives are are long-term leasing. Actually, I would [clears throat] say that is a voter initiative. Long-term leasing um in excess of 20 years. Um we have though the board has approved several leases um below 20 years which they have statutory authority to do and that does bring in a revenue and per state law that revenue [clears throat] goes into the school plant fund which is used for capital purposes. So we'll continue to leverage that. And then adjacent ways uh the board again has approved adjacent ways levies. Um that

199is a form of capital funding used for a very particular purpose. Uh and that is to fund public right aways right our fire lane um and then our adjacent sidewalks and stuff. So just to remind the board on what a bond is. Um again a bond is to fund large scale projects capital needs. Um, it can fund everything from HVAC, roofing, rebuilds, new construction. Again, in the past, Mesa Public Schools have has um predominantly used bonds to fund all the capital needs above and beyond um what the state budget picks up. These are longer repayment periods. Um, but Mason Public Schools has committed um to 10-year repayment plans, which again lowers that interest amount um over the shorter course of time. You do have statuto authority to go up to 20 years, but Mesa Public

200Schools has kept that tight timelines tight in terms of repayment limiting interest to our community and taxpayers. And then again, it provides significant upfront um funding that and that depends on the sale and the dollar amount that the board would ultimately approve. The considerations requires voter approval, I think, as you guys know and it it is a increase on secondary property tax rate. And then the capital override, Mesa Public Schools has never approved [clears throat] a capital override. Um, but just for context, again, a reminder, provides annual funding. 10% of the RCL um can support ongoing capital smaller projects. That 10% amount right now equates to about $40 million annually. And that is a seven-year authorization where we would be getting $40 million annually. The considerations, again, it requires voter approval. It is also an

201increase in secondary tax rate. It's a straight tax. There's no um so the tax rate that that would um be it would be much higher than a bond because you'd be going taxing straight for $40 million a year. It would be about a dollar per $100,000 assess valuation right now. Whereas the bond you can layer in some of those sales and again with the longer repayment period Mason Public Schools has used 10 years that tax rate does not fluctuate as much as it would if we did a capital overhead generates less funding than a bond typically uh and then must be renewed to continue funding and then less suited for large scale projects. So the the projects that we've talked about in the facilities optimization category such as a Carson Emerson rebuild when you're only

202getting 40 million a year it's less advantageous to use this source of funding for that purpose. So with that I am going to hand it over to Mr. Wing. Uh we have a little activity that Mr. Ming will take you. >> Uh we're going to share four options with you. Uh and we're going to have a little activity with your district partner uh to complete. Uh option one is if we did not go out for a bond, did not go out for a district additional assistance or capital override. What that will mean was we'll just continue to receive our state funding and uh Mr. Moore shared 28.6 million dollars in funding uh this year. What that means with $1.4 $4 billion worth of needs is we're going to be putting out just the fires. A

203lot of retroactive uh repairs, uh the expected unexpected, not necessarily planning to uh reduce that 1.4 because as we know every year that 1.4 is going to continue to get to gain uh as far as plant expenses and so that 28.6 really is just putting out fires. It'll require some urgency on us making some decisions we talked about earlier regarding school consolidation etc. Option two oh thank you sir uh is if we just went for a bond only in this example Mr. more shared earlier 490 million I know some mentioned 450 but for this purpose this activity it's 490 uh this will allow for some large scale investments in our capital needs not just our incremental uh smaller projects but also some large scale ones we talked about that school optimization uh Carson Emerson being

204uh named as an example addresses a lot of our major building infrastructure HVAC and our plumbing needs uh going back to the safety, secure the front lobbies, etc. It does require voter approval. Once the bond's gone, just like our most recent bond, you don't have any do dollars left in that bond. You go back to the state funding only unless the board authorizes and the voters uh approve another bond. The bonds require sales to manage tax rate. Next slide, please. Option three is going to be doing a combination of both. It equals 490. Uh this will be for uh capital override uh 270 with a small bond of 185. That 185 is the school optimization that list of costs and priorities that Mr. Moore shared earlier this morning. It does provide significant upfront investments ability

205to address major uh systems immediately plus the small projects as well. does not provide ongoing funding. Uh requires voter approval and then again bonds require sales to manage tax rate. An option four out of four for our fund activity capital right our capital override only at $270 million support to preventative maintenance smaller projects as Mr. more shared. It gets divided by seven years. And so you only have a certain uh dollar amount, $40 million per year roughly. And it does not provide ongoing uh funding. Requires voter approval. Bonds require >> requires requires voter approval. It's my mic. And renewal every seven years. Um, it reduces reliance on emergency planning and planning repairs, etc. So, we're taking a one minute break. >> This is part of our priorities in our capital investment. >> We good? It

206took me a while to even smell it. >> Thank you for your volunteer services. So, we went four options. Sorry, the fire distracted you. Uh we are going to do a board activity with your district partner. Uh we're going to evaluate each of the four options. We're going to just do a simple pros and cons or pros and deltas, excuse me. Uh T-chart pros could be advantages, strengths, what value it brings to Mesa Public Schools, does it align and how it aligns with district priorities, its impact on students and staff, feasibility, etc. uh you get to make the call on what the pros are for each of the options. Then deltas. Deltas can be disadvantages, but they're not just disadvantages. It could include potential risks, just some wonders, even even if it's not a con,

207could just be a wonder. Uh perception, maybe how it impacts or lack of impacts of students and staff. And then uh we're going to ask that you share a couple key takeaways. It is on paper. So, board member or district uh representative, whoever has the best penmanship, um please take notes. Uh and I don't think this I think we're going to have another slide later that this is not just the only time we're asking for your input through the whole month of April. We're asking that you contact either Mr. Moore, Dr. Strong, or myself with other feedback. Pretty clear. We'll check in. We'll check in in 15 minutes to see where we're at. >> Uh it's a good idea to focus on the pros on option one, then the deltas on option one, one at

208a time. You and I need to sit down and talk did academy to address some of the major issues. So, HVAC uh on a on any given year, but zero ability to do major things because I I you can't there's no way you could do a complete rebuild, unfortunately, with only 40 grand or 40 million, which seems like a lot of money until you get into the >> school.3 million. >> Wow. >> You know what we're paying now? >> Oh, >> $575. Yeah, that's crazy. >> It's crazy. Um, >> yeah, the cost of anything is crazy. >> I mean, I think my kid, my son and daughter-in-law are choosing a really lousy [clears throat] time to potentially look to move just from an interest rate standpoint. I've heard that they should be dropping before the

209end of the year. Uh, and it's we're entering our busiest season, so my son's gonna probably be somewhat stressed. He's like, I'm I'm tired. Told my daughter-in-law, you know, you picked a really lousy time to get this idea in your head. Lousy. >> I know. I know. >> But I told him, you could always have said no. We need to wait until the fall. >> And you chose not to do that. So now I don't want to listen to you, >> It's all about choices. Um, So, let's focus on option one. I'll collect all of these. Uh, we'll send you a blank copy if you need it. We're just going to do option one first and go around maybe uh one pro from your team and then we'll go around to from starting with Rachel

210then all the way around to Sharon. Pro for option one. >> So I mean I guess a pro on the taxpayer side is that there's a it's less tax taxpayer money from property taxes for them. And then one delta. >> Sure. >> Two. Are we doing pros first or both? >> It's fine. Delta. >> Okay. Uh, so I think that without asking for for something out of our our options, we have a risk of being accused of being negligent because we have conditions that could be deemed as unsafe or harmful. One of our elementary schools has a individual that has to clean up a freon leak every single day. So every day they're being exposed to that chemical and we know we have these issues and we don't have the money to fix those issues.

211It can look like or the district could even maybe be at risk legally. Justin said we're going this. Oh, I'm go this way. Team, please. [laughter] >> I'm just over here bossing people around. It's fine. I don't know. Um, I agree. I think that I don't think there's a lot of pros to not having the money that we need to take care of students and provide safe learning environments. >> No, I have no pro. There's no pro. This the same as Rachel's [laughter] same pro no t taxpayer. And then we just said student a delta would be student learning environments. How what would that look like to our students? Same along the lines as as Rachel as Miss Walden. >> Well, Dr. Stum and I are overachievers because we have four pros. um one I

212already mentioned but one um we can't be con we can't be accused of mismanagement of funds um because we wouldn't have any >> no I know >> I just was waiting for the laugh because I thought that was funny um the uh the first delta that we came up with with was if we do nothing uh then actually the tax rate and tax impact um to our community um grows exponentially because you'd have to do more and as the tax fades now later at some point we would have to do something then the jump in going from nothing or relatively low taxes to having to add 5% that's a huge so over time that would be that's that was our delta >> that was a good one Sharon how about Sorry, member Vincent. How about

213option or option two? A pro and delta. >> Okay, so our first one of our delta uh one of our pros was um we would be able to do the major building um renovations. we we could actively do a a two or a three into one versus uh having to wait. The a delta is the interest cost currently and the cost of what it would be to go out for a bond to our taxpayer. The pro is we feel like it's understandable historically. The bond is what people understood. A delta would be going against the no campaign if there is a no campaign against us. I want I think one of the pros is the opportunity to like layer in the taxes and make it like even as we've kept it for our for our

214constituents and been really fiscally responsible with the tax rate. Um, and I think one delta is just understanding why it didn't pass last time and what sort of education and and engagement we need to do with our community to help them understand just how urgent this is. Uh so one of the pros we have for a bond is that if you build now, you'll save money later because costs are only going to continue to go up. There's a lot of uncertainty for the future. So at least if we do something now, we're going to get the best bang for our buck doing it now. Uh one of the deltas in the plan to I think close schools and build a new one is that we risk that not all those students will return. Uh we

215might lose students in in that process. Thank you. Member Chaffy, you volunteered to go on option three, pros and deltas, then we'll go uh Courtney next. Mr. Davidson, >> um on this option, one pro is that it gets us to closer to that like 455 total if we look at that number. So, it keeps us under the $500 million. I think one delta for me was that our our polling expert doesn't recommend it and that was pretty impactful for me. I think that there is a a high possibility of voter fatigue and confusion. Our pro was uh multiple questions. Would they see that one and see the less like okay we'll do that one instead of the higher seeing the higher rate all in once. Um and then the delta is just do not understand

216the DA and and that education. So our one of our pros was that uh it would provide us with more flexibility funding wise. We'd be able to do major as well as uh maintenance that needs to be done. The major delta to us was uh that it's confusing and would require a substantial amount of uh education from Jen Sners. >> Jen's team would have a lot of work to do to get it understandable. Sorry, but you are the communications director. So, I think uh one of the pros for this is just striking a balance between keeping taxpayer money down with like a lower bond and then also having having both. There's a balance there, but at the same time, the education is going to be more challenging and so both probably wouldn't pass. >> President

217Davis, since your team took some of ours on option four, can you start us off with option four? pro and delta >> we on our pro it would be getting the DA override would be better than nothing. So it's something there. Um the delta would be it doesn't solve our major infrastructure problems like our two for ones. >> Yeah, that is one of our cons. So, a pro is for our taxpayers, it is less expensive because there's no interest that's tacked on to what they have to pay. And our Delta because it's never been done in Mesa before. It also would require a high level of education because like uh President Davis said, it's people potentially um would be confused as to what it would be. So again, Jen's team would Mrs. Snider, sorry. My

218next Okay. Uh, so one one of the pros would be that it can take another year or two and work on building trust and transparency with the district. Uh, we can show that we're being responsible that when the district asks for more money, it goes to the things that we say it's going to go to. And so then as you, I think, build up that, especially with Dr. strong doing his community budget meetings, then that gives you the more likelihood in the future that you'll have the support for the bond. Uh, one of the deltas is that it's just it's not going to be enough for for total replacements. And I think the amount would shrink as the as the budget shrinks or when you if it passes, do you get the full 270 up

219front or do you have to do it every year? So, if your budget shrinks, does the amount you get shrink? >> Yeah. So, it's 10 it's a formulaic equation. So it's 10% of the RCL. So our revenue control limits based on student count just in the basic layman's term. So as our enrollment's declining that amount would also decline on an annual basis and it's um 10% annually. >> Okay. So we we were right. That's what we thought. >> Okay. Good. >> I've been training. It's useless. [laughter] I think the I think the again I don't feel like there's a lot of strong pros with this, but maybe that we just get a little bit to do the most bare bones. And I think the delta for me is I'm just concerned that we wouldn't have

220enough to do the large scale projects that we need to do and to provide safe learning environments for our staff and our students. I will be going around and collecting all of those. We do have one last slide. And then any closing statements by Dr. Stum. I'll go ahead and start with the last slide as it's getting up are just significant capital needs uh but very limited uh state funding through stakeholder input. We're identifying priorities now and we must determine how to fund them. The board has one month the month of April to provide feedback to Mr. Moore, Dr. Stum or myself regarding solutions to capital planning. This is just one activity. Um, our goal is to bring one recommendation on May 14th to the governing board. >> And that that'll be the art form

221of of you giving me feedback individually so we don't approach quorum status and then me working with President Davis to figure out what we're going to put on the agenda for for May 14th, if anything at all. I mean, we we are very open to if it's nothing at all. I do want I do one thing that didn't come up as a con that I do want to address with the board right now is what's going through my mind in long range planning is we're trying to avoid offcycle elections. They're more expensive for us. Uh and so when you run on cycle elections, midterm and presidential elections, you share the cost of that election with other agencies that are running elections. Here's the hard part about that. Our override renewal typically M not district additional

222assistance m override renewal that's the confusing part of this right in the m override renewal portion of this we passed in 23 most districts make a decision because remember an override is a seven-year override at the fifth year mark you have to reduce if you can't pass another one you reduce by a third in the sixth year a third in the seventh year and then finally the final year it goes way. I I I don't want to cause panic, but I do want to live in reality. The M override is worth about $60 million to this district. A third of $60 million is $20 million. Our budget shortfall because of the dem demographics of situation, school competition, all the factors uh this year based on declining enrollment was about $18 million. The reason I'm bringing

223up that number is because if an M override does not pass and we're dealing with declining enrollment still, you can see that we're going to be dealing with a 30 to $40 million problem, right? So, the M override is really I mean the M override is really important to the school district. Uh we're so grateful to the voting public for passing it. Supports people, it supports our staff. One of the reason we can maintain such a high uh teacher salary, one of the reasons we're really competitive with support staff salaries is because of the fact that our local community supports Mesa public school staff. So, we're so grateful. But if if we don't do anything now, I want to be clear, then the board's going to have a decision on whether you want to do

224anything off cycle, which is a more expensive election in 27. That's year four. Most districts go out in year four. Why? Because then if it fails, you still have the fifth year to pass it before budget stuff happens. But that's a tough decision because that means you have to go out and off cycle which is more expensive. So that'll be something to deliberate. And then in 28 is the fifth year and if we decide in 27 not to go if the board decides in 27 not to go out due to all those things then in 28 the main emphasis can't be on the bond. The main or or a district additional assistance override. It kind of has to be on the M override because it's of critical importance to this district. And you heard an

225expert Mr. Bence, widely considered one of the best experts in the state of Arizona on school elections, uh talk about how he thinks the override and bond interplayed with each other in the 23 cycle. So all those things are going in my head. So my mind is going like, okay, 26 is the when when I received this opportunity to to lead the most stored school district in the state of Arizona. Uh one of the things going through my head was, okay, what's our election cycles look like? And this was the election cycle where I go, well, it's kind of the election cycle all the way till 2030 to kind of see if we can get something on the capital side done. I'm not trying to influence. I'm just bringing the reality because I don't think

226I'll come out if in 27 and 28. If the board wants to go out for two elections, you know, that's your decision. But I'm going to be I need to be real clear. I'm going to come out really in support of going out for Mino override in one of those two years if not both because that's of really critical importance which then delays our next opportunity to bond or district additional assistance override to 2030. And so you start interplaying all these things together strategically and it didn't come up in the conversation. I I want it and it's not really how I wanted to close, but I think it's really important to understand the way the mechanics of Arizona school funding work are they don't give us the legislature does not give us as much funding

227for capital purposes as they do charter schools. That's because we can bond. That's why why it was designed that way in 1995. They gave charter schools an inflation factor. Didn't the public schools have never had it. The reason they got the inflation factor is because they they knew in 1995 that charter schools couldn't bond. But now that difference is now $585 versus $2,400. And our only way to cover the gap is to go to this mechanism of district additional census override or bond to cover the gap. And so these are the mechanics. And then the other mechanic on the staff side is the M override. and in the a state that's funded 49th in the nation. You know, these are things that the local taxpayers in the in the city of Mesa, Mesa Public Schools

228have long supported and helped stand this district up. And those are just the mechanics that Arizona school districts are left with uh to get funding uh closer to the national average. Um so hopefully you understand how our minds are working with election cycles. Hopefully you understand the importance of the 2728 election for the M override and why if we're going to do anything, you know, consider this as you're considering feedback in April. If we're going to do anything, it's kind of a 26 or we're going to have to run multiple elections in 27 28 which we heard feedback on or 20 2030. Uh because that'll be the interim of when the override passes. is if it passes in 27 or 28, we'll have a gap of four or five years to 31 or 32. So,

229uh just uh really appreciate the willingness of this governing board to get together, give us feedback, give us input, uh appreciate that we're going to go back to work. What we heard today is go back to work, see if we can dial this financially conser from a financially conservative realm. Dial this down just a little bit more, about 10% more. Uh Tyler, that'll be Tyler's task to do. We we know we have a spreadsheet to get together that shows you kind of, hey, this is where if we're going to take from the 490 and shave it down more, this is where we're going to take. And then on the four options, if you're uh strongly uh leaning one way, please let me know over the next month. And then we'll have an action item to

230you on on on May May 14th uh for this. Any other questions of us? So on the other options for the land, what what election are you looking at for for those options? >> Uh we should have asked we should have asked Mr. Bence to uh give the governing board feedback on those. I hope I hope you trust that we do follow elections internally too. I'm not the expert that he is, but I will tell you I have not seen a single one of those land initiatives fail. I think the voters generally like particularly in this case it's we're not even talking about school land we're talking about district office parcels district administrative parcels the voters generally and and you can go check my lang Tyler can maybe yeah I I don't know of one

231that's failed and they generally get supported like 8020 yes you can sell lease or exchange your land so all five we'd want to put all five on this election >> this election okay that was my question was this election >> yeah and then One other note for the governing board on that. Once the voting public calls for and let's say happens to pass the sale, lease or exchange of those properties, then uh it lasts forever. In other words, once you get voter approval, it's not like the board has to take action the next year or the next year. You've already got your voter approval. It gives the board time to work through. It could be a decade from now, could be two decades from now, could be right now. Um, so, uh, that's another thing

232to note on that. >> Thank you. >> And I had just had the question to to Tyler. Would those be separate questions with the parcel? And he said it would all be, correct me if I'm wrong, one question with all of them listed. So, my my worry was would we have, you know, voters just stop? But >> you can do it both ways. >> There we go. Well, and um to piggyback off what member Walden said earlier, um because the capital the DDA the capital override would be tied to enrollment, uh it does though give us time to rebuild trust with and uh potentially like I'm really strongly uh I want to see us reverse the declining enrollment trend. Um at least reduce it. Yes. I there's some factors that we don't have any uh

233control over. Uh but with the DDA potentially when we turn around enrollment then we're going to get additional assistance. So with that would we still be capped at 280 overall? Is that how a DDA works or the capital override? >> So the the way Mr. Vince framed the question. If you look back at the way he framed the question, it's not to exceed 40 million. So, we would just have to be very careful what number we list there. If our enrollment was, if we did go for DA and it passed and our enrollment flipped, um, we have to put a number in there that's high enough to where we would anticipate >> covering it. >> Yeah. Covering. Now, knowing our enrollment trends, we just used 40 million, but, you know, that's a conversation we can

234certainly have, but it's 10% but limited to 40 million. So um >> okay >> it it's uh >> so we could say uh 10% limited to 50 million per year. >> You you can yeah and that would give us the ability to if our enrollment did increase come up to 50 million. But if you said 40 and our enrollment increase we'd be capped at 40 regardless of that 10% showing above. So, >> so we would want to play with a couple of different scenarios that, you know, again, as as this leader leadership team uh works to regain trust um throughout the district, potentially we have the opportunity of drawing some of those families back that left because they were frustrated about one thing or another, right? Um, so I that that I'll look to see

235playing around, but thank you for mentioning that because I it is tied with enrollment and we can reverse at least a little bit of the trend then it increases our opportunities. >> Yeah. I just wanted to ask a clarifying question of Mr. more because it it's been making me think after you said, you know, playing with this idea of how do we rebuild trust, but also we want to make sure we're not going out for this multiple years in a row. So really like this is our chance and then we need to look at a this option again in 2030. How are we going to make sure that we have the funding between now and 2030? That $40 million would still leave us at a pretty significant financial gap every year because we know how

236much we need every year, right? >> Just to recap, yeah, we're at 1.4 billion needs. We went through an activity again internally leveraging stakeholder input to get to 490 just DA only. I'm estimating it being at 270. That's assuming enrollment decline and some other factors in total over seven years. And so that still leaves at a it's doing the math in my head, a significant gap. >> Yeah. >> In terms of capital needs, >> a lot of delayed repairs again and still kind of putting us in the spot of of potentially needing even more in 2030 because there is so much that needs to be done. Um I had another question, but yeah. Okay. I think that's that helps me just kind of think through it. I think that's the question that I wanted to

237ask was just that if that we really would be doing bare bones amount that would still leave a lot of deferred maintenance if we only went with that option. Um well I really appreciate the work that you've done to get it down to that 450 and I think it's or 490 and I think it's really helpful for me to keep in mind that that is still a pretty limited approach at really prioritizing the things that are most important. So thanks I just wanted to um add that uh the last week in April um there is no board meeting. It's one of this is one of the months that has five Thursdays. Um but we're going to keep your check-ins on Tuesday and Mr. Moore and Mr. Wing will be joining so that you can have

238a last conversation about any questions, concerns. Um, if you provide them to to us through the month, we can do like a final make sure you have all the information you need and then we can that way we'll really be able to inform our decision about what uh to bring to you on May 14th. So, that'll be the again the April 28th check-ins. Mr. Moore and Mr. wing will also be a part of it so that we can really focus on this and get it dialed in. And with that, are we done? I mean I mean I know that but like do I need to do anything else before I adjourn this meeting? Do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I'm

239guessing we're going to go voice vote. >> Voice. Go ahead. All those in favor? >> I >> with vote of four meeting is adjourned at 1:53. >> What?