Governing Board Study Session and Regular Board Meeting - December 11, 2025

001Good evening and welcome to our study session. If everyone would please stand for a moment of silence. Thank you. You may be seated. Call this meeting to order at 5:13. Tonight, we will hear from some students from East Valley Academy on the civic leadership projects they have been working on. I'll turn the time over to Alex Peek to tell us a little bit more about this. And Mr. Wing, will you just keep us on time? Um we will do 15 minutes for the presentation and uh we'll look at our time as far as questions on from there. So take it away. >> Thank you very much and thank you for your patience. Our student should be here in the next five or six minutes. Um so Hayden's going to keep an eye on his phone

002uh because he's got their phone number. Um uh thank you so much uh all the Mesa governing board members, Superintendent Stumm um and particularly um Member Hutchinson for kind of helping make this happen. I know you all have a really packed agenda and a full meeting uh before the holiday break. So, I really appreciate kind of the um making time for this. Um it's really an honor to speak with you all today. Um my name is Alex Pek and I'm the Pathways program director at Read Better Be Better. Um if you don't know, Read Better Be Better's focus is addressing Arizona's third grade literacy crisis. Currently, 64% of Arizona third graders are not reading at grade level, according to state testing results, which make these students four times less likely to graduate from high school.

003Read Better Be Better seeks to address this problem by providing tier 2 evidence-based curriculum to kindergarten through third graders, implemented one-on-one afterchool by fourth through middle school students in partnership with public district schools and libraries. Over the past decade, Read Better Be Better has expanded this work into a comprehensive pipeline we call the changemaker continuum, which is why we have these cool shirts. Uh it and that is a full programmatic spectrum that now includes high school programming through educator and civic leadership preparation programs through our pathway to the education professions and pathways to civic leadership program. High school students, particularly read better, be better reader and leader alumni, gain experience in classroom management, civic engagement, and systems level thinking. These programs are an opportunity for them to explore future careers, gain leadership experience, and contribute

004positively to their communities. Through our programs, young readers gain literacy skills, older students step into mentorship roles, and high schoolers explore pathways to teaching and leadership. Mesa School District has partnered with Read Better Beat Better since 2023, starting with five kindergarten through 8ighth grade programs, which has now grown to 20 programs this semester alone. We I was out some graduations today for our K8s and some of um our other colleagues were there as well. This is a really exciting day. Um, I'm very grateful to highlight a new partnership with East Valley Academy and Miss Angela West, who's here, where we've been able to host our first Mesa cohort of the Pathway to Civic Leadership Program. Hayden, who's with me tonight, facilitated this program and is going to talk you through the process and what you'll

005be seeing during the student presentations, um, as well as what the students uh, experienced when they worked with us. >> Good evening, board members. During this program, students from East Valley Academy came together once a week for nine weeks, worked through a leadership development curriculum provided by the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership, met with guest speakers from the community, and were asked to identify a problem or area of need on their school campus that they wanted to provide a solution for. The students worked together over the weeks to craft their proposals, identify the relevant policies, and then practice and gave feedback, which culminates in the final project you see today. The high school students I have had the privilege of working with this semester in Mesa are the most deeply committed to the health and

006well-being of their students in their community and are the most equipped to address the structural issues that lead to the lack of literacy skills we see today. and as they experience them day-to-day. Throughout the fall semester, each student has lent their own perspective to a truly unique and a truly unique set of thoughtprovoking discussions. Their ability for introspection and growth has been incredibly impressive, demonstrating a depth of character and remarkable understanding of their community. So today, uh you'll be hearing from students Shelby Ronhor, Cameron Williams. uh they have formatted their projects into final uh into public comments. So they will be capped at three minutes uh like they're presenting at an open meeting of the school board. These projects are based on their individual experiences and the solutions that they see uh and what they

007experience as Mesa students. Um we I'd also like to uh acknowledge Incuma Wilson, a student who uh made it throughout the program but uh couldn't make it tonight. Uh before uh we get on to the speeches, uh we I think we'd be open to answering questions about the curriculum if you have any or any about the program this past fall. >> Thank you. Board members, any questions? >> Um well, I was I was going to call him by mister, but can I call you Hayden? Hayden. And uh Mrs. tech. So you I I heard you say that you walk them through a problem solving model. So could you tell us a little bit about that? Like what's the structure? >> I could do it. Yeah. So the problem solving curriculum is provided by uh the

008Flynn Foundation and the um the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership. this uh booklet and what they provide in their curriculum uh helps break down problem solving into I think several areas that or helps break it down into several skills that students need to uh succeed. So for instance like we went through um different passions students might have identifying ways and tactics that they could use to persevere through difficulty in their life and uh also helping formulate a plan for success for them and um uh different ways that they can get involved in their community. So it's a very comprehensive way of um helping these students see through their issues and uh providing them with useful tactics that they can use in their everyday life. Um, are there other questions before the students present? >> Perfect

009timing. I'll vamp for one more second so they can catch their breath. Um, member Hutchinson came and helped the students prepare their speeches on Tuesday. Um, the problems are not selected for them. The students use their own experiences to identify problems and policies and then we sort of dig into what that might look like. So, they consult the student handbook, things like that. Um and so that's what they'll be talking about today. So it's a really open kind of process of whatever they're concerned about. Kuma, who won't be here, um his presentation was around high school affordability and the price of school lunches and access to food for um students who might not qualified for free and reduced lunch. And we'd be happy to submit that to the board just so you can see his

010words. They were really powerful and it was bunch of transportation issues uh this afternoon. So it was really great. But we'll I'll submit that to the board if you're interested. We would love that if you don't mind sending that. We would love to see that. Absolutely. So, >> okay. >> Catch your breath, girls. Sorry. >> We appreciate you being here. >> Shelby, move the microphone down. There you go. >> Okay. >> There you go. >> All right. Hello, my name is Shelby Road Horse and I want to thank you for having me today and I'll be I'll be speaking about my school's attendance policy. I'm here because our school, East Valley Academy, has a 5-day limit attendance policy that challenges students in meeting that requirement. For many years, student attendance has been inconsistent. Some students

011are able to attend regularly while others face difficulties as transportation issues or medical concerns, motivation or balancing school with personal responsibilities. For example, this quarter I exceeded my 5-day limit due to medical reasons. Our school's attendance policy is not the same as the districts or the states. Because of that, students here have stricter limits than students at other schools. As a result, I had no opportunity to earn credit. for my classes because of that policy. Although that policy isn't in the East Valley's handbook nor in the Mesa Public Students Handbook, that affects my future in my education. According to Mesa's public schools student handbook, page three, under attendance/ absences, bullet five states that parents who anticipate attended absences should contact the school. If they do not, children are withdrawn from the school after missing 10

012days in a row. That might seem harsh and trying to advocate for students wanting to meet the requirements for graduation. My idea is to help fix this to give students more allowed days and a way to appeal absences each quarter. This would give us more chances to stay on track without constantly stressing about losing credit over things we cannot control. In conclusion, we're I'm asking you guys to give students a few more loud days and a chance to appeal absences. The consideration of the policy change is creating fairness and currency responsibility and ensuring no one gets left behind. This would help students earn credit when things happen that they cannot control. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Thank you. >> Thank you. Good afternoon members of school board. My name is Cameron Williams

013and I want to thank you for having me today and also allowing me to speak. I'm here to share some concerns and ideas about our school ID policy and how it affects students almost every other day. student shows that in schools with strict ID rules, nearly 20% of students forget or lose their IDs at least once a month. This leaves stress, delays, and punishment that don't always fit in the situation. The problem at our school, many students deal with this issue. For example, my cousin left her ID one morning even though it was an honest mistake. She was stopped at the gate and had to wait a long line and it got punishment meaning they will suspend her for two days. Our current system first time you get a freshment you can't enter the campus

014without an ID. This is what meant to this is what keeps us safe and ID is important for knowing who belongs on campus but the punishment can feel harsh for sometimes usually an anonymous mistake. My solution on what to change students are asking to remove IDs. We understand safety. We're asking for a policy that is more flexible and supportive. For example, students give a grace period or one free temporary ID each quarter. Allowing students to get quick temporary pass or a call home to parents to bring IDs instead of waiting a long line. Making the consequences lighter or forgetfulness while still keeping stronger consequences for repeated issues. Changes like this would help students stay focused on learning instead of worrying about punishments for simple mistakes and being late to class. In summary, we're asking the

015school board to consider adjusting the ID policy to be more fair, more understanding, and less stressful while keeping our school safe. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Um, if there are questions from the board, we're happy uh to take them. I also should note that usually this um the graduation is a community panel. So, it's sort of like a mock school board. Uh, and this is the first group of students that's presenting before their first school board. So, thank you very much. Um, it's a really big moment for them. So, thanks for thanks for that. >> Board members, any questions? >> Go ahead. We'll go ahead. >> Okay. Um Cameron, >> I'd like to I'd like to ask you a question if I could. First of all, I want to I want to

016um thank you for appreciating why there are school IDs and it is to keep campuses safe and so that um we know who is on our campus and so that you don't have to worry um and that you can focus on your studies. So, I really appreciate you acknowledging that. Um, do you believe that, um, school IDs and the stress associated with school IDs is a it's a cost that maybe is worth keeping a campus safe? >> Uh, yes, >> you do. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, um your solution as a for a temporary ID seems to alleviate some stress, but um could you further explain how you would um involve um parents or families in um the uh issue of forgetfulness of students who forget their IDs? Um, I would say give me a

017moment real quick. I got to think first. You you happened to mention that you could that maybe a call home would be what what would what would the call home do? Do you think what why why have you proposed a call home? Uh probably like bring IDs to school or bring something you know to for them that you know you forgot it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you Mrs. Mrs. Benson. >> Um ladies, I want to commend you for uh being willing to come. This is a a super cool opportunity for you because public speaking is one of the most um one of the most fearful things that adults do. they don't like talking in public. So, you doing it early and asking questions is great. Um, I have a question for both of

018you. Um, and it's the same question. You mentioned that, um, at EVA, uh, well, Shelby, you said at EVA your attendance policy is more strict than the district. Is it five days per quarter or five days per semester? >> It's per quarter. >> Okay. So I think districtwide it's 10 days per semester, right? >> So I think wh why do you think um why do you think Mrs. West would break it down into five day? No more than five days. And is it sequentially five days or five days >> per semester? >> Five days per quarter. >> Oh, sorry. Per quarter. So it's not in a row. It's like if you miss one day, one day. So, why do you think um Mrs. Westwood would would break it down into five days per quarter and

019does she allow for exceptions for medical situations? >> Um um I would say to help more students to attend more school, you know, instead of missing just like, you know. So, are there if you have a serious medical situation, are there exceptions made to that policy or is it just boom? >> And what's the consequence if you miss more than 5 days? >> The consequences is not having a chance to earn credit for the classes you take. >> Okay. All right. And then um Cameron, is the ID policy at EVA more strict than it is across the district? >> Uh it's more like more strict a lot. A lot a little bit. >> I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. >> It's more strict. >> It is more strict. So again, I'm going to ask you

020the same question. Why do you think Mrs. West would would um really really focus on the responsibility aspect of an ID? uh to check cool who's on campus >> and I heard you say to member Hutchinson that you thought that that was an important thing. >> Yeah. >> Um I is there a possibility for a temporary ID that um could be could be printed uh on the day that you forget your ID. I know when I go on campuses I can log into their iPad. Is that a possibility for students to use? >> Yeah. >> I don't know. I'm just I'm asking. So, >> we are temporary if you log in. >> Yeah, we get because we get I I don't have to have my board member badge with me. I can log in to

021the thing. So, that might also be something that you might um have a discussion with. So, I again I I love that you were willing to come and present your ideas. Uh and that's what I taught was problem solving. So, I love I love it when students can problem solve. Thank you, Mrs. Malden. >> Yeah, thank you so much for coming and for your involvement in the campus. I just had a follow-up question on the absenteeism. Did uh anyone have you done any kind of research or asking around or like surveys to find out what causes what are the top causes of absenteeism or students missing school? >> Yeah, I have asked a couple of my classmates why they have missed school. They would have like resp um work out of school and sometimes they

022can't miss school and they usually go to work sometimes since they're you know um since due to work. >> Thank you >> Miss Chaffy. Any questions? >> No questions. I just want to thank you both for being here. I really appreciate the effort. I know it's a long ways to come for a lot of our families and community members. So, thank you for being here. >> I too want to echo what my other board members, it's scary up there. Um, and so we commend you for doing this and doing hard things and being willing to come and share with us what's happening on your campus and some of the things you guys are learning. We appreciate learning from students and appreciate the time you guys have taken to get here. And so we just want

023to thank you so much for being here tonight and for all that you've taught us and um and all you're learning. So thank you so much for being here tonight, Mrs. Hutchinson. >> And I'd like to thank um read better be better and the adviserss Mrs. Peek, Mr. Newen um for having um given their time, but I think this is a wonderful leadership opportunity and to pair it with literacy and particularly with our younger folks. But but remembering that these this is our immediate future that's standing before us and and and helping them be find their voice and learning as member Benson said to problem solve and bringing those solutions to us. Thank you very very much for that opportunity. >> Um the students are going to be awarded certificates. Um, and I wonder if

024we can take a picture with the board. Is that allowed? >> You bet. We'll go ahead. Um, give me one second and we'll adjourn this meeting and then we'll come down and do a picture. >> No problem. And, um, we'll be at East Valley Academy running this program again. Um, and Westwood High School as well will come on next semester, just so the board's aware. >> Mrs. P, >> do these kids also, um, uh, read with younger kids or were they strictly doing the uh, problem solving, civic leadership? Um so this is separate um from reading in person with the students. Our pathway to education professions programs puts high school students in the classroom in our afterchool programs um as an exposure to classroom experience. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you and

025thank you for joining our study session. With that, do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second it. >> Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? with the vote of five. Yay. The meeting is adjourned at 5:35. We'll return about 6 PM for the regular board meeting. Tonight, we are lucky enough to have our harps that will be joining us shortly. So, you can enjoy the harps for for a while. Thank you. Wow. Wow. And blue. Hey. You want No. Thank you. Welcome to this evening's board meeting. We want to first um thank again the Maze Public Schools High School Harp Ensemble. Um absolutely beautiful and we know it's a feat just getting those harps here. So, thank

026you to all those that helped transport and get them here. Um it's a beautiful treat tonight and I'd rather just listen to them quite frankly for the rest of the evening. But I I hear we have some business that we need to attend to. So um and we also would like to thank the Dobson High School Aggracience students for the beautiful floral arrangements that are on the dis tonight. So grateful for all these M public school students and staff. I'll call this meeting to order at 6:07. We are a few minutes late and I apologize but we would we want to hear those harps. Um, just a quick reminder, any citizen who wishes to speak on an agenda item or call to the public must complete the sign-in sheet in the lobby prior to public

027comment on the board agenda. We will begin tonight with a pledge of allegiance, which will be led by Miss Arinda Man. After the pledge, please remain standing for the national anthem, which is recorded and will be played by the Dobson High band. >> Please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance >> to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Heat. Thank you. We'll begin tonight by playing a video on governing board procedures and then I'll read a statement. >> Welcome to the Mesa Public Schools governing board meeting. We appreciate your interest in the district. The five elected governing board members serve without compensation and volunteer countless hours. The president and the clerk of the board are elected in January.

028Under state law, the governing board may only discuss and vote on matters that are on the agenda for tonight's meeting. Agendas are posted at minimum of 24 hours in advance on the Mesa Public Schools website and in the curriculum services center. Copies of tonight's agenda are located in the lobby. At every regular meeting, the public may speak on any item of business on the agenda that the board discusses or requires the board to take action. During the second regular meeting of each month, the agenda will include a call to the public. This is an opportunity to speak to the governing board about a school district matter that is not on the agenda. If you wish to comment on an agenda item or participate in the call to the public, please complete a request to address

029the board form before the designated time as public comment. The form is located in the lobby. The duration of public comment and call to the public is 15 minutes. Members of the public will be given a maximum of 3 minutes to speak once recognized by the governing board president. The president may set specific time limits for speakers and the duration to maximize the opportunity for individuals to offer their viewpoints. We ask that all speakers show respect and courtesy to others. Comments must pertain to the matter that is within the jurisdiction of the governing board. This is not an appropriate forum to complain about an employee, student, or others. State law prohibits board members from commenting on or discussing the matters presented at the end of the call to the public. The board may ask the

030superintendent to review the issue or place it in a future agenda. A board member may also briefly respond to criticism of a board member or the governing board. If you would like the board to consider adding an item to a future agenda, you may submit your request in writing and the governing board president and superintendent will consider your request. Thank you for your attendance and involvement in tonight's meeting and for allowing this meeting to be conducted in a peaceful and productive manner. This is an official governing board meeting. The board has important business to conduct that is essential to the operation of the district. Everyone is welcome to express ideas or concerns to the board in accordance with the agenda. The poster in the boardroom describes positive positive behaviors expected and behaviors that cannot be

031tolerated. Please speak and act respectively and actively listen. Be kind. Verbal harassment, abusive or foul language. Intimidation and disruption have no place in a classroom or the boardroom. Please no side conversations or reactive comments. They can be disruptive. It is a governing board president's responsibility to maintain proper order so the board can conduct its business in an orderly and efficient manner. If you're disruptive or interfere with the conduct of the meeting of this meeting, you'll be asked to leave so the board can conduct the business of the district. We're now moving on to our um calendar. Dr. Stum, will you review that with us? President Davis, members of the board, December 16th, 2025, we have an executive session. Uh that's my midyear evaluation. December 18th, 2025 is the last day of the semester. The first

032semester is already beyond us. And uh we look forward to closing out this first semester well with our children here in Mesa Public Schools. December 19th uh through January 2nd is winter break. Schools and district offices are closed. January 5th is a professional development day. no school for students. Uh January 6th is the first day of semester 2. January 8th, we resume our uh regular governing board meetings with a study session and an organizational meeting that occurs on the first meeting of every calendar year. And January 22nd, we have a study session, a regular meeting. This takes us through the month of January. >> Thank you, Dr. Stum. It is hard to believe we're at the end of the year. Um this will now we now have um a public hearing. I will now now

033call for a public hearing on the fiscal year 202526 revised budget. We'll have a presentation for Mr. Moore and then an opportunity for public comment. Board members, we will have time for questions and discussion as part of the action item later on the agenda. So, please save your questions for that time. Mr. Reor, I'll turn the time over to you. >> Yep. Good evening, President Davis, members of the board. I understand everybody's here to hear the budget tonight. Thank you for your attendance. Um as a normal process uh the budget uh throughout the year gets revised in various phases. Tonight will be our first revision from our adopted budget which was adopted in June. Uh go next slide. There we go. Okay. So what is a budget revision? A budget revision under ARS 15905 is

034a formal adjustment to the school district's uh budget uh limit. There's two reasons why a district would do a budget revision in this timeline. Uh one is if the district um was notified by AD that their calculations from their adopted budget was in excess of uh 1% um versus what AD calculated. That's not applicable to Mesa public schools. Uh we are choosing to do a budget revision tonight uh to increase our budget capacity and I'll go over those implications on each budgeted fund. There we go. Uh just a reminder here on the budget timeline, we adopted uh proposed and adopted this current budget that we're operating under in June and July of 2025. As a reminder, that was before um our our uh legislative process concluded. And so there should be some adjustments in this

035budget tonight that takes into consideration those legisl legislative adjustments uh that were finalized um to the K12 budget for the state. Again, tonight's December 11th. We're doing our first revision. Uh we are m required to come back in May and do our final revision to our 100 day 80 of numbers. So the M budget revision highlights uh as I stated um anytime we choose to do budget revision our budget is uh mainly our main driver in our budget is ADM or average day of the membership which is student count um from when we adopted uh to where we are running right now uh using AD reports uh as of November 24th uh we're um running above uh what we adopted in terms of decline. So we anticipated a student enrollment decline of about 1,800. Uh

036we are trending uh on student count and you'll see that in a later information about 2500 but in um uh weighted count we're about 2,800. Um so we are reconciling to to um reconcile our ADM to the current day uh AD report numbers. The second one is um with that formula controlled override u we also will be reconciling our M override formula. We also reconciling our budget balance carry forward from the AFR that was presented to the board in October. The implications from the AFR were um increasing in our budget balance carry forward from what we anticipated. Those increases came about from maximizing our seed supplanting capacity. uh we presented that and made the board well aware of our moves with regards to CTE. Um we also did uh some accounting adjustments with regards to

037our maintenance of efforts requirements and and meeting those compliance requirements. Uh those transfers and accounting u practices are taken into consideration and into this budget balance carry forward. In addition, uh we captured encumbered funds that were obligated but not spent by 2025. As I noted, we adopted a budget before um we actually ended paying all our bills. So, we still had several, for example, uh several open POS, purchase orders, uh for supplies, uh that were not expended at the end of the year. Uh so, we get to reconcile and capture those dollars back into the budget. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, we're adding the onetime supplemental funding approved by the legislature, and you can see the law there. So what do those impacts look like for dollars? So on the revenue control limit that

038is ADM reconciliation you'll see the um higher than anticipated decline that equates to about 5.7 million to the negative that we have to adjust down. Now bringing back in the carry forward adjustments that we made in terms of the seeds of planting the maintenance of effort compliance and the unencumbered funds. We're bringing back in 9.2 million in carry forward from last year. That's funds not spent. And then our override adjustment uh again it's student based in terms of the formula. So as we reconcile that um that was slightly down again based on the trending declining enrollment for the district. And then the the bigger ads uh for this adjustment in M are the one-time state aid adjustment. This is the former Prop and the onetime free reduce percentage increase. Those equate to about $5.6 million

039that we did not approve when we adopted the budget. Um but that was approved by the legislature in the K12 budget package uh going into this year. So we are capturing those funds. That equates to $9.2 million increase to our ML budget. I want to point out we've already accounted for this as this these funds are going to be uh aiding the district as we continue to realize this declining enrollment and maximize these dollars to leverage our 27 plans uh for our M budget. Looking at capital again some much of the same. Um so we're reconciling our capital budget. Capital is funded on a prior year ADM count so you'll see smaller changes there. um capital does allow interest earnings. So we are capturing the final calculated interest uh earnings for that bucket uh in

040this budget revision and again reconciling the budget balance carry forward capital much like M whenever we have a project or capital project that we've um anticipated spending much much um it's more often that our capital projects get deferred into the next year because of timing um or construction timelines. you'll see a higher carry forward in that regard to in this bucket and again the legislature had onetime funding appropriated to capital and we are capturing that back into the budget via this revision. So what do those dollars look like? Again I mentioned the carry forward is a little higher uh just because of the nature of this fund. So we c we're capturing about 4.6 6 million. Again, that was not spent in uh 25. Uh and so we're capturing that budget capacity in 26. The

041interest revenue, this fund does allow um uh interest revenue to be captured in the budget formula. So the tune of 49,000. the ADM allocation again uh due to the decline in enrollment uh we continue have to modify our um DA allocation or state allocated formula typically down and that's to the tune of $6,000 and then the onetime supplement this is the onetime increase from the state um it was allocated on the emino side it's also there's a small portion on the capital side as well uh to the tune of 1.3 million so our capital budget capacity is increasing to 6 million uh This will be this capital budget increase is going to be uh instrumental in helping us manage our capital needs as we continue to have we have no bond funds remaining for the

042district. So every capital dollar counts and uh this revision of adding six million back to this year's budget uh is going to be critical to our capital planning. And then the last one is our classroom siphon. Um as you know this classroom siph fund is a bucket of funds uh that are strictly regulated uh to mostly teachers and support staff. Um it is budgeted fund and so much of the same scenario occurred in the classroom site fund. We have a carry forward of 3.5 million. Again those were encumbered funds last year that were not spent and so we're capturing back that that budget capacity of 3.5 million. uh there's a small adjustment in interest revenue and the actual calculation for the classroom site fund allocation uh we had a small increase. So this bucket um

043is increasing by 3.6 million. And just some takeaways, we'll have one more final revision uh reconciling to our 100th day ADM uh and that revision will occur in May. Um, as I alluded to, we have limited capital funding throughout the remainder of the fiscal year. Our budget solutions are in place for 27. And that takes into consideration this 9.2 million that we captured um in via this revision tonight. And so in addition to that 9.2 million, the district has um continuing to finish the district reorganization. Um we are continuing through the stipen audit and then our teacher allocation formula. As we do every year, uh, we modify our teacher allocation formula to the enrollment that we actually have. Uh, Mr. Wing is finishing those calculations, but as we decline, we anticipate some savings um to

044help um our budget solution for 27. So, with that, I'll be happy to take any questions. >> Thank you, Mr. Moore. As a reminder to everyone, this is a public hearing and the board and district leadership will not respond to any public comments at this time. Later in the agenda before voting, we will be time for board discussion and consideration of any public comments. Uh Mrs. Chaffy, has anyone signed up to speak during the public hearing? >> No one has signed up to speak during the public hearing on the budget. >> Thank you, Mrs. Chaffy. Since this is a public hearing, members of the public are able to speak on the proposed budget and truth and taxation without signing in. Would anyone who has not signed in like to speak on the revised budget pursuant

045to ARS 15-905? Now is the time if anyone would like to speak on the budget. Okay, I don't see any. We will keep moving on. Thank you. Um and now adjourn the public hearing and reconvene the regular meeting. This is a procedural item and does not require a vote. Now on to some exciting recognitions. I'm going to turn the time over to Jen Snyder, director of communications, and she will show us some of what's inside Mesa Public Schools. Miss Snyder, it's all you. All right, President Davis, members of the board, everyone in the audience, season greetings. So, I'm here uh to talk to you about some of the great things that are going on around the district. So, let's get started. There we go. Last month, Red Mountain uh High School National Honor Society and

046Student Ambassador spent lunch connecting with K8 students at the STEM Academy at Red Mountain Ranch. Even with the rain, they helped the day feel special by bringing joy, sitting with students who needed a buddy, and being a positive influence on one of Red Mountain's feeder schools. And that's one of our goals is to really connect our feeder schools with their uh with their high schools. So, moving on over to Herosa Vista. Uh last month they were all smiles as students walked the red carpet to celebrate the school's a letter grade from the Arizona Department of Education and turned its amazing A day into a lively celebration of hard work and commitment shown by students, staff, and families. Kino Junior High kicked off the holiday season with its thanks event. A tradition led by avid students

047and teachers. The school community came together to share snacks, family, friends, and a moment to reflect on what they're grateful for. I don't know if any of you watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, but I thought it was awesome this year. Skylines Teddy Calamares and Mountain Views Claire Boyd were selected to perform at this year's Macy's All-American Marching Band, a prestigious ensemble of the 200 top high school musicians from across the nation. They proudly represented Arizona on one of the c on one of the country's biggest stages in New York City, showcasing their talent and dedication that they bring to their school programs. Moving over. Oops, sorry. There we go. The Fiesta Sports Foundation granted classrooms for wishes for 26 educators across Mace Public School, awarding each with 2500 for their classrooms. Uh Jamie Bower

048of Skyline High School and Mary Pierce of Stevenson Elementary even received a special video call from WWE superstar and TV personality Nikki Bella who surprised them with the news. Thank you to the Fiesta Sports Foundation for their generous donations. Uh, Limb Family Martial Arts collected more than 200 pairs of shoes and socks for students across Mace Public Schools. Their generosity made an immediate impact. We thank Limb Family Martial Arts and all of our community partners for supporting our students. The theater programs across Mace Public Schools had an outstanding winter season as they wrapped up their incredible run of winter shows. This these are some pictures from Highland Arts Elementary as they took the stage last month with the performances of Lion King Jr. Those in attendance were blown away by an excellent show. I think

049there are several here that were at that show. Congratulations to Red Mountain High School's girls flag football team on an incredible season. The Mountain Lions capped off the year as the 6A state runnerups, finishing with an outstanding 19-2 record. And sorry, my goodness. There we go. All right. This is a shout out to one of our um to Al Moore, director of school safety and security. He joined Mendoza Elementary during their recent color run, bringing extra excitement to the event. As a special tribute, he took one final lap around campus to celebrate his years of dedicated service. We're grateful for his commitment to keeping school sha safe, and he's with us for a bit still, but it was a nice way to help him kick off his run to retirement. All right. Uh and then

050finally, congratulations to our custodial department on earning not one but two pinnacle awards of achievement from the association of school business officials. Their language learning program is helping bridge communication gaps and build stronger workplace collaboration. The CARTS program is also making a major impact by training students in custodial skills, supporting inclusive employment, and strengthening our future workforce. Both initiatives are raising standards and creating meaningful opportunities across our school and community. We have members of the custodial team in attendance tonight. If you're here, can you please stand to be recognized? We're next going to do uh student recognitions and school spotlights. And after that, we please come up and have a picture with the board uh after during our photo break. And that concludes my presentation. >> Thank you, Miss Snder. I'm going to turn the

051time back to you and Dr. Strong for tonight's recognition. And it looks like we have lots to celebrate. >> Yes, we do. President Davis, tonight we are proud to recognize several outstanding student athletes who achieved AIA state championship titles this season. Their hard work, dedication, and sportsmanship represent the very best of Mesa public schools. We'll ask honores to stand from their seats to be recognized. We will then take a brief break during which honores will have the opportunity to take a photo with the governing board. This will follow the school spotlight videos if I'm correct on this. All right. Would uh would those please uh would those present please stand out of this group. This is the first of our recognitions. Our boys 200 freestyle relay state champions from Mountain View High School. Lewis Turley

052yeah. We what the board has Yeah. The board has requested since we we don't have this big of a crowd normally. Since there's this big of a crowd, if the students would come up and then turn around and face the crowd, that'd be great. >> You get to be in the spotlight for a little while. >> Vincent Ellingsson and Joey Cayeno, who I can see is back now. So, he's right there. their their teammate Gavin Willard, who is also the boys 500 freestyle state champion, is unable to join us this evening, but we congratulate him on his outstanding accomplishments as well. Our in additional individual champions are Grayson Pudliner, Dobson High School, boys 100 breaststroke. Abby Gardner, Red Mountain High School, girls one-meter diving. Emily Griffin, Mountain View High School, Girls 100 Freestyle. I imagine

053this is the group to the left over here. This is going to get a little crowded, but come on up. And we are also proud to recognize AIA opening game day state champions from Red Mountain High School. Will the members of the Red Mountain Palm and Spirit Line team please stand or come up front and be recognized for earning this prestigious state title? Yeah. You You know what? We're going to Can we make a little accommodation here, Miss Mrs. Snider? And can we have the board come down? It's all our state champions from this last season. Board, come down. Let's take a big picture with all the the state champions if we would. >> Yeah, you guys are >> bring it in. Bring it in. There we go. They're calling There we go. You got

054him. Okay. Both board all the board members. >> Look like he's tall. Congratulations, ladies. Congratulations. >> Yeah. >> Real real real quick because custodial services, can we have custodial services come up and take a picture as well before we go into school spotlight? Yeah. Nice to meet you. Cleared out these sucks tonight. Congratulations to all of our student athletes, their coaches, their families, to all our staff winning all those awards. Thank you for representing Mesa Public Schools with excellence. We know we have high expectations in Mesa Public Schools and we want to recognize all those people who attempt on a daily basis for us to live into those high expectations. We are now going to move on to our school spotlight before uh taking a break after this for uh a few handshakes on behalf

055of our school spotlight. Our our school spotlight of the month program is designed to provide our community with an inside look into our schools. In addition to a video showcasing the spotlight, we will honor a classified member, a certified staff member, and a student from that school. Chad, can you please roll the video? Johnson is a great place to grow. We have great education, great people, and just a great student council and teachers. Like, it's just fun. >> The community is amazing. Everyone's involved, and it's a very warm and welcoming school. Everyone just gets along. It's really nice. >> Well, Johnson's a really fun place. They include everyone, and a lot of people want to make new friends every day. I've had such good teachers while I've been here and they really want to make

056it fun for you. They don't just want to have you sit down and take notes all the time. My teachers, they have us get up, move around the room, get in groups, and have really hands-on activities. I like doing math because my teacher makes it really fun. We get to work in different groups and do different projects. Specials like PE and music keeps us having fun. I'm in orchestra and I play the cello. We have a really fun teacher. My orchestra teacher is very helpful and kind, but she really takes it slow and helps me understand it. I also really love the library. I'm in the library every recess. They've made it a really good hangout spot. They have all these chairs. We get to learn chess with a good instructor. And I think it's

057good. The school offers things that can like help challenge our brains. There's this reading club I do after school. Uh you can help like the little first graders and second graders like learn how to read better. It's helping me to teach the younger kids how to like um be respectful and soar on campus. >> We have a lot of cool opportunities and programs at Johnson. >> It's a fun community. I love it. I would love if anybody could come here and have this experience. Johnson Elementary is proud to recognize Afton Waldy as tonight's spotlight student. Aftton, if you'd please stand. A Aton is a shining example of the Johnson way, consistently demonstrating the attitudes and skills that make her an exceptional learner, a great classmate, and a community contributor to her to her school. Congratulation

058Afton, on getting recognized tonight. We are also recognizing Diane Gallagher, our as our spotlight certified staff member. Diane's commitment to Johnson is unmatched. She joined the school in well before the turn of the century 1998 as a crossing guard and has served in nearly every role uh at Johnson since then, including becoming a full-time teacher in 2006. Now in her 20th year of teaching and 25th year at Johnson, Diane is an exceptional educator, a supportive colleague, and a vibrant leader on our campus. Congratulations, Diane. Finally, Johnson is honoring Norma Sprout. Norma, as the spotlight classified staff member for 21 years, Norma has shown unwavering dedication to Johnson's students, families, and community. While her role is based in the classroom, her care extends to every student in the building. She goes above and beyond to ensure

059all students are soaring, safe, organized, accountable, and respectful, and builds strong and supportive partnerships with families. Congratulations to to our spotlight school tonight, Johnson, their honores, and all the AIA state champions we recently honored. We're now going to take the break that we did two of tonight, and we're going to have these people come forward with Is Omar here? Sorry. Come on forward, and we'll take some pictures with the governing board. Thank you. Okay, he's up there. Oh, did you want to put Wait, wait, wait. Thank you again. So many great things going on in our district and great people and employees. We're grateful for all the many hands that that help here at Mesa Public Schools. We'll now move into our public comment. Before we begin public comment, just a quick reminder that policy

0601-302 says that call to the public is limited to issues within the jurisdiction of the board and is not an appropriate forum for persons to complain about a specific employee, student, or other person. Mrs. Chaffy, do we have anyone signed up to speak? >> We do. We have 14 people who signed up to speak tonight. >> Okay, we have 14 speakers. You will each have 90 seconds to speak. And Mrs. Chaffy, will you lead us through this agenda item? >> I will. I will call up the first three people. You can come up to the podium and then I'll also call the next three names so that you know that you're on deck and you know to be ready. We are going to start with Ripley Swinhart, Leilani Torres, and Ana Lisa Garcia. On deck,

061we have Ray Deer, Nelson Deer, and Mark Low. If Ripley wants to start up at the podium. Good evening. Good evening everyone. My name is Ripley Sinar and I'm a junior in the unified program at Westwood High School. I've been a part of UniFi since my freshman year and it has meant so much to me. Not only is it make allowing me to make new friendships, but it is setting me up for for success. This year I was honored with the to be awarded with the Special Special Olympics of Arizona partner of the year award. I've also been training for the USA games this summer. Without the ability to develop both as a partner and a person, I don't think this would have been possible. I'm here tonight to speak about Westwood's decision to register

062only rising juniors for the unified program. I will be a senior next year, so this won't affect me, but I would hate to see the unified program become less than its potential. This rule was introduced for the 2025 2026 school year and has created a number of challenges. From my research, my understanding is Westwood is the only MPS school that has this issue. Registering as freshman or sophomores allows partners to grow and become leaders in the program. I have after the issue had been recognized, I had learned that there was a unified council that had created the plan for next year and I requested to be included. As a council, we agreed that the best solution was to open it up for seniors, juniors, and some sophomores. We also explored starting unified art and dance

063classes similar to those in Gilbert schools. I was surprised when registration started for next year, and despite a recommendation, it was going to be a seniors only class. This decision makes me feel like my voice isn't being heard, and I believe it sends the message that Westwood doesn't want the unified program to succeed or grow. By keeping it a seniors only class, this program will struggle to grow and fewer students Leilani and Ana Lisa. You can come stand up and be ready to go right after. Good evening. My name is Aloney Torres and I am a sophomore at Westwood. I've got to experience the unifi unified through club in bad mitten. I really enjoyed it and I and would like to join the class for my if my schedule allows me to but the way

064things are going I might not be able due to the restrictions. Thank you for taking the time to listen to my voice. Good evening everyone. I'm Anaisa Ray Garcia, a senior at Westwood High School and also part of the unified program. As a senior, I've had the chance to experience how special Unifi really is. This class isn't just another elective. It's a place where people of all abilities learn together, support each other, and build real friendships. And that's exactly why I don't think it should be seniors only. The impact of unified shouldn't start at the end of high school. When younger students join earlier, they grow into leaders sooner. They learn patience, empathy, and confidence that they can carry through all four years, not just one. And for our peers in the exceptional student service

065program, having consistent relationships with the same students year after year makes a huge difference. It creates a stronger community, better communication, and a safer, more inclusive environment. If you li if we limit to it to seniors, we limit the growth we could create. We limit the friendships that could have started earlier. And we limit the opportunities for the next generation of students to understand that understand what inclusion actually looks like, not just talked about it. Unified has taught me so much about leadership, kindness, and what it means to show up for others. I just wish I have been able to take this class before my senior. So, let's make sure future students don't have to wait until the last minute to experience something this meaningful. Thank you for listening. Next, we will hear from Ray

066Deer, Nelson Deer, and then Mark Low. On deck, we have Tiana Deer, Michael Clark, and Jason Smithson. Thank you, honorable school board. Uh, President Davis, I wholeheartly agree with your statement that courtesy, professionalism should be upheld. Unfortunately, during termination process of Sheldon, Dear, uh, the deer family, we've been bullied uh, by this whole process. Raise voices, angry voices by district personnel has been thr to towards us. Name calling has been going towards us. Uh the deer family did nothing wrong and we tried went through the process but um unfortunately it was um a negative experience after this process. I wish I could sit down with the board and give my concerns and give my um heartfelt recommendations to this process. I understand why people leave the district and turn away to go through this. Uh

067uh there's a lot of issues at hand. um the people who want to terminate uh district supervisor personnel has stated that this board right here all of you called you out and say stated that you will not do anything to address Sheldon Deer's um safety matters. Um he has stated that the call to the public is a quote I'm not going to use the word but swword show. This is very concerning to me because this is our our right to address our issues. Sheldon Deer uh is an outstanding individual and he is not the face of termination here at Mesa Public Schools. Thank you. Uh, my name is Nelson Dear and I'm a high school graduate from Mesa High School and Sheldon is my brother and I believe fullheartedly that character goes into whether or

068not your opinion has much substance. So, the principal at Mesa High is the greatest actor on earth. He loves to represent himself as an outstanding and outgoing guy that is charismatic and caring for the kids. However, he didn't seem to care for the student who was beaten and had a gun pointed at him. In fact, when notified about this incident, he advocated for the police not to be on campus. He ordered repercussions to be had on anyone who would have called MPD. Student received no justice and only ever found comfort in letting my brother Sheldon know about the incident, not the admin. Marcy Hutchinson, you know about my past and how much I've advocated and fought for band in the past. And it's really funny how Principal Thomas also claims to uh be advocating and

069supporting the band. However, he didn't seem to care for band when he advocated for marching band to be replaced by a DJ at all school events. He didn't seem to care for band when he kicked out the band boosters from the concessions. He didn't even care for band when a football booster came charging at middle school and high school band students, yelling that she was going to murder and crucify these students if they dare played another note. He was silent. He didn't care then. So, I want to genuinely ask each and every single one of you, do you really think he cares now? It's worth noting that people can say that he cares, but in all honesty, Mesa Admin is a cult. Family of low first name Mark one of the people thinking posterity like

070a founder. Good evening madam president board members all. George Washington stated a primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In what in a republic what species of knowledge can be equally important and what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to to be the future guardians of the liberty? That said, Mesa public school superintendent lacks lack of transparency is alarming and cause for great taxpayer concern. Mesa Public School Legal has not responded to my request for the identities of the Mesa Public School project manager and architect for the measly 1.5 million office security upgrade for Hail Elementary School, excuse me, thereby avoiding taxpayer oversight. Mesa Public Schools needs a waste, fraud, and abuse forensic audit Doge style enabled by artificial intelligence. Finally, Madame President, I

071have a question that ought to be answered here and now in real time. Are gay pride flags still currently on display in any of your district's classrooms? Yes or no? Non-answers are answers, too. I appreciate and thank you for your time and attention tonight. Merry Christmas and happy new year. My best lines are in here. Next we will hear from Tiana Deer, Michael Clark, and Jason Smithson. On deck we have Lavella Naro, Rachel Bostock, and Julia Martin. Good evening, Madame President, board members, Dr. Stum, and members of the superintendency. My name is Tiana Deer. I speak tonight as a concerned staff member for Mesa High School. I have witnessed a great shift on our campus since the suspension and recommend recommended termination of our security lead Shelon Deere who has always prioritized student safety and

072follow district pol policies from the moment he stepped on campus. Shelon has dedicated himself on and off the clock as a former Jack Rabbit student, staff member, community member, and our students proudly rallied peacefully on November 6 to show their support. That gathering brought together students from so many backgrounds and programs. something that's so rare and powerful to see. Many have told me that the campus will not feel the same without him because he has constantly made them feel safe, supported, heard, and cared for. His number one priority is and always will be the safety of our students, staff, and community. Sheldon has gone above and beyond for past, present, and future students. I I kindly urge the board to consider the impact on students safety and belonging as you review this matter. Our schools

073everywhere should model what it means to be Mesa, mature, ethical, safe, and accountable. Thank you. >> Good evening, board, um, staff, and public. My name is Michael Clark. I'm from Gilbert, and I'm here to actually talk to you about something that'll probably be coming across on your study session. Uh we I have a program that's called PCMP, preventative care maintenance program. I didn't know it was a budget meeting. So for you, you're going to be really happy. Um we have actually with the numbers that we have for Mesa Public Schools, we have found that you have about a $450 million leakage that we can actually recover for you. Um the other thing about it is that's good for the employees. All employees, staff, janitorial, teacher, all W2 employees get a lift in pay between an

074average of between85 to $175 on a monthly basis. So, we have that coming out. Um, this has no financial impact on you. There's no net cost to the Mesa public school or the employees at all. And this actually then keeps the money in the pocket where it belongs. So you get a 4.5 million lift in your in your budget if you want. Um then the other situation is my company by participating in this and I'm leaving a copy of a brief of this for you because we're short on time is my company will be donating $900,000 for scholarship funds for the school the Mesa school district to disperse at their discretion. So with that, good night. members of the board, first I want to start off by saying the the heart play today is the

075exact reason why music is so important in schools. Um, so your decisions impact every student, staff member, and family in the district. And tonight, you're being asked whether someone should lose his job for doing exactly what policy and state law requires. A weapon was reported on Mesa High's campus. Administrators told security not to call police because it would look bad on the school. When Sheldon's father alerted law enforcement, admin became angry, and from that point on, Sheldon was targeted. Now he's facing termination for following the rules. And the process getting here wasn't fair. having the district select the hearing officer and the district's attorney both arguing the case and providing final recommendation. That's not impartial and it has to change. But the bigger question is why Sheldon is the only one being held accountable. At

076Mesa High, serious incidents have been ignored. A parent threatened to kill students and crucify them. Reports of sexual assault have been dismissed. Staff concerns have been buried. administrators violated multa public school policy and state reporting laws. Yet nothing happened to them. Meanwhile, Sheldon is being pushed out for alleged tardiness. It doesn't make sense. If you terminate Sheldon, you tell this community that safety is a slogan, not a priority. Tonight, you can choose differently. Reject this termination and launch an independent investigation into Mesa High's admin. Our kids deserve schools that protect them, not institutions that protect their image. Sheldon did the right thing. Now it's your turn. Next we will hear from Lavella Naro, Rachel Bosto, and then Julia Martin. On deck we have Meredith Bleke and Ed Steel. Okay. Thank you. Um I am a

077concerned Ma citizen and I'm here in behalf of um Mr. Sheldon Dear, you know, and all the issues that he brought to to you, Mrs. schoolboard, and I know a lot of them, you know, were the issues that you had. But again, I just, you know, I was um I have 30 years plus in HR and I was at the hearing for that and that meeting was very inappropriate, not professional uh uh that I felt that he didn't get a fair uh hearing because again they were looking only at facts that Mr. Copela had given and then they took that but then they dis dismissed the testimony of Sheldon Deer and his witness. So again like I said I just the mind was already made up before that because I thought that Mrs. uh Rebecca

078Vendorian, she really had made up her mind and she was very I think her failure to be impartial. That's what I how I felt and after that meeting she was conjugating with the witnesses here, general counsel and the staff there and they were laughing and carrying on. So you know what professionalism is that? Hello board. I'm Rachel Bostock and I'm coming to you today on behalf of my son. Um I'm also coming to ask you to hold a meeting about block schedule again that we never got. We were told we were going to get and we haven't got. My son ran cross country practice alone all semester because that was the only time he could do it because the time got pushed back because of lock schedule. I've spoke with many trusted teachers who have

079come here and advocated for their admin about block scheduling and they are struggling. They are really struggling with the extra kids. They're struggling with not seeing their kids every day. And these are some of the best teachers in our district that are too scared to tell everyone here because they are afraid to lose their jobs. And I know you keep saying that you're talking to teachers and that our teaching and learning staff is talking to teachers. They are not communicating with you. They are fearful of losing their jobs. The one thing that they say would help them is getting rid of block scheduling. They're fine leavemies. We can make that work. But block scheduling is harming students. There are many kids that aren't doing what they want to do academically, sports and music. And it's

080because of the block scheduling. I know you keep saying that it gives them an extra credit. It is making those electives um offered less times. So there are room for more electives, but they're offered less times the electives these kids want to take. So it doesn't really matter. Um again, we'll deal with themies, but please really consider getting rid of block scheduling and listen to these children that are asking for this to be done. Thank you so much. >> Hi, my name is Julia Martin. I am here advocating for my son who goes to Field Elementary for um early preschool. He has an IEP for autism, speech, and occupational therapy. And uh for him to be able to do well and to meet goals, he also requires ABA therapy. Um he goes to ABA in

081the morning and then preschool in the afternoon. My request is that he receive transportation from ABA, excuse me, to um Field Elementary because his dad and I are not able to leave our jobs every day to transport him and still be able to sustain our jobs. Um when I've made the request before, it's been denied because of the three mile radius rule, which I understand and I um I get the reasoning behind it. I respect it, but there are no ABA therapy places within 3 miles of our home. So, we're kind of stuck and we're at a point where we have to decide what is going to benefit him more, ABA or education. And it's so important for him to have both. Um, I also want to note that it's in his IEP that transportation

082be required or transportation be provided. Um, our home at enrollment is eight miles from the school, which it's offered that you guys go eight miles each way. The ABA therapy place is 5 miles from the school, which I think saves the district time, money. Next, we will hear from Meredith Bleke and then Ed Steel. Go ahead. >> Yeah, go ahead. I don't see Meredith here. Good evening, President Davis, members of the board, Superintendent Stum. My name is Ed Steele, uh, concerned community member and multiple committee member for the district. I want to speak to you tonight on action item 10C, the supplemental materials. You're going to be asked to vote to approve that or ratify that. I'm going to ask you to postpone that until May. Um those materials have not gone through the proper

083vetting and review process. The community curriculum advisory panel is supposed to review those and approve them before sending it to you for a vote. that did not happen. So, I'm going to ask you to pull that from the agenda, move it to the May vote. Um, my understanding is it will not impact any teacher use of this material because they are allowed to use that material up until the end of the school year so long as it's ratified by then. So, I'd appreciate if that's pulled. Um, I don't think it's fair to ask you to vote for materials going into the classroom that hasn't been properly vetted, uh, per the policy of this district. Um, one more quick thing on the budget. Um, I'll try and get this in. Uh, there's probably some confusion going

084out based on the news report about the 1.4 billion. Um, I heard the story of one of the maintenance guys at the Circle K getting a drink and being lambasted by the public for not doing their job because they hear the word deferred maintenance and they think that's their fault. So, Madame President, that concludes our public comment for tonight. >> Thank you. We're now um review the consent agenda. All items um on the consent agenda are approved with one vote with no discussion. If a board member would like to pull a consent agenda item, please do so now. Seeing none. Thank you. Um moving on now to action item. Do I have a motion to approve the personnel request including the addendum? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second it.

085Thank you, Mr. Wing. I know this personnel request has some positions for the 2026 27 that are being recommended through the redesign process. Can you tell us a little more? >> Certainly, President Davis, governing board, superintendent, audience, uh today we're going to make our u meeting our deadline on our organizational redesign recommending hires on some of our new positions. I just wanted to provide a quick reminder to to the public. Beginning in July, we've been sharing uh organizational redesign affecting district level uh departments. We shared it with the governing board in August. We did a video uh that all staff was able to view. In that video, it shared and in the public meetings we shared that we're going to have a redesign a reorganization of some of our departments like such as teaching and

086learning, student services, etc. Uh we're in a position as you probably heard many times where we're declining enrollment and enrollment reflects revenue and so we're declining revenue and about 88% of our budget is staffing. So when you have a decline in revenue, unfortunately you have a decline in staffing. So our redesign uh eliminated over 140 positions. Uh we created a little over 100 positions. The net was about or at least 40 positions being eliminated saving about $3.5 million to the district. Um we had many rationes that we shared in August, but one we wanted to do was uh to include our hiring efforts of these new roles by December 11th, the last board meeting this uh this semester because unfortunately some individuals if you if you reduce by over 40 positions, some individuals uh may

087not be recommended for some of the jobs in the redesign and we wanted to give ample time and notice to those individuals uh so they could seek other opportunities including other opportunities in Mesa public schools. We're going to begin giving a school their staffing allocations right right away after winter break. And so there's a lot of possibilities in the largest school district uh in Arizona. Um just for some point of reference, um those who did not uh get selected, human resources will be making contact with them. We'll have individual personalized meetings sharing some of the potential opportunities. um with uh Mesa Public Schools uh and potential openings in this spring. We did go through some extensive interview processes, more extensive than we traditionally do for administrators. We went through a large committee and a small

088committee interview with various stakeholders, including representatives from school-based positions, district level positions, our four employee associations. Thank you for all the time and effort you had uh doing some of these interview processes and for the certified positions. We we did a large panel and a video interview uh that was included in part of our screening screening process. So today kind of concludes or finishes up our timeline. We do have some positions that uh the interview panels did not select. We move a candidate forward and um I believe we shared that that could be a possibility. We did post all the jobs internally. Uh but come January, we're going to post those remaining positions. And forgive me if I'm off by one or two, but I think it's like 19 positions. It'll be both posted both

089internally and externally. >> Thank you, Mr. Wing. Um board members, any discussion, >> Madame President? >> Yes. I would actually like to once again um I uh the number of um the number of people uh hired for the uh restructure situations, how many of them are actually do you know how many came from district level versus uh opportunities for our um teachers or certified people or others at the building level? >> Yeah, we we I do not have that number off the top of my head. We I can tell you uh that we can get that number pretty easily. And I can tell you that I doubt it's uh higher than 80% from current district office jobs. I think the number is going to be lower than that. I'm trying to go through some quick

090calculations in my mind right now. Let us get us get get those numbers to you. Um and we did you know there were some assistant principles uh some teaching staff that applied for jobs and received jobs because the committees as they went through the um interview process both the HR interview process and screening process which included um resume review and prior experience review all the way to large panel and small panel. The committees recommended the best candidate candidate they possibly saw. Uh so Justin do you have the numbers? >> I believe it was around 20 but another one not quote me. We'll get you the official numbers. Uh I did want to share that internal >> Mr. One second. There's about 100 jobs, right, that we posted and 20 were filled with nondist people. Is

091that what I'm hearing you say? >> Well, I said don't quote me on it. >> Yeah, I know. I I know. I know. I I I >> We're rewinding and I'll get you the exact numbers. I know we went over it, but I have a lot of numbers going on right now. But I will sh I will share that internal candidates or internal postings, it's all Mesa public schools eligible for uh applying for these jobs and and considered for these positions too. It's not just those that were affected. Um, and the last thing I want to say about the restructure is there has been continued um concern over the interview process and that uh the old boys and the old girls network kind of won out even with the with the large group and the

092small group and the people that were selected for those uh that perhaps uh there was some well she's my friend or he's my buddy and I go bowling with him and so I'm going to recommend him. So going forward if uh hopefully we won't have to do a major restructure. But um those are things that when our community looks at or our staff looks and sees that they they go well were they really looking for the absolute best person. So I don't like that position. I like us to be in a position where we can with absolute confidence say I know that person is the absolute best person. That was that's what our Mesa students and families deserve. uh and that's what I will advocate for and push for in the future. The the I've

093I've heard lots of concern about the large group, small group and the makeup of the dynamic of those. So, thank you. >> Any other board members comments? >> Yes, ma'am president. Um I I reviewed the list of the people who are we will most likely approve tonight and I know them. I know their work. Um, and I know that they serve our students by strength and need. Um, I honor what they do for the district. Um, but the process had some surprises, uh, some confusion and some irregularities. Um, you know, anytime a district this size tries something new, uh, there's bound to be some some issues. There's going to be some concerns. Um, but our employees, our administrators, certified and classified are professionals and they're dedicated to our students, their schools, or their departments and

094this community. They will continue to serve, but they've got to feel supported, valued, and respected. We've got to learn from this experience and make sure that we honor our most valuable resource, our people, and the service that they provide to our kids. So, nothing was nothing's perfect, but we've got some repairing to do because this has been tough and the board knows that it's been a tough situation. But we are going to honor people tonight who earned their positions and we know that they will serve our students by strength and need. But please, let's make sure the process is fair and equitable from now on. Thank you. Any other comments? All right. Thank you, board members. Thank you, Mr. Wing. Uh, Miss Kirby, we please take our vote. With a vote of five yays, we

095have approved the personnel request, including the addendum. With the approval of the personnel request, we have several principles to recognize. Mr. Wing, I will turn the time over to you. >> Thank you, Madam President, governing board members, Dr. Strong, superintendent, audience. Uh, tonight based on your approval, we do have several incoming principles to recognize. uh we have adjusted our procedure just a little bit. Everyone will remain at the dis as I introduce the principles. Then at the end we'll take a quick picture with the governing board similar to the to the recognition earlier. Will Mr. Bruce Kosaboom come to the podium. Bruce Bruce is the incoming principal at Red Mountain High School. He is currently serving as the principal of Fremont Junior High School. Bruce began his career in education in 2004 teaching social studies

096at Brimhall Junior High and has also served as an assistant principal at Mountain View High School. He has a bachelor's degree in secondary education in middle-grade social studies from Arizona State University and a master's of education in educational leadership from Northern Arizona University, excuse me. Bruce, would you like to say a few words? >> Absolutely. First of all, I'm nervous and excited. So, here we go. Good evening. I want to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to the Mesa Public Schools governing board for the opportunity to serve as the next principal at Red Mountain High School. I would also like to thank Dr. Strom and the district leadership team for the support and the essential work that we are doing here in Mesa Public Schools. I appreciate their support and everything they've done to help

097me progress in uh to to be able to take this position. I'm deeply grateful for the Fremont school community for the last uh for the past six going on seven years. The experiences, relationships, and growth I've gained there have shaped me into the strong the strong leader I the strong leader today and I will continue to guide me in the years ahead. I also want to thank my family for their steady support throughout my educational journey, especially my wife who has made countless sacrifices that allow me to serve in this incredible profession. I'm honored to join the Redmont High School community in a new capacity and I'm committed to continuing the tradition of excellence that this school and families have come to expect. I look forward to collaborating closely with our faculty, staff, parents, and

098community partners, each of them whom is deeply invested in the success and well-being of our students. Working hand in hand, we will continue to advance the high standards Red Mountain High Schools has been known for. My first my approach to supporting stronger uh strong student outcomes is grounded in three priorities. First, we must continue to attract and retain exceptional teachers. Educators who consistently put students first above all else. Creating a positive culture where high-quality teachers want to work begins with my leadership team and myself. Second, we will support our teachers in developing rigorous, high-quality instruction that ensures students learn at the levels that we intend for them to learn at. And finally, we will hold ourselves accountable by regularly being in classrooms observing, supporting, and partnering with teachers so that our expectations are clearly understood

099and consistently met. I truly I am truly excited to be part of the Red Mountain High School community and look forward to working together to ensure that Red Mountain High School continues to be an educational leader in the state of Arizona. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. >> Thank you, Bruce. If if you're here to support Bruce tonight, please stand. >> Here we are. >> Let's have a round of applause. >> I did hear a future student, enrolly in the back, and employee. Next, I would like to invite Kristen Groover to the podium. Kristen. Kristen is the incoming principal at Franklin Accelerated Academy East. She is currently serving as assistant principal of LOL and Field Elementary Schools. Kristen began her teacher career in 2017 at Franklin at Alma. She holds a bachelor's degree in

100journalism and communications from the University of Oregon, a masterers of arts and teaching from Pacific University, and another masters of arts in educational leadership from the Arizona State University. Kristen, would you like to say a few words? >> Thank you. Um, I apologize for my scratchy voice. This is what it sounds like to work in an elementary school in December. Um, good evening, President Davis, members of the board, and Dr. Stum, our district leadership team. Uh, I'd like to start by thanking you for this opportunity and for the work you do to support our schools and community. I appreciate the clear direction you've set for the district and I'm grateful to step into my new role at Franklin Accelerated Academy East Campus with your unwavering support. Uh, I want to also share my appreciation for

101my current communities at Lel and Field Elementary Schools. Um, the staff, students, and families at both campuses have helped shape my understanding of what it truly looks like to work together, to support one another, and to stay focused on what's best for kids. As I transition into this new role, I'm excited to return to my Franklin community. I'm looking forward to continuing the long-standing traditions that make Franklin Accelerated Academy East Campus special while working alongside staff and families to support each student's growth. Uh looking toward this next year, uh some of my intentions are to continue to emphasize that highquality instruction through collaborative coaching, consistent expectations, and data informed practices. I want to partner closely with families so communication is clear, relationships are strong, and every family feels connected to their child's learning. I want

102to ensure a safe, structured, and joyful school climate where students feel known, supported, and motivated to do their best every day. So, thank you again for this opportunity. I'm really looking forward to working with all of you in this new capacity. >> Congratulations. >> If you're here to support Kristen tonight, please stand. >> Let's give a round of applause. Now, I'd like to invite Nicholas Johnson to the podium. Nick is the Nick is the incoming principal at Bush Elementary. He is currently serving as an instructional coach and academic interventionist at Shepard Junior High School. Nick began his teaching career in 2011 at at Calvary Christian School and joined Mesa Public Schools in 2015, teaching fifth and sixth grade at Wilson Elementary. He holds a bachelor's of arts degree in biblical and the theological studies from

103North Park University, a master's degree in elementary education from Grant Canyon University, and is expected to complete his mers of education in educational leadership this month. Nick, would you like to say a few words? >> Yeah, thank you, Mr. Wing. Good evening, Madam President, members of the board. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here tonight and for your continued dedication to our students and staff of Mesa Public Schools. To our district leadership, thank you for your continued support and leadership of our district. I am deeply honored to be entrusted with the role of principal at Bush Elementary for the upcoming school year. For the past seven years, I have been part of an incredible community at Shepard Junior High. Shepherd is a special place in Mesa for many reasons. The teachers, students,

104and families there have shaped me as a leader, and I am grateful for the support and trust that I've experienced. I also want to acknowledge our current principal, Jill Benza. I wouldn't be standing here today if it wasn't without her. I wouldn't be standing here today without her. She saw potential in me before I was ready to see it myself, and I will always be grateful for her belief in me. As I step into this new role, I'm excited to join the Bush community, a school with a strong foundation, dedicated staff, and families who care deeply about their child's success. What I'm most looking forward to is living out the Mesa promise as a leader. When we know our students by name, when we serve them by strength and need, we will ensure that they

105graduate ready for college, career, and community. I believe that every child enters our schools with hidden potential and it is our responsibility as a school to help cultivate that potential and give students the opportunities to discover and develop their strengths. As a leader, I'm looking forward to living into and embodying that promise at Bush. In the coming school year, I'm committing to impacting student outcomes by focusing on three priorities. First, ensuring a positive and inclusive school culture where students feel known, safe, and excited to learn every day. Second, deepening relationships with families to foster trust, engagement, and shared ownership of learning. And finally, strengthening instructional practices through collaboration, shared learning, and the use of effective evidence-based strategies. Thank you again for welcoming me into this role. I look forward to working together with our staff,

106families, and district leadership to advance our shared commitment to academic excellence and student growth at Bush. Thank you. >> Thank you, Nick. If you are here to support Nick tonight, would you please stand? Round of applause. Next, I would like to welcome Laura Olsen to the podium. Laura is the incoming principal at SulkQ Elementary. She's currently serving as principal at Walsh Wilson Elementary School, pardon me. Laura began her teacher career in 2005, teaching fourth and fifth grades at Jocom School District. She joined Mesa Public Schools in 2021 as principal at Wilson. Laura holds a bachelor's of arts in elementary education from Arizona State University, a masterers of science and education from Walden University, and another master's degree in educational leadership from Arizona State University. Laura, would you like to say a few words? >> I'd

107love to. Good evening, esteemed members of the school board and district leadership. It is with genuine sense of gratitude that I stand before you tonight. I want to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation to the board for the trust and confidence you have placed in me. Your dedication to our students provides the foundation for everything that we do. District leadership, thank you for your leadership and mentorship. Your vision guides our district and I am grateful for the opportunity to have learned from and collaborate collaborated with dedicated professionals. As I prepare to transition to f sulk, my heart is full of appreciation for my current school community at Wilson. To the incredible, caring staff, the teachers, custodians, instructional aids, office team, and everyone who makes our school run. Thank you for showing up for our students

108every single day. I also want to specially mention our school's namesake, Marilyn Wilson, whose legacy of commitment and passion continues to inspire us daily. To our parents and students, your resilience, partnership, and enthusiasm are what make our school truly special. I am deeply thankful for the opportunity I've had to serve the Wilson community. Now, I look ahead to the next chapter with immense anticipation and in yes and yes, a profound sense of gratitude. I am truly honored and excited to officially be joining the Sulkq family. This school holds a personal connection to me as both my niece and nephew attended Sulkq, giving me a deep appreciation of its service to children and their families. The Sulk scorpion rep represents strength, adaptability, and the steady commitment to growth. I look forward to honoring that spirit as

109we support every student and reaching their fullest potential. I am excited to begin building relationships and getting to know every member of the Salt community, the students, staff, and families who make it unique. Moving forward, I am committed to working collaboratively to make a measurable impact on student outcomes. My focus will first to be fostering a culture of collaboration. I will work with staff and families to establish shared goals and implement datadriven instructional strategies that are responsive to the specific needs of every every child. We will strengthen community partnerships by actively engaging parents and local stakeholders. We will continue to create a robust support system that addresses both the academic and well-being of our students. And of course, we're an elementary school, so we will provide we will prioritize the foundational skills. We will focus

110our resources and professional development on ensuring every students achieves mastery and core academic areas using targeted intervention and enrichment. Thank you again for this incredible opportunity. I look forward to serving the salt community. >> Thanks, Laura. I'm guessing we have some people here supporting you. Uh they were video recording you. Would you mind standing? >> Thank you. Very cool. Congratulations. Next, I would like to welcome Estabbon Ruiz to the podium. Estabbon is the incoming principal at Carson Junior High where he is currently serving as assistant principal. Estabbon began his teaching career in 2017 with our neighbors Chandler Unified School District. He did join Mesa Public Schools in 2024. Wise decision. Estabbon holds a bachelor's of arts in Spanish from Arizona State University, a master's degree in secondary education from Grand Canyon University, and a master

111of education, educational leadership. Espon, would you like to say a few words? >> Absolutely, Mr. Wing. I'm a little nervous, too, Bruce. Um, and you had the biggest rock star cheering for you, my son. Um, Madame President, members of the board, district leadership, and community members joining us in person and online. Good evening. My name is Esteean Ruiz, and I'm honored to stand here as a Westwood alum, a former Carson student, and a proud Whitman Wildcat, and currently Carson's assistant principal. On July 1st, I will have the privilege of serving as Carson's principal for the 2627 school year and beyond. The last few years have bought have brought a mix of emotions, but more than anything, gratitude. It is a privilege to wake up each day and help students get ready for life. To shape

112experiences they will carry with them for decades and to do so in a district that deeply cares for his students and community. Carson is my home. As both a former student analysis and principal, I have seen firsthand what is possible when a community leads with heart, resilience, and high expectations. I could not do this work without our Carson staff, students, and families. So, thank you all. Special thanks to Dr. Brunts for allowing me to grow into my leader position as an assistant principal and mentoring me as a future principal. I also want to thank my family, my parents, Anna and Enrique Muchas. Gracias or metoloid who immigrated from Mexico and trusted Mesa public schools with their children's future. Some may call that the American dream. I call it the MPS promise. My brothers and I

113were known by name and served by strength and need. Thank you Jesus who is a professor at Vanderbilt and Enrique who is an entrepreneur in talent acquisition in the Pacific Northwest. for being my role models. To my wife Zeta, who is currently on the floor with my son Leo, thank you for grounding me, supporting me, and reminding me daily why our work is generational. And to my son, Leonel, you are my why. This role is personal for me. I grew up in the neighborhood. I love West Mesa and I'm committed to building a school where students feel seen, valued, challenged, and supported. Every student deserves a teacher who truly believes in them. I will work to make that happen at Carson. I will continue building partnerships that celebrate who our students are and help prepare

114them for their futures. Thank you for this honor. I'm looking forward to serving this district and our incredible community. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Those who are here to support uh Mr. Ruiz, please stand. Congratulations, Estabbon. Finally, I'd like to note that you did approve governing board Megan Hulhy as the incoming principal at Franklin Franklin Accelerated Academy East. She'll be >> Wilson. I I read that wrong. She will be introduced at a January meeting as she is at a school event uh tonight leading a sing along and I think she prom and I think she promised to sing along in January to be determined. I'll get back to you on that one. And with that said, board Dr. Strong, will you please make your way in front of the DAS for congratulations and pictures?

115Let's go into order of everyone that was announced tonight starting with Bruce. We will take a short break for the pictures and be right back. Happy birthday. the baby. >> Good. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Whenever you're ready. Whenever you're ready. >> Thank Thank you. We're going to continue on with this meeting. you are welcome to keep celebrating um outside the doors or you're welcome to join us um or wait for the rest of us to join you to celebrate. Um anyway, thank you all again for being here and congratulations to our new principles. Uh Miss uh Dr. Stro, >> Madame President, I just want to on behalf of Monica Mesa. So the way we're proceeding is Monica, the chief of schools eventually will be the one that introduces all the principles. Dr. Mesa as of

116this evening will be getting her doctorate degree and being hooded up at NAU. So if the community is wondering where's Dr. Mesa at, she wanted to be here, deeply want to be here. She was involved in the whole hiring process for all these principles and uh she was excited that they got introduced tonight. So I just maybe a celebratory lens on Dr. Mace as well getting her doctor degree. >> Thank you Dr. Strom. We are now moving into our consent agenda items. All items will be considered as a group and will be approved with one motion. If a board member would like to spotlight or comment on a consent agenda item, please do so after the vote. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda according to the recommended action for each item?

117>> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Seconded. >> Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? The computers took a break, too. There we go. With a vote of five years, we have approved the consent agenda items according to the recommended action for each item. We'll now go down to our action items. Do I have a motion to approve the approve approval of a contract award for $3,35,000 to replace the existing roof at Smith Junior High School? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Mr. Moore, will you tell us a little bit more about this item? >> Yes, certainly. President Davis, members of the board, uh this is a continuation of the roofing awards that were awarded at the last board meeting. This award was

118procured uh through an IFB invit invitation for bid. Um and so um ironically when this was originally awarded last year December or November 2024 or submitted excuse me to the school facilities board in November of um it took almost a year for the school facilities board to approve this project in October. Um it was awarded for a cost of 2.4 million. You can see tonight the award is much more than that. Again, it emphasizes the severe delay that the school facilities division is and the cost incurred from this delay which is roughly around 600,000 from the original time we awarded this project and bid this project at 2.4 million to the time they actually funded this project. Um we can continue to expect this delay through the school facilities division, but um tonight u the

119SFB did approve the increase in funding to support the current cost of this roof replacement at the $3 million threshold. Again, kudos to our facilities team for continuing to uh secure uh building renewal grant funds uh to support our capital needs throughout the district. >> Thank you, Mr. Moore. Board members, any discussion? I just want to thank um leadership for um putting this on the regular agenda instead of consent. It's I think it was really good to get the additional information on this item and uh we're closing out your first your first year in leadership on the board, but I've really uh thought we've had very good discernment about what items should be on consent and which ones shouldn't because of extra information or the budget. So, I just want to or not the budget,

120but the amount of the item and so I just appreciate the attention to that. >> Any other discussion? >> Thank you, Mr. Moore and Mr. Balden. Mr. Kirby, I believe we're ready for a vote. Oops, sorry. With a vote of five days, we've approved the approval contract award for $3,35,000 to replace existing roof at Smith Junior High School. Do I have a motion to approve the fiscal year 202526 revised budget in accordance with ARS15-905E? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Seconded. >> Thank you. This is time for board to have a discussion on the budget. Do any of my fellow board members have any questions? Um we'll just go around starting with Mrs. Hutchinson if there's any questions. >> No, Madam President, I do not. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Benson.

121>> Um, yes, Madam President. I do. So, on I don't know what slide number it is. Six, five, something like that. The M revision. Um, I really uh I first want to commend um Mr. Moore, your uh new eyes to look at how to shift um using uh the different educational budget uh buckets. um looking at it with a different set of eyes, with a different uh philosophy uh and how to get the most bang for our buck. Um I but I want to tie the revenue control limit, our reduction of almost $6 million. And I'd kind of like to piggyback off what uh Mrs. Bostock mentioned earlier. She had concern over block schedule last spring. Um many of our community members and parents had uh concern over block schedule. So um I know that

122our our uh ADM has reduced approximately 800 7 to 800 more students than we anticipated. Several of those being weighted weighted or high school. So, how much of the negative uh now we've we've managed to move stuff around and uh alter carry forward so that the financial hit is not going to be this year. We have a nine we've increased our M by 9 million close to 10. Well, no. Wow. I'm really bad at estimating. But last year, we just had three high schools that were block schedule. Now we have five. So, how much of the 5.7 million in reduced revenue approximately is from the loss of ADM at the high school level? >> Member Benson, that's a fair question. We monitor our ADM at the high school level. We monitor how many kids are

123generating halftime, 3/4 time, full-time ADM. Um and and what I can tell you is comparison to two years ago the difference because more kids are halftime and threequarters time ADM is about 420 to 440 ADM depending on the day in which we measure. Remember ADM gets measured 1/100th of a day for every day a kid's enrolled. So, you know, I can't give you distinct numbers till after July, probably into September of next year to see look, then you look back and you go, okay, where did everything settle? In comparison from uh two years ago, it's about 420 to 440 ADM. This in comparison to last year, it's about an additional 220 to 240 ADM in comparison to last year when three schools were on block scheduling. It's one of the core reasons that we took

124uh quite a few of our CTE teachers and instead of paying them out of M, we moved that over to into fund 596. Um and we had the space to do it. Uh we were underfunding out of the CTE bucket by about 400 $4.5 million. And CTE money, I met with Chad Wilson today, actually. CTE money, uh Dr. Wilson, he's the superintendent over at EVIT. and CTE money is meant to be spent in the year in which you garner it. That's why in the current IGA that just got ratified by Mesa Public Schools and EVID, it says that they expect us not to carry forward any more than 25% of our expected revenue collection in any given year. So, the way we're solving it this year is by using those CTE funds uh a lot

125more thoughtfully on teacher salaries. not they were not used thoughtfully in the past. It's just a lot more thoughtfully on teacher salaries as opposed to uh program. Now this does place pressure on things. I want to be really clear in order to fund renovations of career and technical education classrooms. Now we're going to have to look at other capital avenues because we're paying for the teacher out of the 596 fund. So now we're going to have to look at other capital avenues and those are the things that we've been bringing up with our citizen budget committee. Those are things we've been bringing up with the board including bonding capacity that includes also district additional assistance and we'll be working through the spring with our citizen budget committee and this board to establish what you may

126or may not want to do by May. So everything you do in education when it comes to finances that we've been exploring when you pull a string here there's several other strings that follow and you got to understand not just one fund you got to understand how all the funds work together and we think we have expertise in this district to do that now at this point. Okay, that's good because um as we have now five school high schools that are um doing block, it's going to have a by far more significant impact on our budget. So um I guess the the question I want us to ponder as a board and as district leadership is um at what point are we going to be willing to revisit the whole block schedule notion because it's

127costing us too much? As Mrs. Bosto said the careermies that's that's a different that's a whole different entity. It's not impacting us uh financially. But this is I if we are going to be losing and our CTE money, our 596 fund is not going to cover it adequately because that money only goes so far. We're not going to be able to uh fashion those classrooms the way that they need to be. So for like a biomed classroom, it's got to have different materials in it. So, this 596 bucket is only going to go so far. Um, and I guess my my personal uh belief is that sometimes when when we when we move forward with something and we find that it has more negative impact than we uh perhaps thought it would or we weren't

128aware, then it is incumbent upon us as um leaders to say, "Okay, let's revisit this." I don't personally think it is a um negative to uh the possibility of innovating although I don't personally like innovation in education. I think there's some things that are clearly work that worked 150 years ago. However, we shouldn't be concerned with, well, wait a minute. If if if we back off block scheduling because it's costing us more than we thought, then our community is not going to trust us to to do things in the future. I actually disagree with that and I think our community would actually applaud and commend us for being uh responsible and um responsive to what actually occurred when we tried block scheduling. So, I'd like us to keep that in mind because with five schools

129now doing block, the impact is going to be larger than 5.7 million. >> Thank you, Miss Vincent. Miss Baldin, any questions? >> Yeah, thank you. I I think uh next year's going to be busy for the board. I imagine the budget's probably going to be a big topic of a board retreat, probably the the block schedules. I I appreciate your comments, Mrs. Benson and appreciate uh Rachel Bostock's comments that I you know we were told you had to have blog to have themies and I was glad to hear some support for the college and careermies. So I I don't have questions on the budget. It was Dr. Stum uh before he was superintendent that alerted the district to the financial pitfalls they could could be in. So, I'm glad that I think we got a

130a grasp on that earlier. Had he had he not been here, it would have been a disaster. So, I think that was really good. And I I'm So, this is my third year on the board now. I'm finishing my third year and in the four-year term. And I really appreciate the leadership that we have uh with with our team uh Mr. Moore and Justin Wing and Superintendent Strong because I think this is the most transparency I've had as a board member. We had a 2 and 1 half hour meeting was scheduled for two hours and we went over which happens with me um two and a half hour meeting on the budget that was very very transparent and uh went over it in depth. So I know there's a lot of struggles with the the

131daily ADM, but I think that I I feel like we're gonna you know we'll get on top of it. I think with the uh having a really data driven leadership team that we'll we'll make decisions that are data driven, right? That we're going to look at what's what's best and I think do what needs needs to be done. But I I suspect we're going to see a lot a lot more work next year. But thank you for the uh transparency too on on all of this. And uh there's a good presentation too in the in the hearing. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Chaffy. >> I appreciate board member Walden's insights, having been on the board longer, and as a new board member who's just completing my first year, I do feel there has been some

132significant conversations about the budget. And I do feel like I have a good grasp of where we're at and where we're headed and the potential pitfalls. And I hope that as board members, we can kind of help continue to communicate that out to our community because I do know that as a a parent in schools, as a community member, it can feel really complicated to understand. It's so different than your small business budget or your home budget. And so I hope that we can help people understand that as we look at the the unique challenges faced by public education right now and education in Arizona. And I I appreciate being able to work with our fellow board members to come up with solutions that will support our staff and support our students. Thank you. I

133just echo along. Um I appreciate the information and it is confusing as we go through these different um accounts and all the different I call buckets of money. Um and so I appreciate the time that uh superintendency has taken to go through that with us and explain things and and and look at everything and looking at the future. I've appreciated the future look as we have block scheduling has been a huge discussion the last while um looking forward and how how we're going to handle these different issues that are going to arise. So um thank you for the time that's gone into that and thank you board members for your input. Um any other discussion? All right, I think we're ready, Miss Kirby, for a vote. With a vote of five years, we have approved

134the fiscal year 202526 revi revised budget in accordance with ARS15-905E. Next item is supplemental materials. And before I take a motion on this item, I'd like to ask Dr. Strom for some clarification around this item. Um, I know that other board members and myself have received emails and some phone calls regarding this. Um, I'm going to turn the time over to you, Dr. Stro. >> And President Davis, I'd like to just briefly talk about the supplemental process in Mesa public school policy and Arizona revised statute. So, first, our uh policy policy is alignment with statute and that supplemental materials, materials that teachers use to fill gaps, right, in any given year related to the standard. I want to be really clear on this. Teachers can't just go pick and choose a curriculum that's not aligned

135to standards and not aligned to our community values and norms and start implementing in the classroom. That cannot occur, right? But if they see a gap in a curriculum in mathematics, English language arts, history, they can use according to Arizona revised statute a supplemental material for up to a year without ratification of the board. On an annual basis, there has to be ratification of the board. Mesa public schools in the spirit of transparency in our procedure policy then procedure and our procedure states that we'll do this on a semesterly basis to increase the transparency of the board. We knew and we always will bring this back to the board on a semester basis at the end of a semester because it allows us to gather as many supplemental materials that are used throughout the first

136semester in that process. in communication with some of the people from the public uh on this matter. Uh my knowledge was in a place where I uh mistakenly uh and I can own my mistakes and I can apologize for my mistakes. Mistakenly assumed that we had a CCAP scheduled meeting in November and then uh canceled the meeting in December. In actuality, what I learned is that uh this supplemental material was not on either of those agendas. And I own that. That's on me. I own that, right? And so we need to get better at our CCAP design and we will get better at our CCAP design and we'll have the supplementals on that agenda uh uh prior to the December board meeting, right? So that we can have that December board meeting uh ready. I

137would recommend right now as as the superintendent of Mesa Public Schools that we postpone this item. Here's the reason why. It does not matter that you vote on this right now. Teachers still can use these materials for up to a year, right? They can use them throughout the spring for up to a year. remember they have to be aligned to standards, meet our community values and norms, be aligned to our policy, all those things. They can't just pick any curriculum that's out there uh and uh to fill gaps. And then our ratification would simply occur in May. And so this would give CCAP the proper time to review right all materials in in the spring. We'd bring us hopefully a study session to you was recommended by one governing board on our process, right? Or

138an information item on our process in April uh and then bring ratification in May. There's it's really not necessary for us to do this twice a year. We just do it twice a year to increase transparency with our public and uh we will get better at our processes moving forward. I apologize uh to member uh to chairperson Bosstock on behalf of myself and Mesa Public Schools. We'll get better at the process moving forward. >> Thank you, Dr. Stum. Board members, Dr. Stum suggesting um postponing the agenda item until May, which keeps us in compliance with the law. Do I either have a motion to postpone or a motion to approve the supplemental materials list? >> Madame President, I move to postpone based on the recommendation of Dr. Strong. >> Thank you. Do I have a

139second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Any discussion? Um would if we postpone um because I have several questions about these supplementals. Um, and I I am glad that we're potentially postponing. Uh, however, I'm going to be contacting our state legislature because I don't like the idea that teachers can use supplemental materials without prior board approval. So, if we postpone, can I mention just a couple of the issues that I have? >> So, what I would recommend that you do in timeliness of this event, you have two CCAP members, right? And what I would recommend that you do is you give those to Dr. Eastless, the two CCAP members. Um, and then we will work through those processes with CCAP as typical. Now, you're a board member, so I'm not going to ever limit your vote,

140but that would be my recommendation right now in the spirit of time. >> Well, I was going to vote no. So, I'm I'm fine to postpone. However, I do want the public to know like some of my concerns. So, uh, one I want to mention if I may by point of privilege, >> our math. Yeah, since the discussion is about postponing not on the curriculum, I believe it has to stay. Is that correct, Mrs. King? Um, you can explain your vote of why you were going to vote for or against postponing, but the discussion should be limited to that. Okay, I can do that because I was a former gifted teacher. So, uh, I will vote yes to postpone because I have real concerns with in particular the number of math supplements that we have

141for our elementary um, materials in particular. As I mentioned to Dr. Stum uh, last week or the week before, I've been assisting my granddaughter in math. She's in a monastery program, so they don't typically use Envision, but her teacher wanted her to have exposure to what AASA might look like. um that curriculum just my brief exposure is absolutely awful. And I can tell you there's nine plus supplementals for Envision uh for math that the description which let me back up. I so appreciate that because in May we got no description or rationale as to the um supplemental. So I totally appreciate that and I Mrs. Hamilton I know that was a lot of work. So I totally appreciate the work that you put into it. But our envision masses does not have adequate one of

142them building fact fluency does not have adequate fact fluency resources that align with standards. My question then I would like our math and I've already told you this. I want our math curriculum relooked at because our teachers does they desire to do the best for students and to teach them in the most um they have a heart. They want their students to learn. We need to provide them with quality materials. They shouldn't have to be going out and looking for materials that provide the education that these kids need. Our core curriculum should be doing that. And clearly, if we have to have nine plus supplements for our elementary math curriculum, that core curriculum is not doing it. That's my opinion. So, I will vote to postpone. Um, and that's also why I would have voted

143no. >> Thank you, Miss Vincent, Mrs. Baldin. >> And thank you. I I see two of our CCAP committee members here with us tonight, too. And so, I just want to thank you so much for serving on the committee and you know, we're all volunteers and we have our committee that are volunteers and if this were any other like elected official office, you'd have paid staff, you know, but it's just all volunteer and education, which is not a complaint. is just an an observation, but I appreciate having people willing from people from the community willing to step up and and come and and be a voice and help the board out with this. And on the math curriculum, for anybody listening, I just want to kind of remind them that we didn't vote on that

144the math curriculum. It's I think it was voted on a couple years a couple years ago. It wasn't something that I think the leadership team or most of the board members had to had to say in. So I think I think all curriculum is always always worth revisiting but uh want to make sure people know we didn't bring that one on uh that curriculum. So that's all. Thank you. >> That curriculum was paid for with er money. >> Most of the year we adopted four new curriculums. >> Thank you, Miss Chaffy. >> I'm just going to say that I think it's a it's a great idea that we delay the vote. I appreciate the transparency and I appreciate the the recognition of the work that our community curriculum and advisory panel provide for for our

145school district. Um, and I think it makes a lot of sense to postpone it this time till we have time to review it and have this discussion. And I really love the idea of a study session or anformational item. >> Thank you. And I just echo, we're grateful for those extra eyes that serve in our CCAP that help us. Um, I think it was Mrs. Hudson and I joke about not having a secretary, but I appreciate our secretaries that might be on our boards that help us um be the extra eyes because there's a lot of information that we read through and so we appreciate all those that are involved and and also volunteering their time. So, thank you. Um so, with that, I think we're ready to vote. Mrs. Kirby, Miss Kirby. With a

146vote of five yays, we have approved postponing the supplement materials until May. So that will be Thank you. We are now into our information items. Um and tonight our first item will be um for Mesa Public Schools Foundation. Miss Amy Maro is a director and I will turn the time over to you. Um, you'll have 10 minutes to present and then we'll have 10 minutes for questions. Mr. Wing is our timekeeper, so he'll keep us keep us on track. So, Amy, the time is yours. Thank you. Good evening, Madame President, members of the board and district leadership. I'm Amy Marshall, the executive director of the Mesa Public Schools Foundation. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on the foundation's efforts and the resources we're providing throughout Mesa Public Schools in

147the community. We strive every day to live our mission, schools and community working together to enhance student success. We work with four guiding principles which are celebrate and support staff excellence, advance access for every student, foster innovation and graduate readiness, and strengthen community partnerships. These principles provide a focus and a framework for the foundation to say yes with a purpose. Excuse me. At this time, I'd like to introduce foundation board member Jim Lamb, who served on the grants team and will provide an update on the educator grants. >> There you go. >> Look at me. >> President Davis, members of the board, Dr. Stum, superintendency, thanks for having me in a meeting fund filled with budgets. I figured we'd share some more numbers for you at the end of the night. Um, but this is

148really great news that the foundation did. As Miss Marshall said, all year the members of the board work to raise funds, right, with the one of the goals is to give that back to the community. So, we partner with uh businesses in the Mesa public school area to raise funds throughout the year. Um, and this year, I'm happy to announce we gave $100,000 back to educators in the district. Um, we have a very rigorous grant program that is structured to be fair and then meet the guiding principles of the foundation board. Um, this year we opened up applications and we did a little different. We structured into three um levels of grants. A $500 grant, $1,000 grant, and a $1,500 grant. What we were intending to do with this is open up more opportunities to

149different levels. In years past, we'd only seen um we'd seen certain levels of high level grants, people maybe not applying because they felt like I only have a little $500 project. I don't, you know, I don't need that. So, we tried it open up and what we saw is we got a lot more applications and a lot more variety and we're able to spread that around more students and more um schools around the district. So, you can see here that by the numbers we received 127 applications this year. The committee went through every single one of those or every single part of it. We awarded 93 grants. Um and we we've got the numbers, we've affected 45 schools within the district. And right now, um based on the information they provided when they submitted their

150grant, we've affected over 22,000 students. And that's just for one year grant cycle. Most of the items that we awarded as part of the grants will last for multiple years, right? A lot of the things are durable goods. We looked at can this grant not only last for this year, but next year and the following year. So, we aim to have a big impact with that and we're just very happy to present um the that we've given this back to the the educa the hardworking educators of Mesa Public Schools. And I'll turn it back over to Amy now. >> I'd like to thank Jim and uh the entire grants committee for their hard work. They literally read through every single application um and sit together for hours and it's a very long process but a

151worthwhile process. So, the foundation is taking action throughout the district to support our student, staff, and schools. Um, some highlights for you all. Uh, the new employee orientation, we provided raffle items to get new employees excited about choosing MPS. Transportation training, we're providing gift cards and raffle items for our transportation team. They're required to do four mandatory trainings a year. This is our way of saying thank you for your time, effort, and energy in keeping our students safe and our staff safe as well. As we all know, um, I can offers afterchool programs at Adams and Longfellow. And in a recent meeting with them, it was shared that our students need access to digital literacy and computers. So, the foundation with help from a grant purchased 60 computers, 30 for each site to help close

152that gap for those students who attend that afterchool program. And what's extra special about this is that I can host four me and my family nights once a quarter. and I can will be working with our families and guardians to strengthen adult digital literacy and computer skills which we hope will help foster stronger parental engagement. We also purchased tablets for Lehi students were on a waiting list for the Azora reading program. They were on a waiting list since September because they did not have access to a computer or a tablet. So, the foundation stepped in. We have a handful of book vending machines throughout the district. Uh the foundation recognized that they were very sparse. So, we partnered with some great community members, Concord Construction and former Mesa Public School Foundation board president Delight Clark

153and her husband Brian. They each purch purchased over 200 books to fill the Emerson and Longfellow book vending machines. And we're still looking for more partners. Uh with Mesa K Ready and the Mesa Family Resource Center, our community partners, the foundation donated 100 books to the Mesa K Ready holiday event, which we call give the gift of reading, which we did last year. And we also just donated a 100 books and 100 backpacks to the Mesa Family Resource Center for their holiday event. Both organizations serve Mesa Public School students and families and we're happy to support their efforts um to advance literacy. We had the good fortune of being connected to a private donor through and we'll be offering the Bison Scholarship through the Mesa Public Schools, excuse me, Foundation. Uh the donor has um

154designated four Mesa high schools, Dobson, Skyline, Westwood, and Mesa High to each receive two $5,000 scholarships for high school seniors entering the vocational or trade pathways. What makes this scholarship extra special is that it has the ability to be renewed based on student dedication and performance. The Bison Scholarship team is excited to be working with the foundation. and we're grateful for their support and excited to continue our support of workforce development and our student interns. Um, we also support, in case you didn't know, gas cards for our student interns. Internships are often unpaid and that financial burden of filling up your tank tank can be a lot and very stressful. So, we step in in that area. We also provide um clothing or other materials such as composite composite boots and steel toe boots um

155to make sure they have the proper equipment. We recently hosted our business breakfast at the end of October. We had over a hundred attendees at Longfellow Elementary. It was standing room only. This event gives our community partners and community leaders a chance to learn about the foundation uh but also hear about the state of the district which our wonderful super and superintendent provided. We chose Longfellow so people could see the foundation in action. We support the Disney music and schools program Battle of the Books. the Longfellow uh book vending machine and the beautiful mural that was created in their media center which really brought that room to life and celebrates Longfellow culture. Now, finally, with the teacher and staff appreciation, uh we are working to harness support for those schools that need help um to

156celebrate all teachers and staff that week. We know not all schools have the same resources. Uh many schools have well-developed and long-standing PTOs and boosters and others are just uh starting to bloom. So, we've connected our schools, connected with our schools, and we're working to find partners um to help celebrate and provide at least one meal during that week. And currently, we have seven partners, and we're looking for more. All right. Oh, everything we do and all of our efforts to provide resources would not be possible without the generosity of our of our community partners. So, on Thursday, February 5th, 2026, we will come together with our community partners and leaders and celebrate all Mesa Public Schools with our annual board dinner and auction. Our theme this year is united with an emphasis on the

157ED signifying education. We have an evening planned to inspire all who attend with student performances from elementary, junior high, and high schools, both a silent and live auction and an award ceremony where we will be honoring Marilyn Wilson with the spirit of education award. This event is our main fundraiser for the year. I hope you all will join us for a night of unity fundraising and celebration. In closing, I really would like to thank the foundation board of directors who give of their time freely to serve on the board. We work together to make a difference and we are looking forward to stepping up and stepping in where we can. Thank you. >> Thank you, Amy. Board members, starting with Mrs. Hudson, any questions? >> Yes, thank you. Um, I am one of those board

158members on the Mesa Public Schools Foundation board and and I need to tell you if you haven't figured it out already who the mega conduit is between school and community and it is Miss Amy Marshall. Um, she has been an the Energizer Bunny and I mean it in every positive way you can imagine. Um, she has uplifted the foundation. She is our connection to the community and the needs of the community. It is it is a pleasure serving on the board knowing that we are making a difference and our four guiding principles are truly what make this foundation a support system for kids, for staff and families. and and she finds the need and she finds the way which is just so cool. And Amy, I just want to publicly thank you for your inspirational

159leadership. You are dedicated, you are smart, you are personable, and we are lucky to have you as our director. >> Thank you, >> Miss Benson. >> Um, I don't have any questions. I just wanted to um also extend my gratitude for the work that you do that supports students, staff, and our community. Uh I think that's truly um I love charity. I think I think uh people giving back through gratitude like what what my personal bless I you're blessed to be a blessing to others is what I think. And so I think it's great that you have dedicated you also don't get paid. Marcy. Marcy's on two boards that she doesn't get paid for. >> No, she doesn't. >> You must have a fabulous retirement plan. >> Public school. >> Uh but education is um

160truly truly important and we know that it it costs more than uh what we generally get from regular funding. So, we need people willing to donate time and resources to support and uplift um our entire community. The West Side in particular um as Mr. Ruez that I the Westside's my passion as well. Um the I so I love foundations that um provide um assistance in a way that I I think it's community giving back to community and I think that's just really cool. So, uh, and I will probably be at the foundation fundraiser. >> Great. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Vincent, Miss Malden. >> Um, no questions. Just thank you for your volunteer work as well. It's kind of becoming our theme of the night, but thank you for that. And, uh, I've got the

161fundraiser on my calendar. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Chaffy. I've had the chance to see some of the baskets that the schools are organizing for the silent auction and I can tell you there's some good items. So, make sure you're there. Come and wear your school colors and represent your school that you graduated from or taught at. And it is such a fun and inspiring night. I've had an opportunity to attend the past few years and it really is so much fun to come together with our community and see people just caring about kids, caring about staff. So, thank you for the work that goes into it. It's going to be really fun and I hope that more of our community members will come out and join it. It really is a great

162opportunity and um our business has had the opportunity to get involved in the past. There's just so many ways that people can support public education right now and and we need your help. >> Thank you. And I echo I believe December 15th baskets are due. Early bird baskets are due. >> Early bird baskets are due by the 17th. >> 17th. We're going to bought me a few days. Thank you. We we changed it up this year because we're a week early. So early bird baskets due the 17th. We will draw two schools who have um donated a basket and provide a complimentary breakfast to those schools. So an encouragement to get those baskets in so I can work over winter break. >> Thank you. Thank you for buying me two more days to finish our

163school's basket. Um, I do want those that are listening or watching, I think sometimes we don't realize what these baskets, those schools that are providing and helping put baskets together that those are part of the auction that go then to all the list of items that were provided. Um, I have the opportunity to have a child at Emerson and they have a book vending machine and it might be my favorite time when it's a child's birthday and they get to come up to the book vending machine and get a book for their birthday. And so, um, there is so many valuable things that Mesa Foundation, um, does for our schools and I just want to thank you and your board. I know that you work tirelessly and just know how much we as a board

164appreciate you. Um, there's so much that goes on behind doors that we don't know. And so, thank you so much for all the work that you do and and I thank our community for supporting the Mesa Foundation, for coming out. Um, it really is a great event. I can remember years ago, probably 15 years ago, going to Mesa Foundation events at EVID and and I've just watching this foundation grow has been quite an amazing feat and I just want to thank all those that are involved that that rally around our schools. So, thank you so much for this information. I think it's so important, too, that everyone sees what our foundation is doing for our schools. So, thank you for sharing those um items and thank you for helping our schools. So, thank you so

165much for being here tonight. Thank you. I appreciate it. We will now move into and board members, if they do have any other questions you come up with, there is a spreadsheet online for any additional questions as we go through it tonight. Um, we'll next have a health insurance update from Mr. Wing and Miss Tanya Edwards. And Mr. Wing, take it away. >> I think I need the clicker. I have a few slides to do an introduction, but I would like to ask uh Mrs. Tonnie Edwards and Mr. Matt Bitner uh to please uh um help yourself to the podium. We are on a time limit, but I am the timekeeper. >> Mr. Wing, >> therefore, there is no time limit. >> Mr. Wing. >> Yes. >> Really briefly as we get set up, I

166just want to make a a comment on the public comment tonight. Just real quickly, we bid all of our services. Healthcare is a $50 million purchase for us. And so it's a competitive bidding process. And so if any member of the public ever wants to submit public bid uh through the RFP process, the request for proposal process, we welcome them to submit their bids. Um and that is what we're covering tonight. Mr. >> Give me give a little the time starts now. >> Going to give a little brief history. Uh state statute uh allows school districts to be self-funded. uh Mason public schools for the longest time and most most school districts, particularly large ones, uh midsize mid-size ones are self-funded. We remain self-funded. We're in a four out of fiveear uh bid already. We

167went to bid four years ago awarded to our current network and provider. Uh we're in year four or five and that provider is currently Signal Sigma in a bundled package or bundled model where they provide multiple services to us all through Sigma. We do have a consultant for our employee benefits trust, uh, Seagull. Last school year going into this year, you were made aware that, uh, we were projected a 13.1% increase into our health benefit, which which equates to about $5.9 million. Uh, we put in $2.9 million, which left us a balance of $3 million. our EBACK committee, our employee benefits advisory committee along with our benefits department recommended some plan design changes that made up 1.5 million and that left a $ 1.5 million balance. uh projections are never perfect and so and and

168we have a a healthy reserve in our trust and so we decided that we're going to be pursuing different options regarding our health benefits to our employees and perhaps our projection of 13.1% does not 1.1% does not come into fruition saving us or not requiring us to use 1.5 reserves to fund that balance. uh employee groups expressed when they were made aware of that increase that we need to consider different options. Some of you even mentioned uh joining uh school our trust that support other school districts. Uh I I was fortunate enough to be on the governor's teacher retention task force and one of our 12 points was to review our health benefits that we provide employees because in school districts uh health insurance is not kind to us as far as uh cost. Uh

169the state did an evaluation and their consultant advised them that uh school districts while in statute can join the state health program it would cost school district substantially because of the way it's the program is set up. Uh Kyros is a pool Kyros excuse me is a poolled consortium with other East Valley school districts. Uh Chandler, Queen Creek, Higgley, Scottdale to name a few. I believe they have 60 entities in in Kyros. Uh they happen to be going out for bid in May. We've discovered that and asked them, hey, with no commitments, would you mind going out for bid for the school systems you support, but also doing another one including us? And so they did go out for bid. Uh four of us in Mesa Public Schools uh were part of that bid process.

170So we were engaged in the bid all along. uh and Kyros is going to share some of the outcomes, but here's that quick report that state analysis. It says net cost for school districts would increase uh basically would provide a pre and health insurance in general is provide pro providing pressure points into school districts. It probably is in every other field as well. And they shared pooling together with other school districts and other employees is an attractive consideration. And then the the paragraph kind of shares the rationale why. So just that that was just to lead into um planning for uh this year and for next year. Uh quick thing, Chyros is part of the Arizona Risk Retention Trust. Mesa Public Schools is uh has workers comp through alliance with the trust. We have been

171partners uh for property and casualty insurance with the trust for many many years. A couple hundred school districts uh are in it. In fact, uh the governing board also approved in I believe July 24 trust model policies. That's all through the Arizona risk retention trust and umbrella through that. I already shared briefly that they did go through a bid and we were engaged uh no commitment to join exploring but we were uh we were engaged in the bidding process. So with that said, uh Mrs. Edwards, Mr. Bettner, I have the controls. Do you want the control? You do have to point that way I believe. >> Thank you. >> Fast with the time. Uh good evening everyone. Uh my name is Matt Bitner and I'm uh from the Valition Group. We are the advisor that

172helped run the procurement process. So a little bit on the process. Uh we uh sent out to the market 65 technical qualitative questions which was followed by two days of in-person interviews which was followed by uh two rounds of written uh questions and responses out to each of the respective vendors. All of this is really focused around one simple piece. How do we more effectively manage health care costs without sacrificing benefits and access? When you look at a healthcare dollar, 7 cents of that dollar are administrative expense. 93 cents of that dollar are medical claims in pharmacy. So, how do we manage that medical and pharmacy claim most effectively? So, in order to do this, we uh looked at several different areas. Number one, transparency. How do we make sure we get the data we

173need from vendors that we can actually use that data to effectively manage cost so that we have flexibility in plan design? we can implement uh cost strategies to improve benefits and reduce costs. All of this, by the way, is very common sense to us, but it's stuff in the current healthcare environment you actually have to fight for because when we're reducing cost, we're reducing profit somewhere else. Uh the other piece of the of this are how do we make sure claims and pharmacy costs are as competitive as possible? How do we make sure there's as little disruption to Mesa Public School employees as possible? and ultimately how do we make sure they have the same level of service that they have today and that they deserve. Um throughout this process ultimately um we looked at

174several different options a bundled and unbundled arrangements um and looking at your current direct Sigma purchase. You can move into the Chyros environment, still stay with Sigma, but using their unbundled Allegiance TPA, and there's over $2 million and administrative savings and pharmacy benefit manager savings in addition to all of the control and flexibility we need to manage that 93%. >> All right, good evening, uh, President Davis, fellow board members, uh, Dr. Shaman, district leadership. Uh, quick full circle moment. I'm a graduate of Red Mountain High School. So, it's very interesting to be back in this this room right now. So, thank you for the opportunity. Um I'm I'm going to be very quick, but um I want to highlight a couple of things. Uh back in 2016, uh as Mr. Wing alluded to, there's other

175property and liability programs in the state. And those leaders came together and basically approached us to say, "Look, we need to do better as it relates to health care and benefits for our employees and their families." And so they charged us with that particular goal and in doing so that is how Kyros is born. Today uh we stand here serving over 20,000 uh employees and their families as it relates to navigating the complexities of health care and the costs of health care. Our primary goals are around uh and as Matt uh explained driving costs down. Uh the second is around transparency and gaining access to data to really understand and deliver on what the cost drivers are. The third item is around creating a better experience for your employees and their families because frankly when

176people are using health care it's generally not a positive experience. It's something more uh traumatic is happening in their in their families. And then finally, uh, we recognize the limitations both from a resource perspective as well as a budget perspective on school districts and other public entities and the administrative burden that it takes to run an entire employee benefit plan and then navigate those complexities of the health care space is very challenging. I'm pushing here. There we go. Uh, as Matt alluded to, as we look at preliminary information as it relates to the data that we've seen, there is at least a 2 million opportunity or $2 million opportunity in terms of contract improvements both for uh the network claims administration and pharmacy. The second area that we saw is an opportunity for clinical interventions

177that could save at least in the neighborhood of $1.2 million based on our experience with those other school districts that were mentioned. And then the third item is around uh different programs and innovative strategies that we've implemented to uh really challenge the healthcare industry as it relates to how it traditionally operates. And we've implemented these programs and basically looking at engagement patterns and kind of the bell curve of what we could introduce to your employees and their families. We see an opportunity of about another $3 million. Our commitment again as I mentioned is to be your strategist uh your advocate as it relates to the district and what you're working towards and providing your employees and then even more importantly uh for your employees and their families uh our focus is around uh as Matt

178alluded to uh with this type of a change or the consideration of joining Kyros there wouldn't be any disruption as it relates to the network of providers that your employees are using that remains stable. In addition, as a self-funded member, you also get to retain your autonomy and independence as it relates to plan design. So, you get to choose deductibles out of pockets. And I know there's uh various committees that weigh in on that information. I think the final thing that I I have 12 seconds, don't I? >> Mr. Wing took a lot of your time, so keep going. It's all right. >> I I appreciate that very much. Um but it it we we are a deeply passionate team about this cause. We aren't insurance people. Although I will tell you coming out of

179high school, I did start in the field and we are constantly challenging the status quo and looking for opportunities to really create a better experience for employees and we would be honored to serve Mesa Public Schools. >> You didn't have to finish that best. I did. Mr. Wing took a couple ways. Do you want anything else? >> President Davis, just real quickly, Mrs. Snider, I know we have a thing that we want to do in Mesa called Maiden Mesa. It's at the direction of some governing board members and a former superintendent. And so I think we have a candidate for Maiden Mesa right over here to our left. And that we're going to try to profile our alum. So stay connected to Mrs. Schneider over here. >> May have had uh Mrs. Husinson as a

180teacher, too. >> I believe I did. >> Again, full circle moment. >> You never know how it all comes back around. We have those. Well, thank you so much for your presentation. Um, board members, I'll start with Miss Hutchinson and go around to any questions. >> It's amazing how we can reconnect. Um, I'm so glad that you mentioned um that we would retain the employee benefit trust that we would be we'd still be self-insured. I think that's really important. um as uh as as a Mesa employee and now as a board member um calming the fears of our our our employees. I'm also um glad that you mentioned that the coverage and that you know people would basically have the their same doctors and they'd have the same services. Maybe not the same services but

181they wouldn't have to be I think that's the real fear is uh you know oh every yeah costs will go down and and and everything's going to be great but I'm have to get a new doctor. That just that just that lays flat. So I think you're telling us that that is not going to have to happen. Um but um could you could you provide like the elevator speech why it's a benefit to Mesa Public Schools, our employees and their families to employ you? >> Sure. Um I would be happy to do so. So, I I alluded to the fact that not only are we, you know, responsible for kind of serving the district leadership in terms of navigating all of the vendor, you know, requirements as it relates to contracting pricing terms. Um, we

182met with the, uh, employee association presidents yesterday and, um, the the analogy that they gave, it's like Costco for insurance. So we have an opportunity to joint purchase with 60 plus other school districts across the state to really improve the terms uh of of what you're you know purchasing. The other thing that I would add that I think is really unique and a differentiator for us compared to the market is we see a lot of plans really kind of set it and forget it if that makes sense and employees are left to go out and figure out how do I navigate the complexity of this? Who do I call when I have a medical claim issue? Who do I call when I have a pharmacy issue? What if I just got diagnosed with cancer and

183I don't even know where to start? And frankly, in the insurance space, there are a lot of different programs, but are very low utilization and low engagement. And so, one of the things that we've decided as an organization is to invest in resources to support those employees. So, we have front lines uh what we call participant advocates. They're the ones picking up the phones. We ask them to call us first and foremost before they even try to navigate with the insurance carriers or the other vendor partners that uh that we engage with. We have an account management team that also uh supports the district, but also supports employees. So, we're out doing health fairs. We're doing various educational uh sessions. We we love to come in and do professional development so that we're not only

184at open enrollment time, which is generally the the time that people pay attention to benefits, but throughout the year really have an opportunity to engage with people because frankly often times they don't know what they don't know until they need it and that's typically when we hear from people. Um so there's a lot of communication and education that we're supporting along those lines. And then the third piece that I will add is we decided as an organization to invest in clinical resources in sta inhouse. And the reason that we're doing that is because again as Matt kind of alluded to um the insurance space you know there's a lot of dynamic that exists within them and ultimately they're not serving the end user in my opinion. This is my personal opinion. And so we we

185made the the decision to invest in those clinical resources in house. And the goal of that is to really advocate for employees, help them navigate, find more cost effective solutions, and then also improve quality. Right? Again, when you're diagnosed with something that traumatic or that significant, you really don't know where to go and what to do. And frankly, our systems set up that you don't even know what things cost. And so we have story after story after story. If I if I can share just one, I think that will kind of highlight this. Um we had an individual uh that was is a cereble paly patient and that individual was not connected with a primary care physician and was taking a medication a specialty medication that had to be infused uh at the hospital every

1862 weeks. The cost of that medication and those services were upwards of $200,000 a year. We identified that that medication became available as a self-administered uh medication or able to provide it in a physician's office. And so our nurses identified that as an opportunity engaged with this particular member and said, 'Look, let us get you engaged with the primary care physician, one for the purpose of making sure that you have quality of care and somebody's managing your care with this type of a of an illness. And then second, to make sure that we can get you a more cost-effective, you know, option, which at the end of the day impacts not only the district budget, right, in terms of what you're paying out in claims from a self-funded perspective, but it also impacts the employees

187pocket in terms of what they're paying in deductibles. And so by doing all of that, we were able to reduce that cost down to $24,000 a year. And not only that, we then identified that this individual did not have any support system to actually carry out daily activities of life. And so while that's typically not covered by insurance, we were able to secure some state resources that came in and were helpful uh to provide that support and those resources to that individual. So that's just one of many stories that we encounter day after day that our people are again deeply passionate about which is why I think we're unique in this market and we would be honored again to serve you. >> Thank you very much. See a Red Mountain graduate. Delightful to see you

188again. >> Thank you Mrs. Benson. >> This is coming back in January as a discussion item too, right? Or are we doing something about it in Jan? Are we voting to >> a recommendation for our health insurance will be presented in January? Okay. >> January 8th. >> Mr. Can you can you >> So I appreciate here, >> but I just want Mr. Wing to real quickly explain the why behind that in terms of open enrollment. >> Yeah. Typically when you consider changes to health insurance, you want to have that done before this second semester or close to uh early second semester because of open enrollment. uh regardless of what move we make, we're going to have an active enrollment where we have all of our employees reenroll and you're talking 5,000 employees and we want

189to make sure a our systems are prepared for open enrollment and b we begin the communication strategies to all of all of our employees to make sure we reach all of them to uh for them to confidently complete their insurance but more importantly that they complete their insurance enrollment um versus losing enrollment. Thank you. Uh yeah, I knew open enrollment is usually March or April. So, um can you explain the does Kyros It sounds to me like Chyros. Is that Am I saying this right? >> Kyros. >> Chyros. >> Kyros. >> There you go. >> There should be two S's. Um, it sounds to me like you your approach is to move more to a health care model rather than a sick care model. Am I hearing that? >> That's fair. >> Right. So, I

190mean, our current insurance market is a a sick care model. It's not a healthare model. It really isn't. So, uh, that to me is is that kind of the impetus of of what you guys the focus is. Therefore, if we're if we're focusing on health and how to maintain health, um we're moving away from being sick, unless I mean, it's just Yes, that's going to happen sometimes. Is that kind of how your philosophy, how you're managing, how you approach it in order to reduce cost? >> Yes. I I would I would answer it this way. There's kind of a spectrum of health, right? We have individuals that are already in the midst of diagnosis and treatment for very serious conditions and those are our sick patients and we're we're looking for opportunities to again help

191support them along that journey and identify cost opportunities right again to benefit not only uh the employees and their families in terms of what they've had of their you know their pocket as well as the district expenditure. The second bucket of people I would say are the people that are impending risk, right? And demographics drive a lot of what happens in claim cost. So aging workforce, you know, um, female, male, all all of those things are drivers and play into what we see in terms of cost. And so that middle bucket that I talked about with the impending risk is really an opportunity to navigate and help people understand what their options are. And I'll give you one quick example. Um muscularkeeletal is a highcost driver in most plans and a lot of that is

192in the area of joint replacements and so forth. And you see a a very wide array of variability in terms of cost for those types of procedures. You might pay $90,000 at one particular provider, you might pay $40,000 at another provider. And that all happens within the traditional system. And so one of the programs that we implemented was an actual uh direct contract with a robotic surgery center with physicians that do joint replacements on a bundled payment arrangement, which basically means all of the services for the actual surgery, anesthesia, you know, all of those things are all inclusive and we're able to basically drive the cost down to somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000 per joint replacement. So, as we look at that middle bucket, there's a lot of opportunity in things that people are

193seeking out or having to have done, scans, MRIs. We see a a wide ver variety of cost there. You can pay $500 a Simon Med or you can go to a hospital and pay $2,000. And so, that middle bucket really kind of educating people on wherever they're at in their health journey uh to make sure that they understand what uh options are available. And then I would say the third bucket is your your healthier people, right? they don't have any disease state yet. Um they're they're healthy, they're working, they're you know doing all of the things. And the focus there would be really around prevention and making sure that those people stay healthy. And so we invest in things like biometric screening so people understand what their numbers look like and can track that over

194time. We'll do mammogram um events. uh we're looking at some skin cancer screening opportunities, different things like that to really focus on the importance of prevention to keep you from, you know, driving down that continuum. Is that >> answer? >> Well, yeah, because uh we I even have a situation um cash paying people in the medical industry pay less sometimes than those in uh covered by insurance, which I find appalling. >> Agreed. So, um, and and I know I'm confused though as to how is it because Kyros Kai Ross, sorry, have that other S. >> Um, you're contracting with several because we're Mesa is still going to maintain our autonomy over. So, is it just that you're contracting for a larger group, therefore you have more purchasing power because it's still going to be a

195group plan. >> Exactly. That's hence the cost effectable purchasing on behalf of other school districts. And I apologize, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but yes, essentially doing that. >> All right. So, each district maintains their own it autonomy as to how they are paying or how they're is that is that correct? >> There's two structures. So, one structure that we have and and I think Mr. Wing alluded to this with a couple of the examples that he gave. So, Scottdale, uh, Chandler, uh, Higgley are all self-funded. So, they are responsible for their own claims, their own risk. They have stop-loss, which protects them on catastrophic, you know, cases and dollars. Um, and they get to maintain their plan designs and so forth. The second option that we have is shared risk and that's where

196a bulk of our other uh organizations, public entities across the state participate and basically they joint purchase together um where they share in the risk. So they pay in a contribution um it looks a little bit more fully insured similar in nature uh but they you know the pool basically stabilizes them rather than them being on their own and having to deal with the direct carrier market where their experience would impact them directly. But Mesa, the Mesa consideration, Mesa public schools consideration would be the on the self-funded structure. >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you, >> Mrs. Walden. Any questions? Thank you, Mrs. Chaffy. >> Uh, one for Mr. Wing. There you mentioned that there's a projected increase of 13.1% for this year based on our current program. Do you have a projection for next

197year >> that to clarify uh the 13.1% was going into this year. So from last year going into this year uh next year we actually recently just get got projections uh didn't have enough time to tell the employee association. So they're probably hearing for the first time but uh preliminarily we're receiving a projection of over 20%. Member Chaffy, this is one one reason that this industry needs disruption. And uh, you know, the only way you stay ahead of it right now as a public school system is to constantly shop. And I need Kai Ross to hear this. We're very willing to shop. And I think they know that. And we'll go shop if we don't perform well in their program. And uh you know the the the fact of the matter is is you shop

198and then you drive down your cost by shopping and it's no different than your own personal auto insurance. It starts to creep up again. So then you shop again. And we've got to figure out a way to get data to be the king or queen so that we can service people prior to them being as sick as they are and then are on the highost claim side of things because that's really what drives most insurance is the high cost claim side of things. bill and uh you know I I think uh this institution and entity that's open since 2017 on behalf of schools and some municipalities is the leader on the cutting edge of this and out of the people I was not on the evaluation committee and out of the people that evaluated I

199think that their evaluation is telling us they're on the leading of cutting edge of this as well. Anytime we can keep providers and get some guaranteed cost savings out of the gate, it's advantageous to the system. But I what I'm saying at all for is we got to then monitor performance, right? And as we monitor performance, we may have to shop again at some point in time. That's just the industry right now. And we've we've got to get our state officials and federal officials with their minds wrapped around on solution sets in this industry because it eats at the cost of take-home pay for people. And you know, it's it's not fair. We we we were with another small school district and they they said they have employees who literally come to work in one

200of their, you know, jobs that's on a lower income distribution of their job and they're coming to work just for insurance. That's why they're working and their whole check goes out in insurance, $25,000 for them and their family. And that's just not fair. Um so we're excited about this opportunity. Um, and we welcome feedback from you guys in the interim over over holiday break and up to January. We welcome feedback for you so we can continue to refine our questions through Mr. Bitner who's our representative uh to uh Kyros. >> Thank you for that. Thank you board members. Um, and thank you Kyros. Did I say that right? Oh, I wrote it down with an extra s so I would remember. Um, thank you for your presentation. and we appreciate you um being here tonight

201and healthcare is complex and so we appreciate you walking through this and taking the time to share this with us and for our um staff. So, thank you so much. And board members, there is a spreadsheet with questions. So, as questions arise, please feel free to put those in there. So, thank you again for being here tonight. >> Thank you. And we are now at our um midyear enrollment trends. Um for our last item tonight, our presentation will be led by Mr. John House from R&. And so I'm going to turn the time to you. >> Good evening. Um Madame President, board members, Dr. Stro, and the rest of superintendency. Um today we're going to go over some midyear enrollment trends. Um sorry, just picked up on that. Right. few objectives to go over this,

202right? We're ensuring that the government board is going to be informed of the current enrollment for the 2526 school year. Um, we're looking to for the next two meetings to create kind of this transparent land space of what enrollment and projected enrollment is going to look like. Um, make sure that this is appropriately a place with this budget revision as we went over today with Mr. Moore. Um, and as for to the next one, as we come back for the next board meeting in January 8th, we will go more so into those enrollment projections. Um leading into the next slide, we're going to take a look here really quick of just an overall enrollment of October 1st from last year to this year. As you can see down there at the bottom line, we're down

2032581 students, right? Which which equates to approximately 4.8% of all district enrollment. Um going into the next one here, we're going to look at some different sizes here. Um, all of these are different enrollment sizes that elementary schools are going to be placed into. Obviously, the the visual cue here is that the larger the bubble is, the more schools that are fitting within that enrollment size. Um, as you can see here in fiscal year 2022, we had about 28 elementary schools, which equated to about uh 24 per no, sorry, about 49% of all elementary schools being greater than 500. But if we go ahead and look at fiscal year 26, we're looking at 14 schools, which equates to about 12%. Um, as we move over and let's say we go to between 300 and 400,

204right? We can see that we're a little bit lower there. And then now looking at fiscal year 2026, that number significantly grown up to about 26% of all schools. Um, with that in mind, now we'll take a look at the junior high schools. As you can see right far left on fiscal year 2022, we had a representation of about six schools that are greater than 900. And now inversely proportionate, we're now looking at four of those junior high schools being less than 700 students. Moving into high school, a little bit less schools to be a part of that, right? As you can see in fiscal year 2022, we have about four schools that were greater than 3,300 students. is as you cross those fiscal years to 23, 24, 25, it got a smaller, right? And

205then now you look at the fiscal year 2026, we don't have any schools greater than 3,300. We actually now have three high schools that are less than 2100 schools or 2100 students. I apologize. Um, from there, as we move into some 5-year enrollment changes to kind of go and note, you know, as obviously schools are declining, but we do see some growth in some schools. Um obviously denoted by the footnotes there on the right. Um the 97 increase in um Eagle Ridge is mostly attributed to the increase of US ESA dollars at Eagle Ridge. Uh the second one obviously being K uh K8 STEM Academy having an increase of 73. Um as you guys both know, we added in grades seven and eight to those schools. So that increase is attributed to 56 students being

206in the grades seven to eight as to why they're in the second place. Um obviously as you see in the differences up at the top you have Wilson Whitman Wilson's been addressed this year with the Franklin at Wilson. Um going into our junior high numbers as you can see mostly there are hardly only one green at Franklin Junior High most of them in the red as you can see with Kino at the top there with a negative 299 student difference over 5 years going into high school. We're seeing the same thing, right? The only increase that we have right here for the high schools is East Valley Academy and that is because the um dropout recovery program being run on campus for that. But uh a key note for that is that you could see

207Westwood High School at a minus 661 students over that 5-year trend. Going into as we move from a 5year to a one year, let's put a little more perspective as to what happened from last school year to this school year. Um we do have a few different footnotes here, right? the same one similar to the K8 STEM Academy equating to 33 students for that grade 78 increase. Um, moving over to the red, we do see a 94 increase uh, sorry, a 94 decrease for Johnson Elementary School. Uh, that's attributed to the the movement of their monastery program. And then if we hop almost directly over into the green at Sarin Monasury, you can see that there's a 42 kid increase. Um, that is not anywhere portrayed by the removal of the Johnson program. there was

208less than 10 kids that moved from Johnson to that Sine. So that is sort of like a natural growth that is occurring there. Um and then at the very bottom there right below it is Brenton Elementary with a 34 increase and that's attributed to that being a border school and it's attracting a little bit more of outof district students. Similar to junior high for the 5-year we're not looking at very much green. Um, but we can see that there's a stapling in junior high for a little bit of growth where Fremont at the top there of a negative 86 for a one-year difference. Moving over to high school, the same attribution of East Valley Academy for having that dropout recovery program is why you're able to see such an increase there. Um, comparatively for Westwood

209being at minus 661 over a 5-year, you can see that that one-year difference is putting them at 232. um with adoption right not too far behind at 220. Um as we summarize this and key points looking forward into the next January 8th meeting for that um we're looking to continuously leverage uh independent experts to provide comprehensive models whether that's looking at different demographic features combining those to get a better comprehensive view of what's occurring and what does school choice look like what is school enrollment what are those driving factors um as Mr. Moore alluded to earlier in there referring to the budget changes, right? Obviously, enrollment directly drives the district's budget, making sure that we align those financial decisions to be um as transparent as possible. And then the bottom one, as discussed previously, as

210well as educational programming to ensure that staffing and programming aligns with current enrollment trends so that way we can be on top of our game. And any questions? >> Thank you so much for that information, Mr. Trouse. Um, board members, do we have any questions? You want me to go left? Because I always start with you. I can go left. >> Why would you do that? >> Yeah. I decided I probably should mix it up every so often. So, why not on the last meeting of the year? We're just going to go left. >> M. Chaffy. Sorry, you're on the spot. Yeah, I feel like we all needed to like take a take a breath or eat a cookie in between that. That was a lot. Um, I really appreciate the visual the the circle

211graphs. Thank you. Those are lovely. and really help us visualize it and a lot of good information in here. Um, do we have insights into the next five to 10 years and then superintendency how will enrollment numbers play into capital decisions based on that? >> Um, we we do as I uh alluded to the individual expert we do have a demographic report that does show that one year out, three year out, 5year and 10 year. Um as you alluded to the bubble graphs being a nice visual cue in the January 8th meeting we'll come back with those same bubble graphs attributed with on the next year three year fivey year and 10 year so you can get more so of that visual acuity to go forward with that. Um as to the capital expenses I

212know uh Dr. Stum Mr. Moore can elaborate a little bit more on that. So, >> uh, first, uh, I think it's really important for Mesa Public Schools to understand that there's always great opportunity. We educate 52,000 K6 kids and 54,000 and change preK uh, K12 kids, sorry, and 54,000 and change preK12 kids. Um, and we're here every single year to provide the best academic learning opportunities, arts learning opportunities, athletic and extracurricular learning opportunities for kids to grow into human beings that can be college ready, community ready, and career ready. Um the the difficult news uh in this is while we uh continue to want to strive to convince everyone in Mesa public schools that we have a home for them, the fact of the matter is if you look at Census Bureau data and American

213Community Surveys data, there's less age 5 through 17y old kids in the city of Mesa. So, we want to track as many kids as we can in, but we also have to prepare as these demographic reports tell us because what we don't want to do is we don't want to frivorously spend taxpayer dollars on an elementary school or a junior high or a high school that may not necessarily have that capacity in the long run. Right? We got to keep our eyes on year three, year five, year 10 so that we can spend our capital dollars wisely because what we know in the state of Arizona is we are a low tax revenue generation state. That's why people it's one of the reasons people move here and uh so it's going to be very hard

214to convince a constituency uh that moves here for that exact reason that all of a sudden we're going to behave like a high tax revenue state. And so we want to spend our dollars wisely and efficiently. And yes, we're accounting for the fact that we're first going to show you projections in January and then we're going to bring you line item details in uh some uh uh board retreats. We're going to try to plan a board retreat in January. We just got to wait for your organizational meeting to understand uh how that lands and then we'll probably try to plan a board retreat in January, early February and then we're going to come back with another board retreat in March to start dialing in what any sort of capital initiative would look like because we

215know this. I I understand that we took the full capital dollar amount in our November 13th meeting and then in our second citizens budget committee meeting we talked about $1.4 billion in needs. That's really what it if we wanted to make every building in the district, you know, right for 2025. That's what it' cost right now. $1.4 billion. We know we can't I mean we know we can't ask the taxpayers for $1.4 billion. So now it becomes a process of understanding this demography, understanding where schools are trending, right? getting a strategic plan together for how the district looks three years from now, five years from now, from 10 years from now, and then marrying that with, hey, this is the capital dollars that we really think are in the best interest of this district uh

216uh for the future. I I will tell you one of the questions I have in my own personal mind is who are we as Mesa? Who are we as the city of Mesa servicing Mesa public schools? Who are we and what do we believe in? And uh I think the call is that we believe in our promise. We believe in our portrait and we believe in creating great opportunities for kids through the buildings and experiences they get in Mesa public schools. And if that's the case, we're probably going to have some pretty uh uh innovative solution sets to help us become more efficient on the M side and at the same time take our current buildings, right size them for the district of the future and get maximum educational learning experience for kids all at

217the same time. So yeah, we have an eye on three years. We have an eye on five years. And we know that our capital planning process for the district for whether the funding mechanisms, the district district additional assistance override, which would be a board decision or a bond or whatever we ask for taxpayers, all these things have to marry together, right? And so I I will tell you we have an eye on three, five, and 10 years. And you know, not ex not expending capital dollars on a building that may not be uh in the footprint of Mesa public schools 10 years from now. Now, finally, I just want you to hear say this. We're we're extremely careful about naming names and and saying what schools at this time. We don't want to cause panic

218in Mesa public schools. And we already planned for 26 27. We're trying to keep as many schools open as long as we possibly can. We're now trying to get in a plan for 27 28. But the the fact of the matter is is we are learning through committees that we're running through collaboration with other through with our parents collaboration. So we have right now uh uh stakeholder meetings with uh small schools community of practice and participatory staffing right we have right now specials meetings running right and we're getting feedback in these feedback loops and these feedback loops are telling us that hey it may be very difficult in Mesa public schools to run small schools because of the expectations of the very first question I asked who are we as Mesa what do we expect

219out of our education what do we want our kids to live into right so as you start to get these feedback loops from participatory staffing from specials committee from all those things. Ultimately, if we have if we have declining enrollment and we think we will to whether we attract more market share back, which is the goal, right? That's the goal. Or uh whether we don't, we know that we're probably not going to attract market share back where all of a sudden we're 74,000 kids again because the demography is such that we're not going to get there. It's gone from 95,000 kids a 5 through 17 to 78,000 kids in most recent report. And the only reason we haven't shared that report, it's still in draft form. We will eventually share the third party report. The

220board's paying for it, right? That sorry, taxpayers are paying for it. We will eventually share that third-party report with you, but it's just in draft form right now. So, you know, the the the the idea that all of a sudden Mesa is going to turn around and be 74,000 kids big like they were in 1995 and 2005, 2003, 2004, 2005, that's just probably not reality. So, we have to plan for a future where we understand uh what we're doing with our buildings, what we're doing with our square footage footprint, and how we can best maximize capitalized dollars, cap capital dollars. Tyler, I gave a long-winded response there. Do you have anything to add? >> I don't have nothing to add. I just want, you know, I I'm looking at everything also with a new lens.

221So, we are taking our time thoughtfully evaluating the capital needs and Dr. Sharm alluded to the 1.4 billion. Yeah. that that is like again if we replace everything as is right now and keep all our schools 100% um to today's standards in terms of HVAC, plumbing, electrical, we know that's not reasonable, but we had to start somewhere. We had to start with an assessment districtwide, put all the cards on the table so we know where we're we're at and then make thoughtful decisions as we strate strategically um live within um prioritizing that list. So um we're working through that process. We intend to take the board through that process uh and get your feedback as we navigate uh through this. So, >> thank you. Um and this isn't a question for right now. Um but

222something to think as we move going forward. I can see how the demography has shifted since we were in Mesa public schools or teaching in Mesa public schools like a lot of us have seen that shift. You know, where my parents still live, my parents still live in that house where we were raised and there's no kids in that house anymore. And the same is in the neighborhood that I live in now. Fewer and fewer younger families are moving in and people are having smaller families than they used to in Mesa. One school that surprised me on this report was Ishikawa because it is in a place where there are new buildings going in and that has been a school that's been pretty packed. So I'd love to have a discussion as we move forward,

223not tonight about how we do support some of our schools without a unique kind of marketable program, some of these just neighborhood schools. I don't know if we've had enough discussions about that recently about how we support just some of those traditional schools because I do think parents are looking for those options and they want to feel supported in those. >> Thank you, Mrs. Walden. >> Um, just really fast because Dr. Strong mentioned a board retreat at without an organizational meeting. I think we could still get a date on the calendar though, right? Because my >> Cam Cameo's gonna work on that. >> Okay, good. cuz >> it might it might it might end up being in February just based on what calendars work. >> Okay. Just want to make sure that's coming out soon

224because I think we can get the hardest part is just getting a date for everybody so we can we can do that before the or an organizational meeting. Um and then you had mentioned the low revenue state and I've had discussion with with Dr. strong about how unutilized or underutilized the state land trust has been that was set up for education and then the common sense institute did this big study about and I felt totally vindicated because they said the exact same thing so it's been hard for Arizona because I think we were set up to be a low tax revenue state because we had the state land trust to fund education but they're not using it no it's just sitting there it's money sitting there and we have a bunch of state land sittingow

225and so I think you know hopefully we'll see some changes on that, but it's going to be a few years. And then there's the state lawsuit they lost about the capital funding, and that'll be a few years. So, I think down the road there's going to be maybe some really good opportunities depending on governmental leadership in the state to to have more of that funding that comes towards education that doesn't impact taxpayers, which is a win-win. But in the meantime, I know the district is stuck with trying to figure out, okay, well, what do we what are we going to do with the kids that are in these schools that have have been ignored and uh I think it's really unfortunate the way some of our schools have been ignored and and it's hard for

226current leadership because you inherited a lot of problems and uh you know, a lot of people weren't responsible for those problems and now you've inherited them. You've got to figure out what to do about it. But it it has been hard. And so I think that's something that, you know, people that are supporting Mesa public schools have to think about and look at is how how long are we going to how how long are we going to hold problems of the past or the sins of the past against the students that are still still here? and you know what needs to be done to to help those kids because 80% of Arizona kids I think 80 to 85% are are sticking with public school and a lot of the charters aren't in our areas that

227probably need them the most where some of the areas where there's uh maybe a lot of poverty no one's setting up shop there so what else do they have except except hopefully their their public school that's there so just some things I want to get out on my just kind of thought process about that because I know there's uh a really a great need to improve the schools because we have even with declining enrollment there's there's going to be like about 80% of the kids in Mesa 80 to 85% that stick with that stick with Mesa and a lot of them as much as everyone like I support school choice I think parents need to do what's best for their kids and and they think you know they can do what's best that's not my

228business but there's a lot of areas where people don't have a choice and and it is just it's the public school and that's what makes me so passionate about education is because I just think about like this this is the future of our state and our city and our in our country is the kids today and we can't just sit back and fail the rising generation. Um so that being said um I think that uh with the with the enrollment I'm I'm not surprised at at some of the numbers. I know we've had we've had some competition with with charter schools. What's kind of interesting about it is the charters are sort of competing with each other. So, I've seen some of the charter school data where so we've had a new charter school that

229opened, but then it's taking students away from other charters, not necessarily from the public school system. Uh do you all have do you get reports when you're getting the demographic report? Does it show you that information on on the charters? Are you >> member member Walden? Yes, there is a chart in the report that shows charter school enrollment within Mesa public schools and charter school enrollment within charter schools that were within I think it's a mile two mile of our two miles of our boundaries. And uh the the the shocking thing is that the enrollment's pretty level. Uh it's not increasing nor decreasing once you combine all those charter schools and that you know might be up a couple hundred kids one year, down a couple hundred kids the next year, up 300 kids the

230next year. Um so and and really the biggest market competitor in the report you'll see is empowerment scholarship accounts are the number one market competitor that's been added. Um and that's up significantly uh in Mesa public schools. So yeah uh your assumption is uh correct and that charter schools are also competing within their own charter school environment. Um, so and then uh I you know just kind of I think we kind of touched on this about like specialty schools and maybe some people like or don't like the small school model. I think it's great that we continue to look at ways where we can specialize in in education like the the STEMmies are are a popular option it seems like. I think it's great that we're very forwardlooking. There's a lot of school districts that

231are really just thinking about this year and next year, but constantly looking at the future is really important because we have to make those decisions now. We have to plan for the future now. So, I'm really happy the way that that's uh going on and and just want to kind of vocalize my support for uh for trying to keep the schools open, but also looking for ways that we can make make changes to some of our neighborhood schools if there's an opportunity to specialize. if you know our K through 12 Franklin is like really catching on, do we need to to add more Franklin schools or do we need to add STEMmies on the west side? And I think it's great that from what I've gathered in working with you all, you all seem very

232open to to looking at that. Just want to encourage encourage everyone to to continue that work. And I think that's going to be a great way that we can uh help retain students and and bring more students in and also show the community that we're we're focused on student outcomes. And I think that's a a a good message that uh we've had the last couple of years in organizing our board goals and their superintendent goals have been about academic rigor have been about increasing proficiency scores. And I think as we make improvements that we have some really good PR about that and as families can see that the district is is is making those improvements and showing that commitment to student outcomes. I do think there's some families that that would want to come back

233to the district. >> Thank you, Miss Walden. Miss Spinson. >> Um so I just have a couple of comments. Um, and I want to start us thinking um, just a brief clip from the movie A Field of Dreams. And the comment was, "If you build it, they will come." His wife thought he was nuts when he built a baseball field in the middle of I think it was Iowa, right? Totally nuts. But that is, I believe, how we have to consider what we're doing in Mesa. Um, the experts I really want to hear from are parents. I know we're talking dem demography and I know we have low birth rates. However, um, I I've mentioned it consistently. We still have 20,000ish school-aged children in Mesa that Mesa is not capturing. Um, and parents are the

234experts there as to why they're not coming. So, if we connect with them, um, and and I I personally am not shocked that we had a greater decline in our high schools based on parental input last spring. Uh, and I know that the the movement towards black and um, career academy and models was in place long before you got here, Dr. Stum. I concur with board member Walden. You inherited somewhat of a mess. But it's incumbent on upon us to stop looking back for backwards and look forward. So if we build it, they will come. If we provide the educational opportunities and we I love that you mentioned we're going to we want to uh win back market share. Now Sarin Monastery, let me tell you why her numbers are are not they're not from

235Johnson. Uh pre principal Ericson worked her tail off promoting Sarin Monastery, right? It is a more expensive educational model, but it's an excellent excellent educational model. It works. It's consistently one of our schools that is in the A category. So are our Franklin. So I was kind of surprised that a little bit of our each of our Franklin was down a little bit in enrollment. But one of the things I think we also have to realistically face is that uh there is a severely negative perception about public education at large across the nation. Um, as I've been on the board and I've gone on to different campuses, I don't believe Mesa uh has the same level of craziness that is the perception within the um overall community. So it is therefore also incumbent upon us

236to make sure that we are sharing that that we are honoring parents uh that we have a commitment to honor their value structure and that we're not going to impend intrude upon it that we have a commitment to that that parents are parents and teachers are teachers again if we build it they will come. It isn't easier for a parent to put a child in a charter school or to drive them all the way to Eagle Ridge cuz they're homeschooling. That is not the easiest thing for them to do. It isn't. The easiest thing for them to do is to keep their child in their neighborhood school. So, as leadership, and I I will tell you, I appreciate um Dr. strong your willingness to lead your have your people lead and look at different options

237and look at being competitive because it has always amazed me that public education when school choice happened I don't know two three decades ago I don't remember how long ago that they didn't embrace the competition they they didn't say oh well you're doing that we can do that better that That's what competition does. It brings a better product. And education is a business and it's a product that we're providing. We're we're instilling knowledge in children. And again, if we build it, we will get families back. That that is truly what I believe. But we also have to do it with the knowledge that there is a wide negative um belief regarding public education in general. And we have to do a really good job marketing and letting people know, hey, you know what? Mesa is

238really not that crazy. And when we see crazy, we're going to address it and we're going to get rid of it because Mesa doesn't embrace crazy. That would be my recommendation to leadership. >> Thank you, Miss Vincent. Miss Sudinson. uh piggybacking on those comments. Um there's been a deliberate campaign to undermine public schools. And so one of the things that I think we have to understand is that at times we talk about dollars in the classroom and and it's important that our classrooms are fully resourced, but every once in a while we're going to have to spend money to do as you said to market and and maybe think outside the box a bit. But one of the things I really think we can do is what happened last week. Frank Frank, one of the

239Franklin schools choirs went to the leisure world a leisure world meeting. The ladies in the aa were blown away by those kids. Blown away. and ripped out their checkbook and wrote them a a check for $1,000 because the teacher needed needed sheep music. One of the things that we should be doing, and I'm trying like the devil to do it, is to get our kids into the community and to get our community into our schools. And let's dispel the rumors. There were no kitty litter boxes in the dang restrooms, you know? I mean, we we've got we can fight it within our own community. We can do that. And and it may mean we have to pay bus fair to get the kids to, you know, uh a place and we can't and maybe we

240got to spend a little money to get the community on our side. It's just not marketing. I think sometimes it's word of mouth, too. you know, >> I think it's more >> and and so I I really would like to see us promote Mesa, a positive image of Mesa. I think made in Mesa and and and having Miss Tanya as our as our first representative would be a dang good idea. And and let's let's let's let's look at all of a sudden the the song Build Me Up Buttercup came in my head. Let's build up, Mesa. And I'm I'm going to end my comments and wish everyone a merry Christmas. And I will move to adjourn the meeting. >> Well, I get a few comments. >> Oh, dang it. Okay. >> Thank you, madam. >>

241Really quickly, uh, we're so grateful for Shepherd getting out to Leisure World. I do want to emphasize one of the things I told you in my interview and told you in in the process of interviewing with you guys is we were going to make a deliberate attempt on that. We've been to Aster aging with Westwood High School uh in their cheerleading group uh and we've serviced that learning. I I was there with them. We just went out to Leisure World this last weekend with Red Mountain football. Coach the coach Enders showed up with his team. We set up tables. We did their 5K or sorry 5K 1K walk run and uh we handed out bells and so we agree and we have got to get out and active amongst all these communities. And the comment

242of the weekend to me this last weekend I I judge the car show there. Fascinating cars. Uh but the comment of the weekend was uh out of a person that came up to me and goes, "These kids are really kind and very willing to help." And I said, "Yes, public schools have great kids in them." Uh and you know, it goes back to the discipline data. 95% of our kids are really well behaved all the time. All the time. Right. And then we have issues where we need to help kids out and help kids improve. So I just I want to honor member Hutchinson's comments. Thank you. >> Thank you. I don't have very much just um I just want to share that I'm grateful for this information as we Oh, you're fine. Um look

243forward and it's helping us plan. I know that a lot of us have heard and a lot of our sites have heard about data and enrollment and um I think I was in one meeting and I think Dr. strong. It's I don't know where this came from, but love those that we have. And so, let's love our students. Let's love our staff where we have um but as let's build and but let's also be strategic as we look forward. And so, as as we hear these enrollment numbers, um a lot of it is for us to plan as we look forward as as we're budgeting and moving forward. And so, um I want to thank uh Mr. Hort, thank you so much for your information, for being here tonight, for sticking through till um we're

244almost on schedule. We're a little off, but we're pretty close on schedule. Cameo, good work. Um, and with that, uh, do I have >> President Davis, can I piggy back off >> just one real quick? Member Hutchinson said word of mouth, that's the best form of advertising. Absolute best. If we can encourage our parents to that are our our parents that are absolutely in love with their schools, get on Instagram, tag everybody like get your friends to share and our our border schools. Um I know Franklin has a great opportunity because the I don't know some school in Tempe or Kyne's closing. So we have an opportunity to grab some of those kids into our Franklin model, right? Get our parents like get on Instagram, social social media, word of mouth, best form of advertising

245and I wish everybody a merry Christmas as well. >> Thank you. With that, do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So moved, President. >> Thank you. Do I have a second? >> I'll second it. >> Thank you. Any discussion? >> Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? >> I don't know if >> Happy holidays, everyone. It's just crazy. >> I'm not. Oh, wait a minute. >> I'll stay till 11. >> Did Did you vote? >> I think I did. >> I haven't had any. >> I got nothing. >> I just got kicked out. >> Miss Kirby, I vote. I It's not coming up on my screen. >> Mine came up and then went down. >> Mrs. Chaffy votes in the affirmative. >> Mrs. Benson votes in the affirmative as

246well. >> Just doing verbal vote. >> I did too. >> Yeah, mine's show. >> Go ahead. >> Oh, there we go. It's tired. >> All right. With a vote of five, the meeting has been adjourned and wish you we wish you all a happy holidays and thank you for being here. But Mrs. Chaffy, I