Governing Board Study Session and Regular Board Meeting - October 23, 2025

001Welcome. Good evening. We will start tonight. If everyone would please stand for a moment of silence. Thank you. You may be seated. We will call this meeting to order at 5:02. And we're going to jump right into this. Um we get to hear from Mr. Moore tonight and um about on some of the programs and other investments NPS has historically made in education and other program and other programming. As a reminder in our efforts to facilitate a timely and efficient meeting, Mr. Wing, you're on timer duty and thank you for doing that. And Mr. Moore, we're going to turn the time right over to you. Thank you, President Davis, members of the board. I'm actually going to let Dr. Stroud take the first couple slides and uh kick this presentation off. President Davis, members of

002the board. He Here is why I'm kicking this off. Uh uh these are public meetings and we don't want to cause any anxiety within the district. But the projected enrollment declines with classes of 4,500 graduating and 3,200 students coming in in kindergarten uh suggests that the district is on a pathway to probably not uh uh experiencing the growth that was happening in the 1980s and 90s and early 2000s. And so when you grow as a as a school district uh you can implement new programs and add new stuff and some of the programs we implemented are from the 70s and they may need to stick around. Some of the programs we've implemented are from the early 2000s and they may need to stick around. Uh but the board is ultimately responsible for the budget. Right?

003That's a board exercise. It's in a state statute. And so this presentation is about being proactive for 27-28 planning and beyond. Let me say that one more time. Being proactive for 27-28 planning and beyond. Current year planning's already done. Uh we gave you a an AFR report last board meeting that was uh saying that we're in still in a pretty conservative position from a financial perspective. Uh we planned out 26-27 right now. And we're trying to design 26-27 items so that we have as little impact on schools as we possibly can. And by that what I mean is we're reducing district office staffing by 40 FTE and 3.6 million dollars and that's helping our budget out into the future cycles. Uh we do know that via the formula there'll be a need for a few

004less teacher contracts and we're hoping uh that between retirements and people that decide not to be back with the district in next year maybe we don't have to do some of the things we had to do last year, but time will tell on that. But between the couple counter point parts of less students means less teachers and then what we're doing at the district office right? We're hoping to plan for 26-27 for that. So this presentation is not about next school year. I need the community to hear that. It's about planning for 27-28 and beyond and helping the board understand like where are we making budget choices at? So it's just informative, right? Because without information for the governing board on where we're making choices at then your job is really difficult because you'll get

005hit with this idea and you'll say yes to this idea, but then that causes downstream effects with six other things over here. And you got to everyone, not you, everyone's got to understand that everything in school systems is really interconnected. And so when you pull a string here, six other things happen over here. And so that's what this presentation's about is trying to help people understand all decisions that have been made for years, not ill decisions, very reasons reasons that these things happened with good intent, with great student outcomes, right? Uh but now in the position we're in with declining enrollment probably something we feasibly are going to have to deal with for the next 5 years these are things that we need to talk about now. Next slide, please. So 27-28. Uh this next

006year we're planning with these items right here. I already talked about these, so I don't need to address them again. This is how we're the trying to address 26-27. [Music] So, if anyone's saying, "What are you trying to do for next year?" It's right here in front of you. Right? And we're thinking this solves or makes our budget solvent for 26-27. Keep going. And so now this is about planning ahead for 27-28. Tyler. Yeah. Uh so, as uh part of my job I it's an analyst of financials of the district. And so, um as Dr. Shawn alluded to, either we're finalizing a prior year of financial or we're looking forward a year or 2 years ahead. And so, uh what this presentation again looks at is a couple years ahead and just looks at some

007of the choices that we make on a budgetary basis uh that affect our budget. I'm going to jump ahead here. So, um like I just mentioned, this is a an assessment or an analyst uh the analyst Excuse me. Analyzes um both revenue producing programs and those funded primarily through district allocation. So, our M&O capital budgets. Um looks uh large part in programs that depend on M&O funding uh to remain financially stable as with declining enrollment um that is a state uh formulated budget that affects drastically the M&O budget. So, looking at those programs and some of those that are uh revenue producing or or needing to uh rely on the M&O budget uh to sus- sustain itself. I do want to say there's a lot of big disclaimer, right, on the slide. Um this this

008exercise is intended to be a high-level overview of a few investments that Mesa Public Schools um makes. It's important to know that this like analysis is a snapshot in time. So, a lot of the data that I've used is either prior year. Um there is some current year stuff, but I want to note that this is ever-changing, right? If we receive a deposit or a donation tomorrow, that's not included in these numbers and can change the uh context of uh some of these revenue or versus expenditure conversations. So, just know this is a snapshot in time. Um it's not a detailed audited forecast, right? Like I just said, there there can be um a lot of um evolution or changes through these programs um in any given point. But, the really the purpose is to

009share the findings at the summary level to guide ongoing and planning as we future plan for the district. So, I'm going to start off with some easy ones. Compensated absences. So, um compensated absences is a fancy term for um a liability that dis- that the district has for employees um unused leave, such as vacation and sick days, right? So, we here currently have a a policy in in our contracts where we allocate leave uh towards employees, full-time employees, part-time employees, and or vacation time. And upon termination or retirement, that that is a liability to the district and that that liability um is a financial liability. And one one of the main reasons why we have a carryover in M&O um because again at any given point um right now we are sitting at approximately 25

010million. Uh that's unaudited and unused leave and or vacation payout. And so, if all of those employees were to leave, we would be liable for 25 million dollars to pay out those employees, right? Um we're not intending nor do we hope all our employees leave at once. But, um it's important to have reserves uh in the instance where um those liabilities come due and we need to we need to pay those. So, 25 million um and you can see over the last couple years that it has grown. Uh and that that ebbs and flows as employees either long tenure employees retire um and new employees come on board. So, that's that that number ebbs and flows. Next one. Pay for performance. This is specifically talking about non-certified employees. So, classified, hourly, um administration, any employee

011or um non-certified staff that's not currently in the classroom site fund plan right now. So, all our employees who are in the classroom site fund plan, the certified staff that are eligible, they're those are paid from classroom site fund dollars. And uh just in the last presentation the FY you saw the the dollar amount there. So, that is very sufficient and it covers the performance pay for those individuals. For individuals um that are not in that plan, such as again, like I said, classified, hourly, and admin, um MPS has uh had a practice of paying uh performance pay. And we do not at the state level via M&O dollars get any revenue for that performance pay. Uh so, it's it's in essence a straight expense to our M&O budget uh to offer uh performance pay

012in our district to those non-certified again, classified, hourly, and administration positions. Again, counter to the certified people who have a specific bucket of funding to support performance pay. So, no revenue in that um as of FY25 um that's audited numbers is 3.5 million dollars in uh performance pay that we pay out. That again ebbs and flows with the number of positions we have and those eligible for performance pay. Propane buses. So, MPS um has a a large the mo- majority of their fleet is uh propane driven. Um this is a um decision that was made, you know, well bef- I only 3 months, obviously well before my time. Uh but I think it's it's been a history I ever since I've uh worked here in Arizona. MPS has historically offered or dri- you know, um

013maintained a propane fleet. Um there's some benefits to running a propane fleet. One, um there's several grants uh for clean clean energy. Um one being uh one that Mesa received more recently in '23 was a $750,000 uh clean school bus federal grant uh for again, running a propane fleet. Um couple benefits with propane buses, they're they're more cost-effective than diesel. Typically have a lower purchase price. Uh easier to maintain in-house. Produce fewer emissions and again, support clean air uh for our students in the community. While propane buses um require more frequent fuel fuel delivery within our current um uh capabilities at our at our yard three yards, um it's typically more cost-efficient than diesel fuel in bringing in diesel trucks. Now, in addition to that federal grant that we received in '23, we do receive

014currently annual rebates uh to operate uh propane fleet. Um to date, we've received just under a million dollars in rebates um from federal uh federal rebates. Now, with the uncertainty at the federal level, I don't know how how much longer these rebates will be in place. Um but we have gotten no word that they won't be in place for future, but we just want to asterisk that that as of today, we've received a million dollars, but again, we don't know the future implications with these rebates. And then that may bring into question whether or not propane is is more cost-effective than diesel when when these rebates go away. So, again, a choice we made maybe because of these rebates. And so now that will maybe be a decision that we need to re-evaluate in future

015years when these rebates go away. Course fees. I was not here last year, but um it's my understanding that uh last year there was a decision made by the board to uh remove course fees with regards to materials um uh within the performing arts program in the career technical education courses. Um the allocation from M&O to help supplement those course fees, right? The loss of revenue was $360,000 into this year's budget. I think that was an estimate Mr. Thompson and Mr. Alexander worked through to make sure that those dollars were were dollar for dollar matched uh coming into this year. Now, as the So, again, we took away the the revenue from these course fees. We we allocated uh $360,000 M&O budget. And so, you can see the difference. It's straight $360,000 um difference in

016terms of costing the M&O. Um that that's the implication of making that choice. Now, we will we will monitor this this year and ensure that if we did increase users with our courses and and we need more we need allocate more revenue, um we'll we'll factor that into the '27 budget. But again, I think the intention was to match dollar for dollar ensure these programs um did not have uh revenue loss with taking away course fees. And so, we'll continue to honor that. Um but that I would just say that budget $360,000 may go up in future years as the needs for those programs uh change based on student count. Okay. The Mesa Youth Creative Agency, MYCA. Um this is a district-led workforce development initiative that empowers high school students to work in real uh

017creative agency environments. So, our MYCA program's over at uh Historic Irving. And uh they received a couple of grants. So, the first one a $1.2 million in '23-'24 and another million dollar grant uh coming into this year, '25-'26. Um that grant ends on December 31st, 2026. And to date, uh as we monitor expenditures and encumbrances, um we are currently they currently have some revenue that they bring in from their projects, about 17,000 uh in revenue from their uh projects that they do uh with different agencies, one being the city of Mesa. Expenditures and encumbrances, a lot of those are the salaries and benefits and then this this paid students um for the work that they're they're creating. So, this the that's the 568,000 that is currently expended and in or encumbered for the rest of

018this year. And then the ending balance this year without the grant would be approximately 550,000. Now, if we didn't have the grant, that would be more than likely an M&O expense that we would have to absorb. But, we do have that grant in place and that is um we're thankful for that at this time. And so, with the uh remaining grant funds of 678,000, we anticipate ending the year with a balance of about 127,000 uh for Mesa going into next year. Now, that begs the question like what do we do with Mesa? And um we fully intend to support Mesa through the end of 2027 through May. Uh but again, as we're planning for 27-28, like Dr. Trump alluded to, uh we'll be this will be a question for the board as we go through

019our budget discussions. Okay, our Mesa Distance Learning Program, MDLP. Um so, MDLP is our online instruction program. Uh we received uh the way the online instruction works at the state level in terms of M&O dollars back, there is a um uh reduction that the state takes for students who are full-time in AOI. Uh so, we only get 95% of that funding and then part-time students, we only get 85% of that funding. So, um some of the AOI programs that we offer students do take advantage of uh within the Mesa Distance Learning Program. And we do get revenues for that and you can see that um example on the on the page there, 2.2 million uh with regards to students who are enrolled in the program and the funding that we receive at the state level.

020Um Mesa One One caveat here is Mesa also provides uh full-time students, brick-and-mortar students, with up to one free course per semester. And that that has an estimated cost of waived revenue. So, that one free course um we do waive those uh fees to take that course uh or to take the the online program. And so, that is approximately 564,000. Okay, thanks. And so, um with revenue minus expense, um the Mesa Distance Learning Program, like most programs in the state, um operate at a deficit. This is not abnormal. Um this is a add-on This is a benefit uh to bring in AOI program uh for our students to give them that option uh a different educational experience um via online versus brick-and-mortar. Okay, couple more here. Uh choice transportation. Um so, with regards to our

021our board policy, policy 3-302, um we may purchase We have a uh language in there that allows us to transport students uh of choice schools um with no parameters per se. And so, we've created some uh decisions within MPS um in terms of transporting choice um students uh choice students that uh go to choice schools. Uh in that decision, there's obviously a financial um implication to that decision. So, with revenue, so when we transport students to and from school, we do receive revenue from the state. There is a state formula for that um ca- uh for that transportation to and from school. Now, with the choice transportation, we do some things that are not eligible for um state revenue, such as double backing on routes um and in providing additional routes in excess of just

022to and from school. And so, when you take into consideration the revenue received from our obligation to take the student to and from school, we get about 1.2 million dollars. Those other routes that are not included and the routes that um often extend well beyond what we do for other um boundary schools, uh costs us about 1.6 million. And so, we run in the negative with regards to choice transportation about 378,000. Two-minute warning with I think six slides left. All right, we're going to move through these. Full-day kindergarten. I think the board is well known uh well aware that full-day kindergarten at the state level uh is um funded at half-time. Uh we only get 0.5 funding for every uh full FTE of kinder enrolled students. Now, you may look on here and see like

023why is that not half? Uh why why does the revenue from the state versus our expenditures for teachers not equal half? Um there's a couple of reasons and part of my disclaimer earlier was uh it's very hard to Right now, we don't have a We know there's several aides that support the kinder classrooms, but those aides sometimes uh come in and out of that class, so there's not a easy way to designate what aid is is currently in the kinder room, so those are excluded. We know that we don't get um we offer full-day kindergarten, but we can't right now quantify the the keeping the lights on for the other half of day, keeping um the utilities. So, a lot of those are excluded from this. This is just straight salaries um for our kinder

024teachers versus the revenue received from the state. But, you can see just at that micro um example, we you were at a 3.1 million dollar deficit. All right, small schools. I believe the board went through a example and and looked at the revenue that we received from the state versus the expenditures. Um this small school example um is O'Connor Elementary. We used the ADM from 2025 from last year and that you can see the revenue generated from that. That includes all the ADM um and the group B weights for those students at that school. Uh the expenditures include all salaries, uh benefits, utilities. I don't know if I'm going to make 6 seconds. Can I Can I ask for couple minutes? >> We'll extend your time. Thank you for for President for granting me a

025couple minutes. >> Your time has been granted longer. Um So, back to my the the revenue again is from uh O'Connor Elementary. Again, it takes into account all the revenue generated from that student count uh calculation from the state, 2.3 million. The expenditures include all our staff, utilities. Um we in that worksheet that the board uh the exercise the board went through, uh we do have that 19% which would have which has all that overhead and that's our approximate estimate uh that we use to support um again, all the overhead that goes into that campus. Um it it should be no secret that the small schools um typically operate at a deficit um because at some point the revenue from the state does not match the the level of expenditures it needs to operate that

026school. Um Okay. I do want to note though, right? This is a caveat to the prior slide, that there's a complexity of repurposing small schools. Um some of the complexity, the typical cost savings when it comes to having the conversation regarding um repurposing schools, uh the the cost savings is around 600,000 to a million dollars depending on a number of different variables. But, for for this example, we're going to go 600 to a million. These savings are only really realized when those students, if you repurpose the school, stay within MPS, right? That is a key point in this conversation. So, if we were to repurpose a school, right? And using an estimated savings about 600,000, that would be equivalent to revenue generated by 70 students. So, we would need to at minimum um what you

027can see the the savings 70 students is the equivalent of 600,000 dollars. So, when you get down to understanding or analyzing decision to repurpose a small school, the impact 70 students on 600,000 dollars of savings, it is a very difficult conversation to have. Um and then when you get to a million dollars in terms of um estimated savings, that equals about 117 students. And so, repurposing small schools is is more than just the discussion of saving the money. Um if you can't retain or you can't uh significantly um if you significantly lose a number of your students um outside of the district, um repurposing could ultimately hurt your budget in the grand scheme of things farther than the previous example of of losing revenue um maintaining a small school. Okay, preschool. Um Mesa offers uh

028several preschool programs uh throughout our campuses. One One issue with our preschool programs um is uh comes with regards to a lot of our preschoolers uh qualify under Title 1 guidelines. Um and so, a lot of their tuition waived. Um, so revenue that we do capture with regards to tuition-paying students is often well below the expenditures that we spend to occupy those campuses. Um, so you can see the revenue generated from tuition-paying students. Um, and that also includes uh preschool with uh students with IEPs or uh group B disabilities, where we do get a a portion of state funding. And then you can see the expenditures that we currently have uh to operate those schools. That leaves us with a balance of a 3.6 million in the red. However, we currently have a practice of

029utilizing Title 1 dollars to help supplement the preschool program and waive tuition for our Title 1 eligible students. Um, last year the way that our Title 1 budget had the allocation, um, we did not capture 100% of the deficit that we're running. This year, in '26, we modified Dr. Strom modified that allocation. Um, and we're currently capturing We're we're we're breaking even, per se, on our preschool tuition by matching the um budget right now. But this program it it bring brings into question in future years the sustainability of this as federal dollars at the at the uh federal level um is in terms of what grants they're offering in terms of Title 1. Um, and it just questions the sustainability of this in our current practice subsidizing the program from Title 1 dollars and how

030long that will last. Mr. Moore, this is a prime example of when you pull one string to help out one program, a lot of other strings follow. And so, what we can't then do We only have get $21 million from uh the federal government for Title 1. And when you give $6 million up to preschool out the gate, that then hurts the allocation that you can give to principals for things like reading interventionists and math interventionists and all those things. So, that's what just It was just a nice opportune time to say, "When you allocate here, then there's downstream effects over here, here, and here." Two more slides. Um, high schools block schedule. So, again, coming on board new, uh we're I'm still looking at the financial implications from uh our current practice of uh

031block scheduling at the high schools. Um, we intend to bring uh a greater financial discussion regarding this closer to December uh when we get some more data, but what we know at this time is uh we're we're still trying to determine the the true impacts, but we're we we are realizing there are some impacts with regards to block schedule. So, um we'll bring this back at a future date. And then last, these are just a a handful of choices that we make in terms of Mesa Public Schools and what we offer in the financial implications. Try this The goal was just to try to highlight some of the financial implications that we that each of these decisions have. And so, um other educational options that we that we offer that uh maybe the board will

032want to consider at a future date um to discuss includes our district athletics. Um, we have a heart program. Uh the Sirrine Montessori elementary specials. Add administrative facilities as we um look to consolidate. Uh we offer one-to-one uh technology devices. And so, how much longer uh is that sustainable? And so, these are just There's a there's a a number of choices that we make and there's a a dozen more that we can bring up. Um, but just trying to bring forward some of these decisions and understand the financial implications with these as we make uh uh budget discussions through the next couple years. And I'm going to let Dr. Strom close this presentation out. All all all while one of the main efforts in Mesa Public Schools has and always will be to make sure

033we compensate our support staff, our teachers, and benefit our support staff and our teachers to the best possible ability that we can. And so, what you can see is when we're making these choices, right? Not that they're bad nor good, they're investments. And some of them we need to continue to invest in and this is these are budget decisions of the governing board. But also a budget decision decision of governing board is how do we manage a budget that's declining at this point in time due to declining enrollment and still honor the fact that in an inflationary environment with pressures that are happening in an economic industry throughout the nation in the United States, that we still want to try to get as many dollars as we possibly can into the salaries and benefits of

034the people that work for us every day. And so, uh we just want you to know this is a spirit I I promised the board when I interviewed that we'd be transparent. And this is in the spirit of transparency uh with the governing board uh and much like we did with uh you had asked um I think member Chaffee had asked for uh uh summaries on funds that we use, fund 596, fund Title 1 funds, IDEA funds, and we're thinking maybe we can put some videos together for you and share like, "How are we using these funds in Mesa Public Schools?" Maybe there's a similar methodology with some of these like, "Tell us more detail about this and tell us more detail about that." But these are high-level summaries of some of the decisions that

035we're going to continue to ponder '27, '28, and beyond. Uh no decision necessary for '26, '27. Questions? Thank you, Mr. Moore and Dr. Strom. I appreciate uh the information. Uh I'll just turn it over to board members with discussion uh questions and I'll start with board member Henderson. Thank you, Madam President. Um, one of the First of all, I want to thank all the folks who have emailed me past 2 weeks. Um your emails were very enlightening and um helped uh frame the questions that I'm I'm going to ask. Um one of the questions that I do have is um in the third slide, it says that the redesign of district administrative structures is an estimated saving of $3.5 million. Um Um the question The one question that I have is um I would like

036to see how we are saving that money. Um that uh I mean matter of fact, I think we just got an email from you, Dr. Strom, that says that that savings is even greater. So, um if you could please show us where the savings is occurring. Um it's I'm I'm kind of feeling like Missouri here. Show me, okay? Um and um and then the other the other thing that I I would like to um make mention of is um in in sometimes um decisions that were made by prior boards might might not be understood. Um but I was on the prior boards. Um the propane buses um was not about necessarily about rebates. Though the rebates are nice and they they they supplement M&O. It was about air quality. And um and what air our

037our kids were breathing at the bus stops and in front of our schools and making sure that all of those gases didn't go into the front lobby and and that type of thing. And and it was about air quality and kids' health uh primarily. Um the other uh question that I have is um is about Mesa Youth Creative Agency. Um it was based on on a program in Boston called Artists for Humanity, where kids learn to be um entrepreneurs. They learn to be um um entrepreneurs in a creative economy. And and um the model that we saw, only 25% of the budget was revenue generated by the by the students. Another 75% was either made up by grants or or um rentals. And Supervisor Thomas Galvin has invested in this program twice with grants from

038the county at the tune of a million dollars each. So, um I I would say that there is um certainly support for this type of entrepreneurial um workforce development. Um and that and that it was never intended that it would be self-sustaining. Um the other thing that I wanted to ask, and this is my last question. Um transportation. Um Mr. Moore, you mentioned that um choice schools have transportation. Which choice students get transportation? Uh the choice students that get transportation are the choice students that have been grandfathered into transportation by this district. We have not extended transportation options for kids. So, example of what doesn't, Sirrine Montessori was not grandfathered in. It was a brand new choice school and the Sirrine Montessori parents do not get transportation. They transport. Uh Franklin schools uh have had

039transportation in this district for years and uh they continue to get transportation in this district. So, the delineating line is things that have tra- traditionally have gotten transportation do. Mesa Academy uh has a transportation routes throughout the district. That's more of a uh a gifted service academy uh the IB academy, let's put it that way, than than than it than it is a choice school, probably. Uh but that is one that you'd probably put under that lens of a choice school. Um does Highland Integrated Elementary are they grandfathered in? They have routes. I think they're all neighborhood routes. I'm looking to my historian on the left here. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you, Mrs. Satchetzon. Mrs. Vincent. Uh, thank you, Madam President. So, I would like to, um, ask for the

040compensated absences. Um, we pay out at a rate of approximately $85 per, uh, day, correct? So, um, that's that like when you retire, correct? Is that I don't believe that's necessarily correct. It varies depending on the employee group. Uh, it's based on the starting salaries and there's a math formula to it, but I believe for certified administrators it's over $100. Okay, so, um, I think this potentially could be looked at, uh, as a, uh, something to revamp. Not to necessarily eliminate, but to revamp. Um, because as I was looking and considering this one, we pay our subs, um, $140 a day. So, even if we're paying admin $100 when they when we cash out their days off, we're saving 40 bucks, right? So, I'd like to see what portion of our, um, salary budget goes

041to subs. Uh, this seems to me like if we become creative with this compensated absences by reducing the number of subs that we need, uh, it actually saves us money cuz it's approximately what, 60 to 40 to 60 bucks minimum, right? Give or take. So, is that something we can get creative with? Certainly something we can look into. We can explore options. And a reminder to make a recommendation the board approved last year reducing administrators and classified 12-month exempt and certified 12-month exempt when they're hired, they'll have a reduction they'll have less vacation days than, uh, current folks. So, it went from 22 to 15. So, every time we hire an administrator or 12-month certified or 12-month classified salaried employee, supervisor, for example, they'll have they'll earn seven less vacation days. And so, over the

042years, uh, we'll see some of but that's only one strategy of what could be many. Right. Well, I'm thinking of it even in terms of, um, I think I don't remember how much certified teachers get, like 10 or 12 or 20 10 or 12 days a year. Um, when we have a sub, yeah, sometimes it's absolutely necessary, but it is disruptive to, uh, the, um, overall education. It It disrupts learning. When we have situations where, um, I mean, perhaps we incentivize uh, our our people to stay unless it's absolutely necessary to be out. Like you're sick, I don't want you here, right? Uh, but we actually if you have continuity, the student outcomes are going to be better. One of the things that I observed in my tenure is when we had, uh, situations like

043right now we only pay at, uh, we they have we have to have five years of continuous service. But we have some of our our teachers that are under five years who are very committed. They're here every single day. Uh, and then they realize that they're either moving out of state or they have a different job opportunity. Wait a minute. I'm not going to get paid for any of my vacation days cuz I'm been here for, uh, five years. So, what do they do? They call in sick the whole last quarter of the year. Which is totally disruptive to the educational environment of students. So, I think that this needs to be revamped and, uh, brought up to, um, brought it I I think we can get creative. Um, second, our propane buses, uh, if

044you were to switch them back to diesel if you we didn't get rebates, wouldn't that be more expensive than maintaining a propane? Okay, so I don't think that's a good idea. Mrs. Vincent, remember Mrs. come twice already. The propane bus slide was more about helping people understand the reason it's cost neutral to the district. So, so first of all, it is mechanically cheaper to fix propane buses than diesel buses. Second of all, the research on air quality is clear, particularly in the back of the bus and how it affects kids learning outcomes. There's actually research articles on that. And then finally, what we want you to know is if the federal government subsidy goes away, it'll actually be a budget add to the district and that's our concern with that line item. Cuz yes, buying

045brand new diesel buses or electric buses electric buses are very expensive would be a very big budget add to the district and we wouldn't be able to do with our current funds. You'd have to go out to for bond to do that. Okay, thank you. And then, uh, I'll I'll just mention one more. I I well, two. I think we really need to advocate at the state level to fund, uh, full-day kindergarten. Um, that's been an issue for years. With transportation, one of the, uh, emails that I received, uh, in regards to the, uh, uh, an item in our regular meeting was that, um, there were bus routes for the Franklin school where parents came to the bus the bus stop, waited 5 or 10 minutes, uh, and then their kids got on the bus

046when in fact it would only take the parents like 4 or 5 minutes to actually get their child. So, I think we really need to be looking at what transportation routes are, uh, make sense and and which ones don't. Whether whether or not they're grandfathered, uh, choice model, uh, some of them are not going to make sense. So, I I think we need to really be looking at that. And then the last thing I'm going to that I'd like to say is that, um, I know that, well, two. Sorry. We really need to look at block scheduling and that's going to have a a huge huge, uh, impact on our and I'd like to say that sometimes I think that, um, when we look at something, we try it, we think it's we thought it

047was a great idea, but if in fact it has such a financial bang on our district, we're going to have to go back in order to go forwards. So, the other questions I have I will put on the spreadsheet. Um, and I'll pass it on. Thank you, Mrs. Vincent. Mrs. Walden. Yeah, I'll just, um, ask a couple questions if, uh, you could take notes. I don't need a response. We can follow up later, but I just wanted to add out there that I got this data from the county that we have, uh, 14,000 eligible riders in our district, but we have a capacity for 28,000 seats. So, that means half of our bus seats are empty. So, I think when we're we're looking at transportation, that that's something that needs to be analyzed. Do we

048need as many buses as we have? And what we can do there, especially if we're looking at changing bus routes. And then, um, the other one we I think we could look into is that many of our state agencies have found that it's cheaper to have an agreement with Enterprise Car Rental than to actually maintain a fleet of vehicles. I think that's something that we could look at, uh, with some of our vehicles and maybe it is we could find a cost savings in finding a car rental, uh, contract. And then with our portables, uh, if we've considered and I think this has come up from another board member, but looking at selling or auctioning, uh, the portables. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Walden. Mrs. Chappie. Yeah, I really appreciate the transparency and

049that we are looking at setting up the district for future success, that we're looking ahead of, you know, several years down the road. Um, something that I don't need a response on tonight, but I'd like to see the pay for performance breakdown of admin payouts versus classified hourly cuz those are two very different areas to me. So, I'd like a follow up on that. Um, as a board, I'd like us as we look forward, you know, my guidance would be that we make decisions, strategic decisions that are aligned to our board goals, which are student outcomes. That we look at how we are impacting the classroom. Um, as a Mesa Public Schools grad and parent, I know how many incredible programs we have and I genuinely wish we were funded at a level from the

050state that we could have all of the things for the students all of the time. Um, but as a board and in my role, I'm committed to making decisions that are supporting students and teachers and classrooms. Um, and then one question that may be answered tonight or may need to wait on. I can see here that not collecting any class fees is putting pressure on our budget and we are one of the few districts that doesn't collect class fees. And I've talked to a lot of teachers who've talked about how the lack of class fees has really impacted their classrooms and their programs. And as we've moved to block scheduling and more options for students, it's put a lot of pressure on those classes as students take more electives. Um, and I really appreciate that

051the decision was made to provide equity for all of our students across the district, but I know that the district has been looking at some creative solutions that have been implemented at our junior highs to provide that like equity and accessibility while also providing the opportunity to collect class fees. Could we get a follow up on that and how that program's going at our junior highs and and kind of a look at how that has worked for the budget of those schools. Thank you, Mrs. Chappie. And I just want to thank, um, Mr. Moore and Dr. Strong for the information. I think we have to have the information to be able to make these hard decisions. And like board member Chappie said, we love all these programs. And so, it's hard to even consider like

052having to make these difficult choices because it's hard. And, um, we want everything. I mean, we live in a day and age where, you know, everything is right there that things that are at the touch of our fingers. And so, we want our kids to have all these opportunities, but it does come with a cost. And so, we have to be mindful of what is, um, where we're think where we're at right now in this, uh, day and age. I do, um, we were talking earlier, um, at, uh, the Mesa Foundation breakfast this morning about even Mica looking at like can we team Mica with our design um, with our print shop. Are there ways where revenues, you know, different things by being creative and just trying to make things work. Um I loved seeing

053the Micah kids there today and what they're doing and um and what they can offer our district even. And so, I think as we look at these different um programs and different things, how can we get creative in making it work to so we can all um and so we can keep as much as possible. Board members, any other questions? Okay. Again, thank you, Mr. Moore and Dr. Strom, for the information tonight. Do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five yays, the meeting is adjourned at 5:46. We will return about 6:00 p.m. for a regular board meeting. We appreciate you being here tonight. Thank you. [Music] >>

054Good evening and welcome to Mesa Public Schools School Board meeting. I call this meeting to order at 6:02. A quick reminder, any citizen who wishes to speak on an agenda item or a call to the public must complete the sign-in sheet in the lobby prior to the public comment time on the board agenda. This evening we are fortunate to be get have Westwood High School JROTC Cadets Samantha Cruz, Emma Iannoli, Leslie Martinez, and Daisy Morales with us for the presentation of the colors. The Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Cadet Daisy Morales and Isabella Clay. After the Pledge of Allegiance, please remain standing for the National Anthem, which is recorded and features the Franklin Junior High Band. Please stand. Please roll the National Anthem. [Music] >> Thank you, Westwood JROTC. May be seated. We

055will begin tonight with a governing video on governing board procedures and then I will read a statement. Welcome to the Mesa Public Schools Governing Board Meeting. We appreciate your interest in the district. The five elected governing board members serve without compensation and volunteer countless hours. The president and the clerk of the board are elected in January. Under state law, the governing board may only discuss and vote on matters that are on the agenda for tonight's meeting. Agendas are posted at minimum of 24 hours in advance on the Mesa Public Schools website and in the curriculum services center. Copies 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

056second regular meeting of each month, the agenda will include a call to the public. This is an opportunity to speak to the governing board about a school district matter that is not on the agenda. If you wish to comment on an agenda item or participate in the call to the public, please complete a request to address the board form before the designated time as public comment. The form is located in the lobby. The duration of public comment and call to the public is 15 minutes. Members of the public will be given a maximum of 3 minutes to speak 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

057courtesy to others. Comments must pertain to the matter that is within the jurisdiction of the governing board. This is not an appropriate forum to complain about an employee, student, or others. State law prohibits board members from commenting on or discussing the matters presented at the end of the call to the public. The board may ask the superintendent to review the issue or place it in a future agenda. A board member may also briefly respond to criticism of a board member or the governing board. If you would like the board to consider adding an item to a future agenda, 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

058a 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 board room describes positive behaviors expected and behaviors that cannot be tolerated. Please speak and act respectfully and actively listen. Be kind. Verbal harassment, abusive or foul language, intimidation, and disruption have no place in a classroom or the board room. 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 are disruptive or interfere with the conduct of the meeting, you will be asked

059to leave so the board can conduct the business of the district. We will move on now. Dr. Strom, will you please lead us through the review of the governing board calendar? President Davis, members of the board. November 3rd, 2025, 6:00 p.m. We have the East Valley School Board Consortium meeting out in Apache Junction. November 11th, 2025 is Veterans Day. No school uh and district offices will be closed. November 12th, 2025, school choice fair, Red Mountain High School. We're going to work to expand our dual school choice fairs over the course of the next uh 3 years and uh for right now it's at Red Mountain High School and we look to forward to showing all families in Mesa Public Schools all the choice options that we have across the district. And November 13th, 2025, we

060have a meeting at 5:00 p.m. with a study session and 6:00 p.m. with a regular governing board meet- meeting. That is your calendar for the upcoming month of November. Thank you, Dr. Strom. I'm now going to turn the time over to Ms. Jen Snyder, director of communications. She will show us some of what's inside Mesa Public Schools. Ms. Snyder, it's all you. Hello. Oh, there you go. >> There we go. Sorry, y'all. Good evening. Uh it's my pleasure to share some of the things that's been happening around and inside our schools. So, here we go. All right. October, it's National Principals Month. We're so grateful for the incredible principals across Mesa Public Schools. Thank you for your tireless dedication to our students and for upholding our promise, knowing every student by name, supporting them by

061strength and need, and preparing them to graduate ready for college, career, and community. Okay. We're grateful to GoDaddy and their volunteers for brightening up Adams Elementary. In partnership with Hands on Greater Phoenix, they built new tables, added games, and painted a colorful mural for students to enjoy. Over 50 students from Mesa Public Schools participated in Tech for Challenge Remix the Future hosted by the ASU Mix Center. The students spent the afternoon designing tech solutions to make society more sustainable. Congratulations to the winning team, Mountain View Ace for Change, who pitched a compost and food waste app to help users locate composting sites and scan their pantry for recipe suggestions before the expiration date. Last week at Lindbergh Elementary, uh members from the city of of Mesa and Superintendent Dr. Matt Strom joined students and families

062for a walk, bike, and roll to school event for National Pedestrian Safety Month. The event launched the City of Mesa's Look Twice Challenge, a new initiative encouraging everyone to stay alert and practice safe habits on the road, especially around our school zones. It was a beautiful morning. The kids thoroughly enjoyed their hot chocolate. Uh the energy was high and it was it was a quite a wonderful event that has been going on for several years. All right. And then this is hot off the presses. This morning, um it's always wonderful to see our schools and students connect to the wider Mesa community. Earlier today, members of the Westwood Spirit Line and Mesa High Student Council served lunch to the community at A Z Aging, located here in downtown Mesa. Uh they had they had a

063Mesa High alums dating back to 1947. Grandparents who went to Westwood now have their grandkids that are going to Westwood. And it was just a wonderful way to connect our students um and show them giving back and strengthening the bonds that we have within our the wider Mesa community. All right. Over to Unified Sports last week. Mesa Public Schools Unified Sports hosted a bocce ball bocce I always say that wrong. Bocce ball tournament on the football field at Mountain View. Westwood and Skyline High joined the Toros on the turf competing alongside teams from other districts for a day of fun, friendship, and inclusion through the sport. Every student at Roosevelt Elementary received a free laptop this past Wednesday. Thanks to the generous support of the Mile Family Foundation, Laptops for Learning, and AZ Strut, students

064will now have powerful tools to learn, create, and connect both in and out of the classroom. And congratulations to Vicki Schumacher from Mountain View. She was named the 2025 High School Economic Teacher of the Year by the Arizona Council on Economic Education. This award uh celebrates outstanding teachers who engage students, pursue professional growth, and collaborate with peers in economic education. We want to highlight another one of our teachers who was named honorable mention Teacher of the Year at the AEF Awards. Congratulations to Adeline Mina, a sixth grade teacher at Patterson, for being named honorable mention at the Arizona Education Foundation Teacher of the Year Awards. With 13 years of teaching experience, she continues to make meaningful impact on her students every day. And that concludes today's tonight's report. Thank you, Ms. Snyder. Always great to

065see what's going around around the district. I'm going to turn the time now to Dr. Skelton for tonight's recognition. We are extremely grateful for members of our community who volunteer their time to help our students and our schools. If you haven't heard me talk to community members getting students educated getting them to gain literacy, numeracy getting them workforce and work-based learning and credentials, it takes a whole community to do that. And so we're really grateful to honor people that understand a whole community coming together can really impact the the lives of students. And so tonight we're proud to recognize the ARP Experience Corp who are tutors to students in several of our schools. Chad, can you please roll the tape? [Music] Chad, the we can have as many of our schools participating in this program,

066it's just another layer to support those students who do need that help. [Music] My name is Katherine White. So I am part of the City of Mesa's Education and Workforce Office. My title is Education and Workforce Coordinator. Experience Corps is one of several projects that I work on or oversee. I feel really lucky that I got to come in and help get this program started. The City of Mesa is bringing together retired adults in the community and pairing them with students who need that little bit of time and help to become amazing readers. When I think about this program and I see the progress that the students make throughout the year it makes me so happy and proud. It's been a fantastic program in the sense that it helps our students not only in their

067reading but what data has shown is the fact that it helps them in connecting with this adult. With those relationships, they want to be here on Tuesday and Thursday cuz they know they're going to see their reading tutors. And it has just continued to take off and grow. There is so much interest in the community from people not only who want this in schools but also people who want to donate their time to do this. You know, I mean, we all want to give back to the community and this seems like something very different and unique to help somebody or be instrumental even a small piece at the beginning to be instrumental in that portion that is going to help somebody take off and in their later life they're going to enjoy and and be

068confident that that's exciting. It helped me to speak up and like not like asking the teacher what's this word and all that. I just know what the word now. We are so excited to keep growing and expanding in a sustainable way over the next few years and really I think with the community that we have and the partnership we have with Mesa Public Schools and the AARP Foundation, I really feel like the sky's the limit for the growth of this program. [Music] If you're a member of ARP Experience Corp and here with us tonight, please stand to be recognized. Thank you for all you do for our students. [Applause] [Music] Next, we are proud to welcome the following MPS music programs who received the 2025-26 William E. Richardson Program of Distinction Award from the Arizona

069Band and Orchestra Directors Association, otherwise known as ABODA. When I call your name, please stand to be recognized. Red Mountain High School Orchestra, John Haggard, director. Not here. All right. Dobson High School Orchestra, Rob Louvers, director. Yeah. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Mountain View High School Orchestra Director, Bethany Cross, director. [Applause] [Music] And Mountain View High School Band, Adam Rish and Steve Thunaman, directors. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] as a parent of three kids who all grew up on the violin and piano, we're just so appreciative of everything you do for our kids on a daily basis and we're grateful that you won those state awards. We are now going to recognize our spotlight school and then we'll take a quick break so we can have everyone get pictures with the governing board members. Jen. Our school spotlight

070of the month is does is designed to provide our community with an inside look at our schools. In addition to a video, which we'll see very soon, you got a little sneak preview there. We'll honor honor a classified staff member, a certified staff member and a student from the school. This month's spotlight school is the Franklin Accelerated Academy, Jordan Campus. They are recognizing tonight PE teacher Jennifer Watson. Can you please stand? Office specialist, Ruta Sweetser. [Applause] And student, Scarlett Jarvis. All right. Can you please roll the video? [Applause] I really like these teachers. They're really nice and the children and all my friends, they're really nice and supportive. It's like everyone knows everyone and it's just a big community. Everyone tries to help out each other and it's just all so happy. The library gets

071these computers that have math games and I love math cuz it's super fun to work with numbers. I'm I'm actually a big pro at math. So I like writing the numbers, it gives me goosebumps. I really enjoy like math and science. Everyone's just always so engaged and having fun doing it. I like how they always help us. They teach a lot of things that other schools haven't taught yet, like cursive. I love having a good school who makes us feel safe and I feel like our school really does that. I really like orchestra, band and choir because I love music and like playing musical instruments and the teachers are all really nice. I like doing 7:30 Club with Ms. Watson. 7:30 Club is where you do fun activities and our PE teacher, Ms. Watson, always

072wants them really fun. This morning we did like a course. You have to like skip over stuff and jump over it. It was really fun. Bingo Busters is you get to pick your prize and there's a star on the wall in the library. It's where the librarian, she has these bingo cards and if you read through certain books, then you'll get your star on the Bingo Buster board. Everybody was new here. Everybody's been through the same thing. These kids are very helpful and they're very nice and I've made lasting friendships. [Applause] That was pretty awesome. We will we will now take a brief break to take photos of all our honorees with our governing board up front. You can join us if you're one of those honorees. We'll get our pictures taken. We also want

073to invite people to the regular board meeting will will start after this and if you feel like it's time to go home for the evening after a long day teaching, we certainly understand. So following that, we'll continue our regular board meeting. Thank you. Okay. Um [Music] It's a fun day. [Music] >> We will go ahead and continue on with our meeting. Thank you all for continuing on with us that are staying. Um this now moves us into Where are we at? Now I know where at. We are on to public comment. Um just a quick reminder that policy 1-302 says the call to the public is limited to issues within the jurisdiction of the board and is not appropriate forum for persons to complain about a specific employee, student, or other person. Mrs. Chaffee, do

074you have anyone signed up to speak? Yes, we have 16 speakers signed up tonight. Okay, we have 16 speakers. You each get 90 seconds to speak. And Mrs. Chaffee, will you lead us through this agenda item, please? Yes, I will. So I will call the first three names, then I will also call the next three names on deck, so if you'll just be ready. When I call your name, you can come and stand over on this side of the wall and then come up to the podium. Um you don't have to wait for me to call your name next, just listen for that that person before you to finish. Um we're going to start with Dawn Richards, Nora Brady, and Stephanie Stork. On deck, we have Michelle Aaron, Mark Lowe, and Ray Deer. Good evening,

075governing board members. And sorry, I'm not like talking. Good evening, governing board president Davis, governing board members, superintendent Nancy. I just would like to start with a quote from Henry Ward Beecher. A library is not a luxury, but one of necessities of life. He also goes on to state how essential libraries are to every community. For schools, this is especially true. A library is not an optional extra, but is a vital part of how children learn, grow, and develop critical thinking skills. By empowering our students to choose the books that they want to read is one of the first ways we encourage our students to take ownership of their own education. Thank you. [Applause] Thank Will you please I forgot to mention. Will you please say your name before so we make sure that we

076get all of our public commenters. Thank you. My name is Nora Brady. I work over at Santan Elementary School. Um Good evening to everyone. Um the very first line of our district's promise says it all. Every student in Mesa Public Schools is known by name, served by strength and need, and graduates ready for college, career, and community. But before a child can be served by strength or need, they have to be known. Truly known. That starts with their name. In our school, there are there is one place where every single student walks through the door from kindergarten to sixth grade. It's not the office, the cafeteria, the playground. It's the library. As the media specialist, I'm the only person in the building who sees every child every week. I know who who just discovered their

077very first favorite book, who's struggling to find one, who's reading two grade levels above, and who just needs someone to notice them. If we truly believe in the portrait of a graduate in creating ethical, inclusive, resilient learners, then we must protect the one space that nurtures all of those qualities. Because the library isn't just a room full of books, it's the heart of knowing, connecting, and inspiring every child by name. Thank you. [Applause] Hello, my name's Stephanie Stork. Um, I've been part of Mesa schools for 23, 24 years as a parent, a PTA board member, and the last 18 of those years as the library lady, the book queen, or the lady with the beautiful jewelry who reads us stories. Um, I know every student by name and look forward to 100 hugs a day

078from students who excitedly tell their parents, "That's my library teacher." Our libraries are a safe place where students can grow their imagination through the stories they read from our shelves. Our lessons introduce them to new authors and illustrators that ignite a passion for reading. Our books help them to see themselves with characters as diverse and colorful as our students. In addition to books, we have continually updated our library lessons to include 21st century learning like digital citizenship, databases to help them with research, and so much more. On top of that, we are responsible for the curriculum on campus and ensuring that our teachers and students have what they need to teach and learn. We run book fairs, Battle of the Books, promote literacy by having authors visit our campuses, back up teachers by helping them

079find books and resources to use in their classrooms. Students in Mesa spend 7 years in their elementary school creating bonds they do not forget, not with just librarians, but their specialist. We're the ones who see them for those whole 7 years and we know them every year. Um, they don't forget their specials teachers and we're the constant for them. [Applause] Next we will hear from Michelle Aaron, Mark Lowe, and Ray Deer. On deck we have Carlos Fernandez, Mark Kimball, and April Bennett. I'll just start. Hello, I'm Michelle Aaron. I'm a graduate of Mesa Public Schools and I've worked in our district for 22 for 32 years. Uh, it's been the highlight of my career to work with and support our library staff as the district library services specialist. I've been to all 78 of our

080libraries and know all of our librarians. So, I know how caring, kind, and wonderful they are. I want to publicly thank them and acknowledge everything they do to provide access to books, improve literacy, and foster a love of reading for our students. First, I want to thank our governing board leadership for continuing to provide full-time staff and space to keep our libraries running, which is so important to provide access to books, improve literacy, and foster a love of reading for our students. Our library staff work hard and put in so much dedication, love, and often even their own money into their libraries because they love supporting students and spreading the joy of reading. Most people think running a library is easy, but there is so much more than just checking out books. Our school librarians

081are experts on their collections and their students' interests and needs. They promote books and reading. They make our libraries safe, inviting spaces that students want to spend time in. We are lucky to have skilled full-time staff that make our libraries the heart of our schools. Thank you for your time. [Applause] Family of Lowe, first name Mark. Good evening, Madam President, board members all. Tonight I begin with an excerpt from our a continuation from my September 25th, 2025 comments and more. Grock replied, "Solid point on fostering critical thinking. Your link 1976 piece by Rafferty highlights education's roles, pursuing truth, preserving heritage, teaching discipline subjects, realizing potential, and ensuring national survival." Recent reforms at the Department of Education emphasized inquiry-based learning. Critics in Heritage Foundation report notes biases. Aim to balance this. What specific big Ed practice

082concerns you most? I responded in part, "Too many arrogant taxpayer-funded public servant superintendents who do not address FOIA requests." The Grock exchange ends here. I still have not received the identity or the taxpayer-funded Mesa Public School architect and project manager manager for the measly $1.5 million front office security upgrade for Hale Elementary School made August 14th, 2025. Your PR number 2025123. Now hear this. "The primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government and of a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important and what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberty of the country." George Washington. I wholeheartedly agree with the our republic's first president, don't you? Thank you for your attention to this matter. [Applause] Good

083evening, board members. I come to you as a concerned MPS parent, community member, and supporter of MPS. I've identified a systemic issue that could potentially affect every single MPS employee. At MPS, site leaders have unfettered authority to begin the termination process for MPS employees and site leaders can can ignore this board's directive to follow your time-tested best practices and corrective measures for MPS employees. Site leaders can place MPS employees on a performance improvement plan for 45 days without providing any corrective measures, without providing any communication, collaborative efforts to ensure the MPS employee is equipped to succeed. No, site leaders can bypass all of that and proceed with termination process. This inherently creates a toxic environment at every district site. District officials have confirmed to me that once site leaders begin the PIP process, MPS HR

084must proceed with the MPS employee despite the site leaders having not done any of these matters to address this matters to prevent the issues. District officials have told me to trust the process. Yet, when I attend the PIP conferences for MPS employees, we are met with verbal intimidation, raised voices by an MPS official, and calling our issues, quote, "a joke" during the PIP meeting. This is unbecoming behavior of a tax-funded public school. We expect professionalism. One can say that then where are all the termination requests that site leaders? Many know that PIP is code language for termination for your record to be tarnished. Therefore, I have seen MPS employees walk away because they can see the writing on the wall. They either choose a dude site or new district. [Applause] Good evening, board members. Superintendent

085Strom, my name is Mark Kimball. I'm here as a grandfather, a community member. I'm going to have to paraphrase to cut mine in half due to the time restriction. This is troubling. Uh, it hits home. My grandson at Poston uh, encountered a social studies class. His teacher played a video regarding George Washington in a lesson very demeaning to George Washington. Basically portraying him as an evil slave owner and pulling teeth so he would have teeth uh, pulling teeth from the slave so he could have teeth. Uh, afterwards he raised his hand and he says, uh, "This isn't right." The teacher then asked, uh, "Why do you say that? Are you a Republican?" She later polled the class, "Who's Democrat? Who's Republican?" Uh, it's appalling. They These students aren't there to be uh, schooled in politics

086to learn about the process. But, this was deeply concerning and I I could give other uh, important aspects. Um, he felt singled out and other students and now other students are treating them differently in the class. Completely wrong. Another thing, there's a a movie named Iron Jawed Angels that is shown in the social studies at Poston. It portrays It is. Our next speakers will be April Bennett, Paul La Grego, and Lauren Ogle. On deck we have Carissa Routsong, Noah James Markham, and Vanessa Mayberry. Good evening, board members. My name is April Steiner Bennett. I'm a proud member of a multi-generational family legacy in Mesa Public Schools of graduates that dates back to my great-grandmother. My 6-year-old son is at Red Mountain STEM Academy, which I chose for its strong specials, well-rounded education, and STEM-based learning.

087I hope for him to become a fifth-generation Mesa graduate, but right now the legacy feels uncertain. When I opened the recent parent survey, I was disappointed. It forced families to choose which essential programs to cut out, music, PE, art, library. These are not extras to compete against each other. They are foundational experiences that develop the whole child physically, emotionally, creatively creatively, and intellectually. In music, I experienced playing instruments, learned to sing, loved PE field day, discovered the library over and over again, and found an art talent. I was an academic support academically supported through athletics and became a state champion at Mountain View High School, full ride University of Arkansas track and field athlete, and represented Team USA in the 2008 Olympics. All this was made possible by a well-rounded education I received here in

088Mesa. I developed a love for the biomedical sciences and I'm currently in med school to be a doctor. When we talk about instructional time like in the survey, I urge the board to remember specials are instruction. They teach creativity, literacy, health, and critical thinking. The skills that make students adaptable, engaged, and successful in any field. I urge the district to revise this plan and engage families and teachers in genuine dialogue. Protect our specials. [Applause] Ladies and gentlemen of the board, my name is Paul La Grego. During last month's meeting a future school calendar was proposed. The calendar showed the school year beginning in July, ending in May with a number of one and two week breaks throughout the year. I was left with some questions from the perspective of a taxpayer, a parent, and a

089student. From the perspective of a taxpayer, why are we holding class and cooling 80 plus schools during the hottest time of the year? Our residential power bills are highest always during July and August. Why not start school uh start school in September and it would be less costly, hopefully reducing the same carbon imprint that the children are taught to reduce. From the perspective of a parent, during last month's meeting there was a concern about a drop of enrollment in Mesa public schools. Since August is the most hot, miserable, humid month of the year, parents would like to get the family out of the valley to the coolness of mountains or the seashore during that time and not be stuck in the heat due to the start of school. From the perspective of a student, the

090purpose of education is to make capable adults. Being a student is a job that requires work and concentration. A school year with many break adversely affects momentum in learning. I would hope that the powers of influence within the Mesa school district may consider adjusting class school class calendar in a way to save energy cost, give families an opportunity to beat the August heat, and to improve student learning. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening. Members of the board, superintendent, and community, my name is Lauren Ogle and I'm here as a proud Mesa parent and community member who deeply believes in the power of education. Not just through textbooks and tests, but through creativity, curiosity, and connection. I want to speak tonight about two cornerstones of that vision, libraries and the arts. Our libraries are not just rooms

091with books, they are gateways to possibility. They teach students how to explore, question, and think for themselves. In a world flooded with information, libraries help students learn how to discern truth from noise. They are safe spaces for kids who might not have access to books, technology, or even a quiet spot in their homes. A librarian is often the first person to show a child that reading is a way to understand themselves and the world. That spark once lit never goes out. I will highlight my beautiful daughter in this moment. Our amazing librarians at her school, Red Mountain Ranch, encouraged this and due to that she went to the district and regional Battle of the Books last year. The arts, too, are not extras. I don't know why they're called specials, they're essentials. Everything in this

092meeting prior to this and in app living here was about how important band, music, art is to these kids. Um and it it gives them voices when sometimes words don't fail them as far as reading. They build confidence, empathy, and innovation, and the very skills our students need for the future workforce. I've been involved with art masterpiece myself and I also cannot stress enough how important our librarians and our specials are to these kids and I really hope that this parent survey [Applause] Aloha uh Miss President and to the rest of the school board, um I would like to talk about Sequoia um and about the deaf and hard of hearing uh school here in Mesa um and shame on you, Tom Horne. Um the ESA vouchers were only for private schools and charter schools

093and I also the principal of that ran the school to shut down was awful. So, I hope you guys hired the best people to run this school. And always support DI no matter what school is in Mesa public school system. I also ask you put a T-coil on the Mesa board so people with hearing aids can hear you guys speak through our devices. I ask if you guys hold big events for public schools here that you always have a sign language interpreter no matter if someone is there or not. And you should always have reserved spot to sit for ASL interpretation for the community. I also ask that you guys make that a whole new building for for uh Sequoia to be awesome to make a newly fresh building for Sequoia deaf school. And a

094new website for them. Mahalo and thank you for listening to me tonight. [Applause] Vanessa Mayberry. Good evening, governing board and >> Vanessa, we pull your mic down, sorry. >> I'm short. You're good. Thank you. We sure we hear you. Okay. We good? Okay. Vanessa Mayberry. Um I did not plan to speak, so this is not a formally written speech. Good evening, governing board and superintendency. Thank you for your time. I come to you as a community member, parent, and MPS graduate, actually generations have graduated from MPS. Former MPS teacher and librarian to speak on a on behalf of our libraries. I know you are faced with difficult decisions about what current MPS programs to continue to support, which is no small feat. So, I ask while you're making your decision to plea please consider what

095all the libraries provide for our students. As you know, reading scores across Arizona have fallen. Where once students who read below grade level in the classroom comprised of only a few, they are now the majority. Our teachers are doing all that they can to increase reading levels, but it isn't enough to combat this crisis. They can't do it alone. This is where our libraries come into play. Our libraries provide things our classrooms cannot. They provide students a level of wide collection of books to read that a classroom simply cannot hold. They promote a love of reading and turn students who would have never picked up a book into lifelong readers. In time where reading skills are declining, our libraries are just what we need to help tackle this crisis. Thank you. Good evening. My name

096is Carissa Rawlson and I'm a parent of four children in the Mesa district and also work as a substitute in the district. I have an eighth grader that currently attends John Shepherd Junior High. I'm here tonight to my to to express my strong support for the proposal to expand Shepherd into a high school. This would be a great option for students like my son who thrive in smaller, more focused learning environments. He's academically driven and like many students participates in sports and other activities outside of school. Many of Mesa's existing high schools are quite large and can feel overwhelming. This new option would create a pathway for students to excel academically without getting lost in the size and pace of a larger high school. It could also help create strong student-teacher relationships and more personal

097education experience. Over the past several years, many families in our community have chosen charter schools for this very reason, smaller campuses, strong academics, and closer connections between students and teachers. While those are great qualities, but there's no reason Mesa public schools can't offer the same experience within the district. By expanding Shepherd into a high school, we can give families the best of both worlds. The individualized environment they want and the resources, stability, and community spirit that come with a public school system. It also gives families another compelling reason to stay in the district and better serve students who might otherwise look outside the district to meet their needs. This proposal helps keep students and valuable funding within Mesa public schools while serving a broader range of learning needs. The high school wouldn't replace the traditional

098model, it would complement it. Expanding choice strengthens the district and supports families. I truly feel having this high school would still [Applause] Our Our final speakers will be Stacy Coleman and Melissa Lindblom and then another call for Carlos Fernandez. If you did sign up to speak on an action item, this is the time when you will be speaking, so as part of our public comment. Stacy Coleman, Melissa Lindblom, and then Carlos Fernandez. Good evening, everyone. My name is Stacy Coleman and I'm here dedicating my time and energy to on behalf of my daughter, Yvonne Renee Smith, who's here with me this evening. And on her behalf, I would like to say that on September 19th, my daughter, a black junior high student, was struck and called a racial and gendered slur, a black She reported

099it immediately. I personally informed Principal Michael Dinegan of Summit Junior High Academy and area area superintendent Arlinda Mann that both the physical contact and the slur occurred. Yet, neither element was included in the school's report and the incident has not been classified as harassment. That omission matters. When a child is targeted for her race and gender, it is not simple misconduct, it is a civil rights violation. I am asking the district three things. Reclassify this incident as harassment consistent with policy and law. Acknowledge in writing the full scope of what occurred. And thirdly, review policies and training so administrators can accurately recognize and respond to bias based incidents. This request comes from a place of love and commitment. Not confrontation. My daughter's experience, like any student, deserves to be seen, named, and addressed with integrity

100and dignity. By doing so, this district shows every child that Mesa Public Schools stands for safety, dignity, and equity in both word and action. Thank you. [Applause] Hello. My name is Melissa Lindblom. Um I am a proud to be a product of Mesa Public Schools and even more proud that I now have five of my own children in the district also. My husband and I currently have all five of our kids at Barbara Bush Elementary. The school is small but mighty and the teachers, staff, and community have felt like family to us over the years. It is for the same reason that despite being in Stapley Junior High boundaries, our oldest is choosing to go to Shepherd Junior High next year and we couldn't be more thrilled. We love that it is a smaller than

101Stapley and we are excited to be involved in the community surrounding Shepherd that we've already grown to love. Even more thrilling to us is the prospect of our children being able to remain at Shepherd for high school as Shepherd College Prep potentially opens its doors. To have our kids remain in a school and on a campus that is familiar while also being with others other students that are academically minded is truly the best case scenario for us. As anyone that has raised or worked around children understands, all children are wildly individual and um different. In in our own family, we have a very wide range of children, one from the nerdiest of nerds to the most social of butterflies, and also a child with autism that struggles with his social skills. I think that being

102in a small school and looking at each of their individual needs, an academic high school with fewer teachers, staff, and students that can better know and understand our children seems like it would be a great fit for each of these. For that reason, I'd um encourage you to vote to in um Madam President, that concludes our public comment for tonight. Thank you. We'll now move into um review of the consent agenda. All items 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. All right, thank you. Members, I none are pulled. We'll now move into Sorry, here we go. Our personnel request. Do we have a motion? I'm sorry, 1 second. Do I have a motion to

103approve the personnel request? Do we have an addendum? Is it and include including the addendum? So moved. I'm sorry. I'm having some technical difficulties. 1 second. I'm going to restart this. 1 second. Do I have a motion to approve the personnel request including the addendum and the new certified 12-month salary schedule for organization redesign. So moved. Do I have a second? Seconded. Thank you. Board members, any discussion? Yes, Madam President. I have some questions. Um my questions are on the addendum. Um I believe these were posted Monday night. Is that correct? No, it was yesterday afternoon. Typically, the addendum >> was posted yesterday afternoon along with the the um salary changes. The salary schedules was also Right. Okay. All right. Um My I have I basically have two questions. Um how does the board know

104that the services provided by each of the positions that are being eliminated will not be eliminated? And secondly, by some of these positions being eliminated, how can you assure the board that we are able to serve students by strength and need? Dr. Esses and Ms. Mesa were in charge of the team that collaborated together [Music] to develop In that process, we had a lengthy review of submitting from both an administrative perspective that started last spring, what jobs, responsibilities, and duties that members of departments were accomplishing. We then went through an extensive process of collecting data and information from every employee in a professional description questionnaire. It's a SHRM practice. Sorry, Society of Human Resource Management, where we got what duties that those employees accomplished. We then also looked at their current job descriptions and reviewed

105their current job descriptions. And then the team of executive directors and two directors along with Ms. Mesa and Dr. Esses were tasked with developing new job descriptions where exactly what you just talked about would not occur, where level of service to students, where living into the Mesa portrait and promise could come to fruition. We think in a regional model where you have people that are in closer proximity to the actual school level, you know, point of delivery in education, we think we're going to be able to maximize the opportunity to help provide support to principals, teachers, support staff on campuses so that that we can be ready and active when we need to in the Dobson region, learning community. Sorry, Westwood learning community, Mountain View learning community. And I will be honest with you, there

106are some things that when we found they were not legally required by federal statute, they were not required by state statute, they're not required by our governing board policy, and we had to evaluate whether those tasks needed to continue to be accomplished. If they're not student facing and we're just completing a task to complete a task because it was created you know, in a in a in a the historical purview of the district, then we empowered our directors and executive directors to examine those tasks and say, it doesn't affect students, it doesn't affect our delivery model to schools, and guess what, in the end, we this is a task we have to eliminate. That's because as you're downsizing and expecting people to do more, you also have to always re-examine what you're currently doing and

107say, hey, how can we take away things? It's a classic dilemma of a teacher. I taught for 13 years. Classic dilemma of a teacher, you gave me more, what are you taking off my plate in order to for me to be successful with kids, right? It's all about the students when it boils down to it. So, that's the exact task they went through. These were developed collaboratively across those 14 leaders as well as feedback loops with people outside of of that group and I'll defer to Dr. Esses to talk a little bit more specifically at this time. Madam President, members of the board, yes. Our team looked at every single PDQ, used tools to ensure that they were cross-referencing all of those responsibilities, the administrative tasks, the compliance requirements to ADE and the federal government.

108In many cases, if they had questions, they reached out to some of the the coaches or specialists um if they were in, you know, different departments and those kinds of things, and then collaborated together to put all of those pieces together while also remaining fiscally responsible and and getting to the goal that we were tasked with. So, there was a lot of work that was that was thoughtful and put into really ensuring that we could provide the best supports to our schools in this new model. Um and I do think that when you start to to understand it a little bit better, you'll see that it really truly is a model of collaboration and building capacity as well as as well as pathways for for our staff to grow into as they continue their their

109work in supporting our students in our our schools. I I I totally Excuse me. I totally get the the rationale, but I'm seeing positions that serve students and serve our community that have been eliminated like the director of community partnerships. Um being in the in the community on a number of boards, um I I know that what that what that job does, but yet I do not see in the ad on the table of organization a similar position. So, I I can't be assured that something that I know is valuable to the community is is is going to be a service that we are still going to maintain. Um another another example would be um, a a preschool a special ed itinerant teacher who serves the Salt River Indian community. I I I don't know

110by getting this just yesterday where those students are going to be served and and I have a hard time voting on something when I don't know if the services that were provided by the positions that are being eliminated are still going to be provided to kids. Member Hutchinson, thanks for referencing those two jobs first and I I think I'm speaking correctly here. Yeah, we're we're living in a in a in a state right now where we're moving quickly because we want these to be closed out by December and the two that you just brought up are actually things that we've been very privileged to be working with our employees on and and in terms of eliminating director of community partnerships position, there's a development of in a non-administrative role because that staff member has no

111staff that report to that person. So that's it's really not administrative. It's more really a coordinator type position and that position, I don't know if it made this personnel action item. I think it's going to make November 13th personnel action item. We just received the 12% gaming grant from SRP MIC. They've been long-standing partners of Mesa Public Schools and so we were at their breakfast on Monday morning and that grant is actually what supports that position. So I think Mr. Moore and Mr. Wing, if you want to take over for a second on this one, are working on that job description and that'll be something in November 13th personnel section. Yeah. Um, member Hutchinson, governing board, uh, superintendent audience. Uh, the position you referred to, the director position, we will be making a recommendation to

112add a position in November to the governing board. That position doesn't fall within the academics, those five areas or six areas, excuse me, specialized services, academics. It'll rather it'll be housed under business services, hence why it wasn't on this table of work. But it will be in November. Second, one is the itinerant teacher and the preschool itinerant job. The Head Start IGA with SRP MIC is a value to us. We thoroughly believe in preschool education. We talked to you earlier tonight about the financial difficulties with running preschool education in a public school system where we're not funded even beyond kindergarten. Like kindergarten's funded half-day, preschool's funded even less and so to design proper preschool systems, we appreciate the federal government designing systems like Head Start, implementing those in communities and then we provide support through

113that IGA agreement back. With the preschool itinerant job, what we've learned is the job duties and functionalities of that job were really not aligned with the job title. I'll give you an example of that. Uh, that job included coverage for FMLA that came from a preschool itinerant teacher themselves and we don't have jobs in hardly any districts in the state of Arizona, Mesa Public Schools. We don't have teaching jobs centralized so that when someone goes on FMLA, we go cover that class. That's not something districts can afford on state funding and so we're re-envisioning that teaching job. Those teaching jobs will be preschool teaching jobs. They will likely be school-based teaching jobs. So you can imagine with the SRP MIC community a school-based teaching job maybe in the Lehigh region that runs with preschool, with

114the Lehigh preschool and then also contributes to going off into the SRP MIC community help with Head Start. So we're working through those things and those that job, I think we pulled that job off the deletion table because we're continuing to work through how to get a teaching job back into because that's really what it ends up being back into a teaching category. We actually found out we were even function coding that thing not correct function code, sorry. Uh, function code of a thousand is a teaching function code and that person these people were primarily functioning in teaching roles and so they were coded into a 2200 function code which is like a support services function code as opposed to a instructional code. So we're working on that and those services will be provided and

115that's why we removed them at the last minute. Mr. Wing, did I overstep at all? >> to clarify because I I've communicated with a few of them for clarification. Some of our teacher roles are coded to a department rather than a school. And so um they won't be under the department umbrella in the future. They'll be coded to a school umbrella. But we did remove them from this um this recommendation just for clarity uh, because I understand we don't typically bring a teacher a new teacher at a school to the board for approval. Like if a third grade is over class size, we provide a third grade teacher them. So we remove it from a department but we typically don't add for a school based on the table of work. So we removed it to

116avoid the confusion. So they'll be coded to a school next year. Board members, any other Ms. Bentsen? Um, thank you, Madam President. So I just want to say I I really appreciate um, all of the work that has gone into the reor reorganization and um it is the reality of a declining enrollment district. We've got to make uh, we've got to tighten our our I don't I don't remember the phrase now but tighten our belt, so to speak. We've we've got to be able to do um more with less and we cannot just require that of our building uh, people. It has got to also come from um, middle management and administration. You have to lead by example. If we want our classroom teachers and our principals to do more with less, then we should

117be doing it at the district level as well. Um, I do actually see the benefit to um, and I I understood the deletions to be in the columns that were falling under the purview of the Chief of Schools and Chief of Academics. So I appreciate the hard work that has gone into this. It it cannot be easy and especially within the short time period in which you guys have been trying to put everything together. Um, because we are not rolling it all out in one big fell swoop, that is the uh perhaps the place where some miscommunication then becomes becomes uh part of the vernacular, so to speak. We we look at a a document and we go, wait, wait, wait, what happened to Um, so I appreciate the transparency. I I really appreciate the

118hard work because it we this is our reality until we can actively my hope, honestly, with the our regionals um, our regional lineups is that we begin to um redefine what Mesa Public Schools is and we get our community to say, "Oh, wait a minute. I want to go back there. I don't want to have to go to a charter school." Uh, I I like what Mesa's now doing with different options and moving forward and meeting the needs of parents and students and I think the regional model in particular uh, I think it's going to be very beneficial. Um, so that's all I wanted to say. I do I do appreciate ans- you answering Ms. Hutchinson's questions so that it is clear uh, because there there are more positions that are not within the uh

119director of academics or executive director, pardon me. of academics and schools. There's there is a separate uh, grid and sheet, right? So I appreciate the and I I look forward to the continuing continuing this process because it's not easy. Thank you, Ms. Bentsen. Mrs. Walden. Yeah, so thank you for the the itinerant roles as well and I appreciate the questions that we got from board member Hutchinson. I just want to add that I I'm excited at the redesign because I think that what we're finding in this redesign, especially with the three-tier pay grade, is that there's more career pathing in education and I think that Mesa can become a district where we you would attract new teachers and people into the industry when there's more options for them to be able to to advance in

120their career or find different ways to use their talents and skills in the district and I really wanted to just give you a thank you for the special consideration and focus on on changing roles that will give us more classroom support and have that focus on student outcomes and making those things a priority. I think that has been really excellent in this redesign. Thank you, Ms. Walden. Mrs. Chaffee. Mr. Wing, can you help me understand the need for the three-tiered certified pay grade? Certainly, kind of mirrors the administrator ones the governing board approved last school year. Uh, as we reduce administrator FTE some responsibilities will will be along with the certified positions and so you may have a 12-month certified position supervise a couple other 12-month certified specialists and so if they're all on the

121same pay grade uh, there hence the dilemma. Plus if that lead individual were to win the Powerball and leave uh, what's the incentive for somebody else to to grow into that and member Walden kind of shared some of the some of the rationale with the the leadership pathways. That was part of our one of our rationales of back in July or August when we shared this redesign with the governing board and the public was we did it with with meaning and purpose and there are many of them. I'm not going to go to all of them but one of them was that leadership capacity building and also pathway building potential as well. And the ranges are quite honestly are very minimal. But it gets us a start. Thank you. Board members any other questions? I

122appreciate the questions and input and thank you Dr. Strong Mr. Wien for your information. I think it is a hard thing when we look at we're removing these jobs and we're not quite sure exactly how everything's going to land and it is a difficult time right now um but we'll move forward and keep things going and do the best that we can as we lean into these this day in education. So with that >> And President may I make one more comment? Yes. So you know historically education is not um from my perspective in the years that I've been involved it's not been focused on a business model. But education really is a business right? And so we we have money come in we have money go out. We've got to be able to do

123that as efficiently and effectively as possible and our main priority our main product if you will is a quality education for the students that attend our schools and that graduate. That's what our community wants is qualified qualified future citizens that will if actually 85% of them stay in Mesa I would assume Mesa really wants to have quality citizens when they graduate from our schools. So this is a step in that direction. We've got to be able to work effectively and efficiently. That's what the business culture requires. That's what education needs to do as well. So Thank you. Yes Ms. Hutchinson. I I appreciate the the discussion amongst my colleagues and and appreciate the comments and thank you Superintendent for providing information. Um my my reluctance is is getting so much at such a late time.

124And this board is is used to getting thorough information so that we can make informed decisions and I would I would I know that there is a there there because of the of the schedule that we have and the the school year that we have that we do have to make some quick decisions but I would appreciate more information um when we are making decisions of this magnitude in the future. Thank you. With that Ms. Kirby I think we're ready to take a vote. With a vote of five yes you have approved the personnel request including the addendum and the new certified 12-month salary schedule for organizational redesign. We now move into our consent agenda. All items will be considered as a group and will be approved with one motion. If a board member would

125like 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? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Thank you. Ms. Kirby will you please take our vote? With a vote of five yes we have approved the consent agenda items according to the recommended action for each item. Yes. Ms. Hutchinson. I want to thank the teachers Mountain View Westwood who are giving our students the opportunity to study abroad and to have the tremendous educational opportunities as Model UN students and as music students. Man would I like to be in the suitcase of the Mountain View Chamber Orchestra as they study British composers in London. This is it's amazing opportunities and

126I also again want to thank the community for the many gifts and donations that they have secured for a wide variety of programs in the in the district. You are helping us meet the needs of our kids and we appreciate all the efforts of the community as we did tonight with our AARP experience for volunteers. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other comments? Thank you. We'll now move into our action items. Tonight we have the PABDEC chair Dr. Laura Metcalf and vice chair Mr. Jacob Martinez here tonight to present. Um but since this is an action item we'll do a motion in a second first then hear the presentation if um and we'll go from there. And we just want to thank you for being here tonight. So do I have a motion to

127approve the PABDEC recommended boundary changes? So moved. I'll second. Mrs. Benson has moved. Do I have a second? Seconded by Mrs. Hutchinson. All right and we're going to turn the time over to Dr. Metcalf and Mr. Martinez. And we we're trying to keep it you guys at 10 minutes and then we'll have time for questions. Excellent. Madam President members of the board administration and community. I am Dr. Laura Metcalf. I am a proud Westwood graduate and I'm a 30-year educator in in Arizona along with being the PAB member of the PABDEC committee for the last 11 years and sharing it for the last seven. Like to be able to spend a few moments with you. We are going to go over a recommendation that we have worked very hard on and I'd also have my

128I will do half of the presentation and Mr. Martinez will round out the second half. This covers a recommendation for the repurposing of Wilson Elementary School and we look forward to the information and questions that you may have. Next. Oh I do it. Okay. So much for that. All right. [Music] Up. Do you want me to click? I can hit next if you tell me next cuz we will be here all night if I have to try and figure this thing out. Thank you. All right. So according to policy I went too far. Go ahead. All right. According to policy 5-101 attendance boundaries the governing board authorizes and directs the superintendent to form a planning and boundary design advisory committee PABDEC who we are that will include 11 non-employee members of the and the chief

129of staff or an ex officio non-voting member each governing member board member will appoint two persons as members of the PABDEC and we are two of those individuals. Would you like for me to read one and two or would you rather me not? We only have 10 minutes. Okay. Thank you. Next please. Final recommendation for the governing board. The PABDEC takes will make a recommendation concerning the boundaries of the governing board following at least two public hearings which there were three to contemplate the changes of a change in a boundary related to one of the public schools here in Mesa Public Schools. The work of the PABDEC is not complete until it brings final recommendation to a vote and submits the results to the governing board which is tonight's purpose. Next. The communication plan to

130the community mailers to homes within the school boundaries were provided. All schools were impacted by boundary changes over 31,000 items were successfully delivered. Sent to at least 10 days ahead of time prior to the first public hearing to include a hearing dates and brief explanation of proposed changes. Flyers sent to homes with students impacted by the boundary changes. Parent Square and text invitations to public hearings were provided. All sent to parents of students enrolled in each for each hearing and an informational webpage launch was also provided to the community to review the information to help inform parents and answer frequently asked questions to include detailed overview information of proposed plan and and regularly updated. Three public hearings took place one at Wilson Elementary School on September 3rd at 5:00 p.m. Johnson Elementary School September 9th

131at 5:00 p.m. and Madison Elementary on September 10th at 5:00 p.m. Next. So what I'll do is I'll read this one and then I will turn it over to Jacob. So the community concerns that were derived from these these meetings included some community members did not want to lose Wilson as a community school. What will happen to the staff currently at Wilson and how will transportation be decided? But even with those we were fortunate to receive a lot of feedback from parents and community members of people that were excited and eager for this change to happen. Some of those you see it right there. People were excited about the increase in enrollment and getting more students at their home schools that they're currently at. Like Dr. Metcalf mentioned we visited all the schools that would

132would impacted by this decision and so there are a lot of families that were excited to welcome new people into their school families. Additionally, there were many families that were excited at the prospect of the expanded Franklin programming. They had an opportunity to hear from the principal for Franklin at Brimhall, as well as hear about the prospect for Franklin going forward. And so, there was a lot of positive reactions and and feedback for that. And then, to to round that out, just the ability to, you know, consolidate and and really tackle things the best way that Mesa Public Schools can. It it's a something we have to do in in the time we're in right now. And so, I think community and family members are excited about doing everything Mesa Public Schools can to make

133sure that we have the strongest vote going forward. So, some of the considerations that PAB DEC took and and received to to move forward on this plan, was a big part was the enrollment. All of the schools in that area are currently seen decrease T decreased enrollment with Wilson being the most significant at 40% at a rate of 40%. Additionally, there is a strong interest from the community and from families to have that expanded Franklin model. And so, for this ability for this plan to go forward and allow for something like that to take place and and allow the capacity for it, that was a big consideration that was taken into account. And then finally, a significant amount of students that are in that Wilson boundaries are are either going to other districts or are

134going to Franklin schools. And so, this is an opportunity to, like the last slide mentioned, be the most efficient. And that was a significant consideration that PAB DEC took. So, how did we get to tonight? Well, on August 18th, the PAB DEC board met and decided to move forward with the recommended boundary change. That prompted the public hearings that Dr. Metcalf mentioned at the schools that would be impacted. After going to those meetings, having listening sessions with the community, the board on September 25th decided to move forward with the recommendation and bring the proposal to the governing board. And so, one of the previous slides held, you know, had this and the last one. This is the proposed boundaries for those three schools that PAB DEC is recommending. If you remember from a few slides

135back, the the lines were a little bit configured oddly. People were cutting across roads. It might not have made the sense efficiency-wise. And so, what this new proposal does is kind of bring it all together, consolidates it, and allows for for the new exciting opportunities here in the district. So, the PAB DEC board is is excited to bring it to you tonight. Thank you, Dr. Metcalf and Mr. Martinez. I'll start with board member Hutchinson. Any questions, comments? Yes, thank you. Um Mr. Martinez mentioned a strong interest. Um Is there data to support this change that will actually attract more students/families to this campus? And the second question I have is how much will it cost to transform the current traditional Wilson campus into a Franklin campus? Yeah. So, uh J- just for clarification, this is

136where it gets a little tricky with these four action items back to back to back, right? Uh I'm more than willing to answer those. Those are probably more related to agenda item B and C, but you know, to vote on this work this work is really tricky because to vote on this also intertwines with everything. So, uh let me just respond briefly cuz this is about this item's about boundaries, right? The next item's about the grade configurations and renaming. So, we've allocated each of the schools that that are being repur- purposed $75,000 of redesign money. That's out of the capital allocation budget, not the M&O allocation budget. So, I want to be really clear. M&O is where we pay salaries and benefits of people. That's declining enrollment stuff. It's hitting us in Mesa Public Schools

137to the tune of about 2,500 students this year. And we try to protect the M&O bucket as much as we possibly can cuz that's how we pay people. And we really want to value paying people. So, this is out of the capital budget. And our capital budget had a carry forward last year. And so, they've been given this budget by Mr. Moore and his department. We have tight controls. This is about a quarter of the amount that we gave Red Mountain Ranch K8 STEM Academy at Red Mountain Ranch when we redesigned K8 STEM Academy. So, we're being very thoughtful about the approach from a financial perspective. And so, that's the first one that's I'm sorry. Is that the when you said each school, is that Madison and Jefferson? >> No, that's That is Shepherd. I'm

138sorry. Actually, yes, that's a very good clarifying question. That is Shepherd and that is Franklin, Wilson. And Franklin High. So, Shepherd, Franklin, Wilson, Franklin High. >> Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. >> and then we'll work with as as with any current school, we're always working on their capital needs at their campus as well. And we've gotten some unique requests in from a couple of the schools that are uh ingesting some kids and we will consider those requests as they see fit and fit underneath the capital budget. So, we understand that there will be some needs at the schools that are ingesting kids, but we haven't allocated a budget. They'll have to go through the process of requesting budget like they normally would in any given year cuz we're not doing anything new at

139those schools. They just may need a few extra resources here and there. And we empower the principals to work with Mr. Moore in that process. The other question was centered around Um data. Um Mr. Martinez mentioned a strong interest. And which could because the strong interest is actually the reason for the boundary changes. >> Yeah. So, let's uh I want to be really careful here because some of the image from the public is that the parents that came on behalf of Franklin High School last year. That's really where this all started. Last year, in the process of redesigning college and career academies, parents reached out to us a variety of times wanting a traditional learning experience at the high school level, a more traditional learning experience at the high school level. And so, in that

140process, we as a cabinet started going, "Okay, what are solutions that's for that?" Uh in reality, then Wilson parents here were having to be redesigned because Franklin High School wanted that. And that's a difficult conversation. And the reason that's a difficult conversation is because we knew we and we know in quite a few of our schools throughout Mesa Public Schools, we have options. And the options are to either think strategically and creatively or we're probably going to be moving to school closure within the next 3 to 5 years. And Wilson's one of those schools that used to have a thousand kids on their campus and now is sitting close to 340 to 360 kids depending on the day. And has had 40% declining enrollment over the course of the last 4 years. And so, I

141don't I don't want people to think we're doing this to Wilson because of the Franklin thing cuz I don't want a war between Franklin parents and Wilson parents. The fact of the matter is we were going to have to do something at Wilson in order to live into the next generation. Now, in terms of demand, it started at it started at the Franklin parents showing up and then we surveyed. And it's got one of the higher net promoter scores we've seen in parent data. It had a net promoter score of 42 out of the parent survey. And I think we had over 300 responses to that parent survey. And we think that demand is telling us that. And then we've had significant parent feedback loops through the Franklin Brimhall principal back there, Mr. Abrams. Uh

142and he has those qualitative stories of parents willing to show up for ninth grade. In fact, the demand is to a point where we're not sure we might not open ninth and tenth grade, which is why the item later on in this meeting is flexible to do that. So, we we might even have to open ninth and tenth grade if if if it fits the needs at that campus. So, those are a couple of the data points. And Mr. Abrams, if you want to come up and talk about any qualitative data, feel free to do so. You want to wait? Mis- Mr. Abrams, the board's deciding they'll wait till agenda item C cuz it's probably a little more >> You're on deck. Yeah, just be closer. Yeah. >> Matter of fact, You're on deck. >>

143Matter of fact, if uh Ms. Benza wants to come be on deck, too, cuz that'll be rather quickly. Then it won't cut into the timer. Just kidding. [Laughter] Mm. Mrs. Hutchinson, any other questions? Okay. Mrs. Benza? Um first off, I would like to thank you for your commitment to doing the work of PAB DEC, especially Dr. Metcalf. Have you been here 11 years. That's amazing. You're like the goat, I assume. The goat. Greatest of all time. I just learned that a couple of years ago. Thank you for defining that. But I it's cuz we're we're post-middle aged. I had to learn that as well. My kids were calling people the goat. I'm like, "That is so rude." Um okay, so I just have a quick question. Um I know I've gotten several emails. I assume

144the the rest of the board has as well. Concerns from current Wilson families about transportation. Um also about whether or or um the needs of the Wilson neighborhood are going to be met if they do decide to go into the Wilson or Franklin at Wilson. So, I'd like that addressed a little bit. But then the second, I do like the clean configuration of the boundary changes, but I do see Oh, it's Johnson. Johnson is significantly smaller. So, our I mean, at least it looks to me geographically the boundary is significantly smaller. Based on the color coding. So, is is the student population within each one of these three relatively close? I mean, cuz Madison looks huge. The answer to that question is the student population from Wilson was not equally divided across the three schools.

145Why would you do that? You do that because Wilson and Madison are much closer in proximity to each other and to service the Wilson families in the neighborhood around the school, you want to help those families out as much as you can and move them over to Wilson. The one thing I'll tell you is that Johnson boundary is a little more density to that Johnson boundary than there are some single family homes in that Madison region in that Wilson region. So, that also comes into play as well. But there I just want to be clear, it is not an equal distribution and I think Jefferson receives the least amount of kids out of that re-boundary if I remember my data correctly. Correct. And just uh Excuse me. Member Benson uh Jefferson or Johnson currently has

146more students enrolled than Madison. Okay. So, sometimes it the area looks small, but there's a higher population of students within that area than than others. Okay, thank you. And there's several questions. Um I know that they were that you had a website that they could that people could shoot their questions to you. Um are the answers to those questions still up and available to the community if they if they want to look and see. All right. And then Yes. And I I think the questions the other questions that I have I think are more appropriate to the it is hard when the the next two are contention. Yeah. So, I'm just going to leave it with that, but I I do appreciate all the hard work that this committee had to go through. You spent

147hours listening to people and that was awesome. So, thank you very much. I giving Oh, gotcha. Okay, thank you, Mrs. Vincent. Mrs. Balden. Yeah, I we did get some emails and I just wanted to to clarify that the parents that were at Franklin were informed of the public hearing meetings cuz there was seems like there's some parents and that were just confused or wasn't sure that the changes impacted them. Can anyone speak to how the meetings were communicated? Yeah. So, we did not hold a hearing at Franklin because the boundaries were not going to affect that school. However, we held Mr. Abrams and I held a listening session at Franklin at Brimhall and we held a specific session for K-6 parents and then another session for 7th and 8th grade parents. So, they had an

148opportunity to ask questions. They saw the presentations that were given at PABDAC and so that's how they were informed. And I'm assuming then that was communicated to all the parents enrolled at at Franklin so they had the chance to be notified and go. Yes, all of the Franklin principals were actually present when we did that listening listening session and they also communicate with their families that it was happening. Right. Thank you. That's my other question. Thank you, Mrs. Chaffee. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify. Will the students living in the current Wilson boundary be guaranteed a spot at uh the new Franklin Academy? And or will they be best to one of the three new schools based on their distance in our in our established bussing distances currently? Question one. The reason a later item

149talks about possibly opening K4 and not K5, although we want to remain flexible in that if enrollment doesn't hit where we think we we we we know in the long run Wilson could be a K6. So, the reason it's K4 out of the gate is to keep enough space for all Wilson kids if they want to continue to learn at Wilson. Of course, that'll be in the Franklin traditional model, Franklin accelerated model. So, the answer to that first question is yes, there is enough space to keep all those students on that campus. Second question, transportation routes will be the derived within the Wilson community as well to get them to Madison and or Jefferson Johnson and so there will be bus stops in the area to get the kids across that major those major roads.

150Thank you. Thank you, board members for questions and insight. And thank you again for to Dr. Metcalfe and Mr. Martinez for serving and for your information and being at these listening sessions and these meetings. I as with anything change is hard and especially these Wilson families that that's been their neighborhood school and we know how difficult that is um as we all are many of us have kids in school in our neighborhood schools and we know that change is hard and so um we have kept that in mind as we thoughtfully made these changes and as we lean into this new day and age of education. So, I don't see any other questions. I think we're ready to vote, Miss Kirby. If you'll please take our vote. With a vote of five yays, we have

151approved I'm so sorry. I got to the wrong page. We have approved the I'm Tonight, I think I should start over. With a vote of five yays, we have approved the PABDAC recommended boundary changes. Thank you. Yes. Mrs. Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to thank all the volunteers on the committee. Um it's it was a real labor of love. Thank you so much for your time. Um PABDAC oftentimes gets to sit out for a semester or a year, but you did above and beyond and you did an excellent job to get a consensus of 10-0 on a on a recommendation shows the hard work that was done by the district and by the volunteers, the community. So, thank you very much, Dr. Metcalfe. Thank you very much, Mr. Martinez. And if you would take

152the board's thank back thanks back to the members who were so diligent in serving, we very much appreciate you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes, big round of applause. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, I'm going to make sure I'm in the right spot that my computer and my papers match. I'm sorry. We are now into action item B. Do I have a motion to approve of designating the school at 5619 East Glade Avenue, Mesa, Arizona 85206 a choice school named Franklin Accelerated Academy Wilson Campus with grade levels of preschool through sixth beginning in the 2026-27 school year with the intent to enroll students in grades kindergarten through fourth to begin in the 2026-27 school year. So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you. Any discussion? I'll start with board member Hutchinson. I

153have um one question. Um The the Franklin model is said to improve student outcomes. Um and enhance program delivery. Can Can you explain um basically what makes a Franklin Accelerated Academy school different from other MPS elementary schools? Ma- member Hutchinson. Uh yeah, here's what I'll do. I'll tell you from my perspective. I have been in the district 2 and 1/2 years, almost three now. And then we have some Franklin people who may come up and tell them from your perspective. So, what I think is unique is there there's always science of reading starting to take off throughout the nation, right? The Miss- Mississippi miracles being known about and the Steubenville miracle, if you know Steubenville, Ohio, and go read them about them and how they've implemented prosody back into the learning process. Prosody is a

154way that you the spoken word happens and we know kids that are good with the spoken word are also good with reading words and writing words. Um and I will tell you the Spalding methodology, uh the approach to literacy, uh the approach to ensuring that kids get the science of reading is really important and proven outcomes for kids. I will tell you that in the Franklin classrooms I've seen, there's practice that occurs on a nightly basis with kids and that's really important and that speaks to the home parent relationship. They have homework protocols and policies that they follow with parent agreement and that's really important and the reason that's important is because of the cyclical cyclical and spiral learning process that traditionally occurs in accelerated and in traditional academies and cyclical and spiral aligns with

155cognitive load theory and that is the fact that what you want kids to do in the learning process is you want them to be able to be fluent enough. The whole point of the science of reading and phonics is to never use phonics again because the second you know phonics and you have it fluent, you can read. And so, the same thing in mathematics, right? The balance between conceptual understanding and procedural fluency, the second you're fluent, guess what? Now you can actually start to do other conceptual understanding items. And that really aligns in my opinion with what I've seen in the several Franklin classrooms that I've been in throughout Mesa Public Schools. So, that's my non-expertise portion of it. If any of the real experts want to get up and talk about it, I'm fine

156with that. Sure. Dr. Strom hit hit most all topics. I think some of the other things that are that are unique are the the resources that are used are different than you'd find at neighborhood schools. The Spalding method our our math overviews are driven by by standards that's that teachers teach, not necessarily the resource that is used. And And when you align the best resource to meet the needs for whatever goal for that day is, all the teachers in each grade level follow the same overviews, the same day, the same week. So, if you go from one kinder room to another kinder room to another kinder room continuously, you're going to see them teaching and picking up where the other room left off. If you go from Franklin Brimhall to Franklin East to Franklin Jordan

157on on from a Monday to a Tuesday, you're going to see those grade levels picking up the same spot at the same time. So, there's consistency that is so precise and it prevents any kind of gaps from students from one classroom teacher to another classroom teacher from running one grade level to another grade level that goes through. Our Our parents go through an orientation process so they they know about the Franklin program. They observe for 2 hours. They watch a video. They meet with one of the principals to learn more about the program where we go over all of those key partnerships between home and school and what what their responsibility is in that partnership that really makes it powerful between the the school and home. So, there's a lot of pieces that go into

158it. The structure of the classroom, individual accountability, the dress code, the scheduling, the master scheduling, the specials, band, orchestra, the events that we have, the protected classroom time, limited field trips, limited assemblies, things that are spread out. So, what am I missing? Homework four nights a week, how we do it. It's not graded for an individual grade. It's graded for completion to the best of their ability to teachers to be able to assess understanding and improve on, but doing your homework is a non-negotiable. How we walk in a line, how we sit in the cafeteria. I mean, down to every procedure on the campus, it's it's down to the detail and high expectations across the board. Levels of discipline across the school level. Some individual classroom, you know, PBIS type of reward systems, but really

159it's more of high expectations and and clarity with parents. They know from each grade level what the expectations are for students behaviorally and what the outcomes are going to be behaviorally for those students. What else am I missing, ladies? These are my brains here. They they Intrinsic motivation. Yeah, so that's a great word, too. So, yeah, the students that the biggest the biggest award they receive is a quality education in a positive learning environment with supportive teachers, which makes them want to learn more. And that that ability and and that happening is the best reward that you can give a student. Even though they do earn little grabbers here and there. Am I missing anything else? A great supporting administrative staff as well. I think she gave you like a mini recital. principles council. They

160are the best, for sure. Thank you. Sure. Mrs. Vincent. Yeah, I have a couple questions that we've received from parents because of the nature of the Franklin model and the structure that one question was regarding student council. And the fact that student council starts at fourth grade through sixth grade. So, how will that be impacted? Do you know yet at if we can only do K4 initially? How will student council be handled? Do you know? And we've thought about it and we've started having those conversations. I mean, until there's a final decision and then eventually the final grade levels, that's going to determine some of those outcomes. And we value the student involvement in in making our school the best place that it can be and that's the same thing when you're moving to a

161different location. Transportation has has really worked hard on making the times about as seamless as possible for students. So, there's the possibility that there could be student council happening on two different campuses working together. It could be the possibility of students in older grades bussing over to Wilson and having student council after school where everyone's together and implementing those different initiatives that they develop. Whether it's talking about the campuses, whether it's food drives, whether it's events for assemblies, you know, planning like this year planning the Veterans Day assembly. So, our student council, you know, they're going to keep moving forward and I think all of those individual kind of situations, assemblies, what does an assembly look like? What does track and field look like? What do parent volunteers look like? What does before after school

162band look like? So, all of those kind of unique one-offs, depending on the final decision of grade levels and then of course working closely with the administrator over at that campus is going to be vital in in kind of what it is. But, the definitive answer isn't there yet because we're not there yet. But, I can tell you the hamster's running non-stop and I I shout things out in my car. My daughter's like, "What's that, Dad?" I'm like, "I was I was thinking about how we could get band. I was thinking about how we could do elementary band." And I'm talking to myself. So, And the hamster's running in all our all our heads. So, we we're committed to give every student who's at Franklin at Brimhall and that would go to Franklin Wilson and

163beyond the same experience and the same I think special experiences, you know, memorable experiences that all of the students currently have at Franklin Brimhall. So, whatever we can do to make that happen, I mean, that's the commitment to do. So, student council, band, orchestra, assemblies, field trips, you name it. You know, we have little mentor club for sixth graders and third graders. How are we going to keep that going? There's a lot of things that happen that people don't even know about that we want to keep going that's special for those students. My my hamster's going as well. I'm thinking you could probably use technology as well. Absolutely. >> can do virtual virtual between your two campuses. My second question is and there's several that I can forward to you if you want to respond

164to your community. But, my question is teacher so Franklin is a totally different culture. Right? Um Do we have a It's my understanding that principal when you take over a Franklin school has to be trained in the Franklin model. Do we have a principal or we going to open that up that is trained in the Franklin model? Just like like when Serene became Montessori Andrea Erickson had to be trained in a to be a Montessori principal. So, do we have that Or are we waiting? A lot of it hinges on whether or not it's approved, right? Cuz there's silly to do a lot of work to move forward if you don't know if you're moving forward. But, in the back of our mind, we already have somebody as well as teachers because teachers have to

165be trained in the Franklin model as well. Mr. Vincent, Miss Mesa, Dr. Eses, Miss Man have had initial conversations on what administration looks like in this new area and I will tell you that uh no matter what we deploy, we're going to be thoughtful about how to deploy administrative services across all elementary schools in the district. We know that we need to expedite if this occurs, we need to expedite the interest process of who may be interested in being the principal of a Franklin Wilson. We also need to be understanding that we have a really high quality principal in our opinion right now at Wilson and we have to garner what the interest is and what our opportunities are for that principal in Mesa Public Schools moving forward if if this methodology doesn't necessarily align

166This instructional methodology doesn't necessarily align with with where she's at from a pedagogical point of view. Does that make sense to you? You have to have people that buy into the Franklin system to lead Franklin systems and lead Franklin schools. So, yes, we've had the initial conversations and yes, you are correct. We don't want to forward design too much and waste our valuable time and cuz we have a lot of other moving parts going on, but if this action item passes, we'll get right to it and we know we need to expedite processes. Yeah, just a couple of moving parts. That's it. Just a few. Oh, well, and I think it's really important like even in the the redesign and the people that we're hiring for a variety of different positions, we have to make

167sure that they that they are in line with the vision. So, at Franklin, whoever we hire as principal and the teachers, if the Wilson teachers there want It is a different way of teaching. I I'm a former gifted teacher so like it wouldn't be my cup of tea. However, I see the value in it. Right? Um But, we have to make sure we have people that are in line with the vision and that are not going to undermine what we want to have happen at Wilson in order to feed to Franklin to then see the high school. And the same in the restructure as you're as we're looking at people, we want to make sure they're in line with the vision and they are not undercutting anything that we're attempting to do cuz we're trying

168to rebuild Mesa uh and get people back. So, um thank you. That's all the questions I have. Thank you, Ms. Binson. Ms. Walden. So, Dr. Strom, you mentioned that Wilson has a decline rate of 40%. So, they're at 340 now, around that? So, we So, we do nothing, then going into next year, do we still expecting to see that large decline that eventually this is just going to be a school that gets closed? Is that correct? Uh that would be the consideration of the board. We're We're committed to try to put the gloves on and fight for all of our schools in Mesa Public Schools for as long as we possibly can. But, yeah, I mean, the implication is as you see it probably. And then you um you'd said that, you know, Wilson used

169to be a much larger school, maybe a thousand. One of the parents emailed me that promptly emailed all of you, but uh Wilson had a max capacity of 500, but I think it capacity was up to a thousand, right? Well, there's 29 I can tell you the exact data. There's 29 classrooms on Wilson's campus. You generally can fit 25 to 30 kids. That's on the interior. Then, we had portables at Wilson as well. And so, then you add that on top. So, 29 * 30, 870 kids. You had the portables on You had the portables on top of it, six classrooms at 30, right? If you're going to jam-pack that facility, you can fit a lot. Now, most people will tell you you don't want a facility running at 100%. You run at 90% or

17080%. So, you know, the capacity of a school is somewhat up to debate because of what people desire. But, if the facility was full with the portables back in the day, that's why they put portables there. It would have been closer to 800 to a thousand students. Member Walden, we did share in our hearings the data that supported So, like 20 2022, there were 570 students at Wilson, and we just showed every year and then the projection going to next year. And their sixth grade is the highest right now. So, based on our trends, kinder numbers will be lower than the sixth grade. So, the trend will continue. And then are the families that are in the at Wilson, there are some concerns that they have to volunteer on two committees or else donate? Is

171that going to continue for these families? So, for all Franklin families, they go through the parent orientation process, and then every family signs up for two committees. Um they can choose to donate and opt out, but it's two committees that parents sign up for, one school committee and the one Firebird Festival committee. So, that's going to continue. So, the parents that are at Wilson, it's going to be a a shift for them if they want to stay that they have to either basically buy it with time or with money? That is correct. They'll They're space at Wilson as long as they uh meet the expectations or want to meet the expectations of the Franklin model. Otherwise, they would go to what you just approved through the PABSEC recommendation, they would be going to their assigned

172school based on that reboundary. And as far as those committees go, we have such a wide variety of committees. They're not all at school. Some are done volunteer at home, some are online, some are just handing something to your student to bring in. And we really work with the parents to find an area of interest to them that helps serve a committee or a need of the school. So, when they find joy in it, their students see their parents participating and finding joy, which gets the students excited even more. So, we we pretty much have committees for most every type of family that's out there to help them be welcomed a part and appreciated um for for their time. How many committees are there? Dozens. So, for school committees, probably about two dozen committees, and

173each committee has dozens and dozens of people on it. And then Firebird Festival committee is about the same. So, like currently right now, I have about 550 families. So, I have 550 parents sign up for committees. And I do have some opt out. They choose to opt out, that's you know, that's okay, too. Um But, yeah, there's everything from copy committees, teacher appreciation, book review, um arts art masterpiece, arts and academics night, you know, track and field, um it it goes. Office committee, um on-call committees. Yeah, I'm just I'm just thinking about families on fixed incomes, single moms, people that people that work. And so, what's the what's the donation? Is Is there a minimum requirement? >> $25. Okay. Um so, that's That's the opt out. That's the opt out, so only 25, okay. I

174mean, it's That's not my favorite thing, but then closing a school much worse than asking parents to join a committee or pay $25 to help keep a school open. So, um the other Sounds like the the the traffic isn't going to be an issue. Um the the marquees, because there's things that are sort of in motion right now, and I the marquee cost was brought up to me, but I think it's you know, it's it's probably not a big cost in the overall grand scheme of things, but because we're unsure of things, I feel like maybe any changes like that might need to be delayed until uh further into the future. Can someone address that? Ms. Walden, I've been explicitly clear with Mr. Kramer, Ms. Mesa, and Mr. Wing that the marquees at most will

175be getting a repainting {slash} reskinning, and we're not going to Work Marquees can get really expensive is in the digital arena. And the reason digital marquees can get super expensive is not actually because the marquee, that's pretty expensive, but it's because of the conduit pull from electric and all that stuff that you need to pull out, and that can make the project really expensive. We are not going that route on these campuses, and they have been told that. So, there's been direct instruction we will not be spending money on that considering our capital position right now. All right, thank you. And then for the teachers, I know this was brought up, but I'm not entirely clear on it. So, the teachers that are currently at Wilson, they may not be in a position to be

176Franklin teachers. So, will you be helping them find other positions or giving them the option to be certified in Spalding? Uh they're welcome to be considered for openings at at the Franklin at Wilson if approved. Uh we also shared human resources will be in touch with them depending on today's uh uh decision, we'll be in touch with them giving them some priority interviews for the three schools, Johnson, Madison, and Jefferson schools. If there are openings, we do have an involuntary transfer process, which would be the second step of the process as well. Uh if you recall the governing board, cuz this was This was asked uh by the Wilson uh staff when we went and visited outside the hearings, we also attended and met with the staff. Uh One of the questions was about reduction

177in force. Uh the governing board approved a change in our reduction in force policy, and that does not include uh doing a RIF because we are changing this the purpose of a school. Uh so, as long as they don't meet the RIF criteria, they'll be placed in a another position. We always have teacher openings. Go ahead, Mr. Mr. Wing, can I ask some clarifying question cuz when you whenever anyone hears the word RIF, we are still evaluating for 26-27 based on a declining enrollment of approximately 2,500 kids whether we'll need a RIF for next year, right? We're hoping that the teacher uh retirement teacher retention ratios may put us in a position where we don't need one. We're evaluating that. And then, can I also clarify these Wilson teachers would would get the priority interviews,

178get an involuntary transfer, all that stuff, and would be considered just like any other person in the RIF process. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Correct. We're just adding to the RIF story. Uh we're still evaluating. We're waiting for our student enrollment projections and our staffing at all of our school, that that projection. Um last year, unfortunately, we did have to pursue a RIF, a small one based on uh the attrition we incurred. So, that's always something that's uh a possibility. But, we don't RIF solely because we're change We wouldn't RIF solely Wilson teacher solely because we're making a change to the the model at that uh campus. Uh they would be kind of in limbo a little bit. Um A, getting that priority of those three schools where those students who are currently

179attending Wilson uh reboundary-wise will be attending those three schools. And so, if there are teacher openings, those students By the way, will It'll add the capacity at those three schools, which I think Mr. Martinez shared was some exciting feedback we have. Those three schools were excited to get more students uh within their campuses, and which will lead to more teachers being needed on those campuses. So, the Wilson teachers will have priority there. Um but, if we were to have to do a RIF as Mesa Public Schools, we'll be following our RIF policy, and that's really predicated on staff discipline results and evaluation results. Right. And then uh just going back real fast to that to the fee or to the volunteer. If If you had a parent that was really interested in the Franklin experience,

180but genuinely felt like they had a situation that they couldn't either pay a fee or a attend a committee. Has there any instances where that is waived or there's an exception made? Absolutely. We have that every year with families. And most families are you know, we're going to want to find a way to contribute in one way, shape, or form. But, if they're in a difficult situation where they can't, we just explain whenever you have a time or a time in the year or in the next year where you can contribute to a committee, then we just encourage you to sign up for that committee. It never prevents a student from coming to our school. Yeah, I I think I mean, I think it's great that parents volunteer. Like absolutely, I I love the ideas

181of committees. I seems like more of our schools could do that. I'm just thinking about some of our families that are just in, you know, really hard situations. >> Absolutely. And our And our parent organization is is fabulous about that as well. So, yeah, those those families that are unable to for whatever reason it may be, we just explain the importance of what it does for our campus when they contribute. But at a time when they're able to, then we encourage them to then move forward in that way. Right. And then my other question with with Franklin is that there's a history of denying enrollment. And I have personal experience with this. So, what assurances do families have that they won't be denied enrollment at Franklin? So, all families go through the orientation process. No

182family's denied enrollment unless there is a waitlist. So, what we do have though is we do have screeners for students in the older grades. And then we go over those screeners with the parents about where our program is, where they're performing. But no one's denied. Every parent's allowed to enroll or or you know, choose that school. And sometimes it may not be a good fit for their students and and that's okay as well. Just like for teachers sometimes it's not a good fit. But enrollment is not denied for any student. Years ago there was a difference. Probably 10 years ago, but there's been a change in laws. So, no students are denied. We go through our orientation process. We do screeners. We give parents information. And then when they want to enroll, they're ready to

183enroll. So, Mhm. Um my other question is on uh determining the interest for either K4 or K5. So, when is the communication I know we Let me go back. We have to vote on this before we can determine what the interest is going to be. And then after we vote on it, I'm assuming there's going to be a mass communication to the schools about the boundary changes. And then the enrollment, is there going to be a deadline for parents? Because I think we need to find out as soon as possible if this is going to be a K4 or K5. I think putting deadlines would be helpful. So, eventually uh our vision is to have this be a K6 campus. We think it just makes sense to be K6 7-12. Uh the issue we're dealing

184with at Wilson space, right? And so, what we'd like to do is see how enrollment goes over the course of the next 2 months. It opens No The reason all these items before you tonight is because November 12th 12th November 12th, thank you. Uh open enrollment is upon us. And so, everyone out there get ready. We want your kids in Mesa Public Schools. Get them enrolled. We have lots of choice and variety. And then we'll observe enrollment at these schools throughout November and December. And we'd like we can put deadlines on it. You know, hey, by January if we're not seeing enrollment numbers at Franklin Wilson, we can make a decision by January 31st of whether we're going to expand to K5. If enrollment's to point where we're concerned, we'll keep it K4. Does that

185make sense? So, we can get deadlines on that for sure. Staff were identified as Just to add on to that, staff that are identified as fifth grade teachers will be alerted of the possibility as well so that they're make when they're accepting the assignment or the job, they're made aware they could be shifted from the Brimhall campus to the Wilson campus next year. It will not be a summer shift. I need everyone to hear that. We'll make our decision well prior to the summer and well prior to the end of end of the school year. So, let we'll get we'll get a together team get some deadlines on it and inform the board. Dr. Strong, if I could add something to member member Walden's comment. Mr. Abrams and I have talked about having information sessions

186at Wilson if this is passed tonight where Mr. Abrams and the Franklin principals can give information to the Wilson families about what a Franklin program is and put them through the similar to the parent talk that parents hear when they want to join a Franklin so that we can get a better idea of how many students that are currently at Wilson are interested in the Franklin program. That's great. And I think with declining enrollment overall and the demographic changes and you said ideally it would be K through six. So, that's we're open to that in the future. There is more declining enrollment, we would just shift fifth through sixth back to the Wilson school. All right. And then on specials, we talked about So, the specials at Wilson are and I think you said was

187really robust specials at Franklin. So, that's not going to change for the Wilson students. on the specials? No. And I need to be clear. I think my understanding of specials for band and orchestra is that they're an after school program for our before and after school program. Thank you. For our Franklin schools. So, that'll function exactly in the same fashion in a before and after school fashion. So, It'll It'll mirror the other two elementary Franklin elementary schools as far as the staffing. And then just to clarify cuz there is there's always sort of been confusion about what choice schools mean at Mesa Public Schools. Choice is just schools that don't have official boundary designations. It doesn't mean that they can be selective about which students attend. Is that accurate? That is 100% accurate. We are

188an open enrollment district in the state of Arizona and parents are open to enroll in any school they want to in Mesa Public Schools. And then just just my last one. I do think that, you know, for looking you know, looking at postings for teachers with the Franklin model, I think these two reconfigurations are very unique uh having a campus that could be possibly fifth grade to 12th grade, you know, or just having a smaller K through fourth grade. With And we talked about that the principal now is is in has in Wilson hasn't done Spalding or a Franklin school. And so, I would like to encourage Dr. Strong that I think that we should have postings both internal and external for these positions and possibly for the principal positions so that we make sure

189that we have people that can lead such a unique reconfiguration. And that's all. Thank you, Mrs. Walden, Mrs. Chappie. Um I was asked this week, how do you make tough decisions like this as a board member? And I said, it's hard when I know that these things impact people and families and staff. And so, I want you to know that we as board members have really talked to a lot of people. We've reviewed all the information from the district. We've weighed the pros and cons. And for me after kind of looking through all of that information, I and and talking to all of the people and thinking about how this is going to impact the future of our district, I do my best to vote my conscience and do what I think is going to

190set our families and our students up for success because I deeply believe in Mesa Public Schools. And and I I recognize that we're in tricky times. And I appreciate that we are looking at innovative solutions to keep schools in neighborhoods and keep students in schools. Um I will tell you I'm one of those parents that with my oldest was like, there's no way I would put them in a Franklin model. It was not a good fit for him, but I my appreciation for it has really increased. I have nieces and nephews who've done the Franklin model. And I have really seen the impact of having parents involved on campuses and informed. And I've seen the value of the science of reading and I think we're seeing that across the nation. And I've seen the value

191of a like a a comprehensive curriculum where teachers know where they're supposed to be and when they're supposed to be there. And I would love to see that implemented in our K through six schools across the district. I think those are values that we can learn from from the Franklin model that don't have to be just unique to the Franklin model. I think those are things that we can value as a district. Parents, strong curriculum resources. I think as we're seeing the data come in about student performance across the state that we can look at the schools that are doing things well. It doesn't mean that we have to take everything from Franklin, but I appreciate the work of our principals and the things that they're doing. And I hope that as we, you know,

192train up a new a new principal in this that we can maybe take some of that information into our other schools. Um is in alignment with that, does it cost any more to run a Franklin model versus one of our other elementary school models? Um most of our costs are in staffing costs. And we staff the Franklin schools similarly to all other schools. So, I think if I actually got down into technical analysis, the answer would be no. It doesn't cost any more. In fact, I I probably would suggest with such standardized desk and chairs, like if we actually examined furniture costs, you might see a little cost savings on the furniture side of things. But in general, most of our money's wound up in staffing. And we staff them the same. So, Okay. Um

193I think that's all the questions I have. I think all my board members have done a great job. Thank you. I do have a question. We talked about Wilson teachers. What about Wilson classified staff? Where Where does that lay? Human resources will be in contact with the classified staff. We're analyzing uh how many may come from the elementary side from Franklin campus to the Wilson campus. Uh but we have we want to keep them in a Mesa Public Schools. They've already been informed. It just may be in a different school location, but that's still to be determined. Okay. And I do recognize that a lot of these questions are hard to answer because we have to prove this tonight to move on. And so, as we filled out a lot of emails and different questions

194have come in, it is tricky to answer because we don't know where we're leading you know, where it's going. Um and I do know that I've had quite a few conversations with parents and families. Their concern is splitting our fifth and sixth graders at another campus. And so, as we look at things, I would love to see what we can do to fit as many grades as possible at Wilson. I want us to grow, but I also I think our families um when we look at continuity and you're splitting families between so many campuses, that becomes a hesitation. And so do we stay at Franklin or do we leave? Um and I've heard that a few times like and so I think like board member Walden said about time frame, that's going to be critical

195because they might be waiting to see how many grades are going to be at Wilson before they decide what they're doing with their students. Yeah, I can tell you at our parent organization meetings, you know, transportation and then the grade level bands. They they are the pieces and um like I said, we keep working and working, you know, with transportation and then hopefully with having information sessions that we're trying to kind of front-load this next month so we can get a pretty good idea as soon as possible for what enrollment would be. Um because ultimately, I know there has to be a decision made on those grade level bands so parents, you know, know exactly what would happen next year. I appreciate that. And I think about it as I look at our high schools

196and we've made changes there. We've called them the pioneering of their their schools. And so I think of that these sixth graders that they might be in a little bit of a limbo land that we look for opportunities to, you know, make them feel a little bit important cuz eventually, I think I the plan is Wilson will be a K-6, but we just we are in a lot of unknowns. Um Do I have any other questions? Yes. I'd like to piggyback off of um member Chaffee uh just because I have a gifted education background, I actually do have an appreciation for Franklin. I do. I went when I first saw it, I was like, "Oh, this is totally different than what I what I had envisioned." Right? So, I appreciate the the work. And um

197I I think the role of parental involvement is so important. Uh I'm sure research still shows that when a parent is involved with a child's education, they are more likely to succeed um and graduate. Whatever level of support they can give them, right? Um the last question that I know that uh parents are going to want to know uh that was asked was your parent organization. So, perhaps when you have the listening sessions, uh it are there going to be two separate parent organizations? One for uh Franklin at Bibb Brimhall, one for Franklin at They really want continuity is what I got from the emails that I got from Franklin parents. And they they're concerned that the continuity will not be there uh if we split up uh the elementary, you know, at a certain

198spot. Um although, a lot of districts around us do middle schools. So, a middle school model starts at sixth grade. So, I I I think that's a nice that would be a good cutoff to um put sixth grade into That's what Tempe does. I I think Chandler is a middle school model, too, isn't it? Uh every every district has their unique splits. And I will tell you right now that uh there is one of our competitors who started on the foundation of a K-4-5-12 split under the idea uh that uh you you teach kids to read K through four and maybe you need fourth grade to get kids to that level of reading you need and then five through 12 is about content knowledge content acquisition and trying to get as much uh material across

199a wide variety of contents. That is not a public school, by the way, competitor. That's a charter school competitor that does that. So, I've seen every type of uh grade configuration there is out there, but honor the fact that in Mesa Public Schools, we've been traditionally K-6 and and want people to hear that's what we want to work to at Franklin Wilson. And just to respond to the parent organization question, my parent organization is the best group of parents that can help support a school that an administrator could ask for. And we have thorough conversations every month and then more thorough conversations every week and then some calls in the evening just for thoughts and ideas of what we can do to best support the students in this situation that ultimately the goal is to

200be temporary. So, those conversations are happening and keeping that continuity, you know, the elementary students, we still want that feel of one school. Almost like the feel of one Franklin, you know, like with multiple campuses. This is like a one mini Franklin with two campuses for a period of time, but really to have that support unified with one parent organization has been the conversations. So, therefore, we can still continue those traditions with the students that have been developed with this group. So, there those conversations happen regularly and they're so thoughtful, our parents and and and caring and I can't say enough good things about them. So, I know they're going to do uh the right thing whatever they choose is going to be what's best for those students. We're good. Any other All right, thank

201you. Thank you, Mr. Abrams for uh taking a taking one and taking all of our questions. We appreciate it. Um Ms. Kirby, we're ready for a vote. With a vote of five yes, we've approved designating the school at 5619 East Glade Avenue, Mesa, Arizona 85206, a choice school named Franklin Accelerated Academy Wilson Campus with grade levels of preschool through six beginning in the 2026-27 school year with the intent to enroll students in grades kindergarten through fourth to begin in the 2026-27 school year. We are now on to action item C. Do I have a motion to approve the addition of ninth through 12th grades to the school at 4949 East Southern Avenue, which will be named Franklin High School starting with the 2026-27 school year with the intent to enroll grade nine and potentially grade

20210 depending on enrollment for the 2026-27 school year? So moved. I'll second. Ms. Bentsen has moved and Ms. Hutchinson has seconded. Thank you, ladies. Any discussion? We'll start with Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah, I don't know who I'm going to be asked Sounds Sounds like Mr. Abrams is the man. All right, man. All right. Okay, so I have I have A lot of my questions are being answered that I have for Franklin High School by just understanding the Franklin model better. Um and I so I so I but I do have two questions having been a high school teacher. So, um what are the costs of turning the learning environment at Franklin Accelerated Academy Brimhall Campus into a high school campus? I mean, my my my hamster wheel is going and I'm thinking about facilities like furniture

203and equipment and bleachers and the auditorium and the locker room and the learning resources and teacher training um library upgrades and oh, now you're a high school, so now you got to have cameras and SROs and and and parking. So, I'm thinking, "Whoa, what's the price tag going to be on that?" Okay, so that's my That's my first question is about taking this space that has been a junior high campus for decades and and now turning it into a high school campus. My second question, because Franklin schools have specialized curriculum, teaching practices, etc., how is the staff being hired {slash} prepared to meet the requirement of a Franklin model at the high school level? You want me to take that one first? >> come back to the first one. Okay. So, the Franklin model changes

204when it gets to secondary school. It's not the same traditional model with Spalding method. The grading scale goes back to the um traditional grading scale of of all the neighborhood schools. In secondary school, you start offering courses. Every course isn't at an accelerated pace. So, algebra at Franklin Junior High right now is algebra, the same course that's offered anywhere else, whether it's Shepherd, Mountain View, any other campus. So, the the structure of the classrooms may be different, but the the actual courses and the resources that are used are the same resources that we use across Mesa Public Schools. The course offerings are different. Like at Franklin Junior High and really Franklin High School would be a continuation of Franklin Junior High is the idea. But we offer multiple levels of courses. Like for math, there's

205three different levels of math for our current eighth graders. So, in in in the traditional elementary school model, it's different when you get to that secondary level. So, there's not a specific Spalding training for secondary teachers. It's certifications for those content areas. When then you get to high school, now it just kind of just continues that with more specialized content areas instead of a kind of general, you know, seventh grader K through eight with a science endorsement. You know, you have to have the proper certifications for the certain courses or AP certifications or if it was dual enrollment certifications. Those are going to have to continue because we're we're going to be on level when it comes to graduation, college, career recruitment with every other high school and those playing fields are have to be,

206you know, leveled as far as when you're comparing students and their achievements and things that they've accomplished. So, so it's kind of like a mind shift when you get to secondary school for Franklin. I'm worried a little bit about tier one instruction, but if we're starting ninth grade, maybe 10th, that we're we're we're gradually leaning into this model of a Franklin High School that maybe I we want to make sure that we got the best instruction and I don't I don't doubt for a second that um that that wouldn't happen but it's it's it's it's a it's a different ball game between junior high and high school having done it. It's it's a whole different ball game. Yeah, and currently just so you know, we have teachers certified to teach high school courses at Franklin

207Junior High and we have many teacher leaders that are so passionate about our program and passionate about the school and they come to me with I think if we were to say move a few teachers from eighth grade to ninth grade and then you bring in a few other ninth grade teachers and add a couple other eighth grade teachers you have some of the more core staff philosophy instructional practices that that lend itself to incorporate a little little better stronger sooner. Um you know, and and kind of grow along those ways. So um there's a lot of smart people with great ideas that that have this going on constantly. >> hamsters and wheels, too. Yeah, those are the ones >> hamsters out there. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Mrs. Hutchinson. On the yeah, on the

208financial side we've walked campus with Mr. Kramer. We walked campus with Mr. Eubanks. Uh the blessing of being in Mesa Public Schools for both the Shepherd and Franklin items before you is that these used to be seven sorry, seventh through ninth grade can I thought I said it wrong I didn't seventh through ninth grade campuses and those ninth grade campuses were fully outfitted with really big time facilities. I would say that Franklin Brimhall Shepherd rival some some like facilities of small rural high schools almost because of of what they're provided. So locker wise we're in good shape at these schools. Uh security camera wise we take all security across Mesa Public Schools seriously. All the conduit runs are there already. It's already a school. We may have to add a few cameras here and there

209but that's not the major cost often times in putting up stuff. So and we're currently going through camera review process in IT department. So it'll fit nicely over there. The biggest the biggest one you brought up in my mind financially that we had to work through was the parking lot. That's going to occur probably in 2029-30. Maybe 28-29 if there's enough drivers and the faculty doesn't fit. We'll see. But we already have a plan for that. There's about 11 portables that are sitting around the Brimhall campus that custodial services has vacated. They used to use it as a training ground for custodians. They are now over at the Sun Valley complex. We changed that name. Did I get it right? They're now over at the Sun Valley complex getting training that's south of Red Mountain

210High School and we'll be able to bring down those portables. The portable savings are $15,000 a portable. Multiply that by nine to 11, right? Depending on the depending on the range. That's that's $135,000 and so that's recouped in perpetuity. So within about three years from that portable removal we can pay for the parking lot itself. So there's a cost offset to asphalting that parking lot. Generally asphalt's going to run in the $5 to $7 a square foot range. So hope hopefully we have some unique solutions. That's where and the benefit by the way of those portables going away the first three years will pay for a capital expenditure cuz remember in Arizona you can move M&O to capital capital to M&O. So first three years we'll do that but then once that's done that's M&O

211dollars coming back to the district from getting those portables off that campus. So uh lots of lots of unique things we're thinking about and I can't promise you we're not going to run into a few here and there where we go oh we yeah we need to do that we need to do that. Mr. Eubanks is already building in some uniform budget to his current athletic budget but we don't want to get too far ahead of us because at these schools they're not going to have comprehensive athletic programs, right? And so by not having comprehensive athletic programs they're going to have to figure out what student interest is and then we'll buy the stuff. Right? We'll then we'll say like student interest is in cross country. All right, let's buy some cross country uniforms for

212them. But that's why we're a little limbo. We want a lot of what's going to happen in the elective arena at both these schools and in the athletic arena is going to be driven by student interest cuz we won't have the economies of scale to offer everything on these campuses. Thank you, Mrs. Benson. Yeah, um Mr. Abrams, can you um share with us the uh interest of um Franklin parents for a high school model because it sounds to me like uh it it's actually going to be very similar to the uh education potentially that they would get at any one of our comprehensive high schools but on a much smaller scale. So they'll still have um well and one of the concerns of parents a couple that emails that I got were that um well

213we thought we were interested in a Franklin High School but we're not if we can't have dual enrollment AP cuz our kids are college bound. So it sounds to me like that is should not be a concern for these parents. Is that correct? They may not have comprehensive sports but but they will have access to assuming we have uh certified teachers to dual enrollment to AP classes. Um is that accurate? Do you still see the the um desire for a high school? Yeah, so so as far as those offerings goes the biggest question that we had was from dual enrollment and and that's the certified staff, you know, question as far as having someone certified to teach those classes later on. The idea is that we want those students to be able to be college

214bound if that's their choice you know, to move forward in that way. So absolutely as far as those core course offerings they're going to have AP and and dual enrollment is the goal as long as you know, certified staff can be hired to teach those courses. Um I think some of the electives what what my parents didn't understand is you can't offer such a wide variety of electives when it's aligned with career and technical education cuz there has to be two-year cohorts in certain tracks. So whereas in junior high I can offer a wide variety in high school you do have to have a bit of a track. So we've had a lot of education with parents for that. Um the the special part that parents really talk about for me is is not necessarily

215the course it's the culture of the school the small smaller school environment. One of the most common conversations we have every spring with parents after promotion in the eighth grade award ceremony is thank you so much thanks to the staff for everything that they've done. When are we going to have the high school? I don't want it to stop and that's been going on for for a while. So I think some of the parents are kind of learning about what what is different between a comprehensive high school and what we would offer and if a student wants to play football we're not going to have football because we can't. If the student wants biotech we're not going to have a biotech track at Franklin it it just wouldn't work. They would they would you know,

216choose Red Mountain for that. But if they want a smaller school environment with highly structured high expectations where my seventh grade teachers know every single student in our junior high. Mhm. My seventh grade teachers know every student. My eighth grade teachers know about two-thirds of the students either they're teaching them that year or they've taught an elective or club or sport or something like that. So every student is known the relationships are built and I think one of the things that I'm most proud of has nothing to do with academics it has nothing to do with sports has nothing to do with performing arts. The number of students that come back when there's 10th grade PSAT tests and I have 40 to 50 ninth graders come back to visit their junior high teachers when they

217could be home sleeping playing a video game but they want to come back to Franklin Junior High to talk to their teachers to visit with us to tell us how great they're doing and then the seniors come back when others are taking tests and the juniors come when others like to me that's probably the most special feeling that you can have for a staff cuz it shows the impact and appreciation that they've had for years to come after that. So as far as continuing on Franklin High School I have all the confidence in the world that we're going to have a great school. It's going to be a small school. It's going to be different just like Franklin Junior High is a small school and it's different. But if you saw Franklin Junior High 15

218years ago and then you see it now you never would have thought it was the same school 15 years ago with 90 students in some portables in the back of a Red Mountain lot, right? And here we are competing in every area superior scores in performing arts competing for championships not all sports all years but competitive in most every sport every year extracurriculars clubs community service and then of course the academic area is extremely strong. So that's the goal to continue on for Franklin High School and that's the pocket you know, of families that I think truly are going to appreciate it and there's always there's always an uneasiness of I I thought I was going to get this high school catalog when I registered. You're not going to get the whole high school catalog

219when you register. It's going to be a smaller catalog that's a bit more streamlined but that can still make an absolutely fabulous experience for students in a well-rounded high school education. Okay, I did I hear you say that you're going to have CTE courses in two-year bands like like the academy model? Did I Nopes. This is this is a six six period day school and there may be an opportunity to work with our executive director college career and community to implement a traditional CTE type program but we won't be able to run every CTE program on that campus. So >> Okay, well that's what I I thought I thought >> was the example I used like we wouldn't be able to You wouldn't be >> Yeah, we wouldn't be able to offer all of that.

220You have to have a certain streamline in one say track for CT. Okay, I'm going to play that on my neck. I I misheard you. That's okay. Remember remember Benson. Remember Benson. Um and the last oh just go ahead. Just real quick. One one little thing that I need Jeff to hear Mr. Abrams sorry to hear right now as well is you know, and this goes back to member Hutchinson's question about expense. I got hit with a question on what about the fume hood for chemistry lab? Right? And that's going to be an expense someday at the converting a lab to that. We got to think uniquely. Right? We say we have a ULC classes through ASU that the board blessed us to approve and chemistry is a very non-controversial ASU class, right? It's a

221traditional subject class that fits a Franklin model really well and there's no reason why we can't take advantage of ASU ULC classes. So, I just want everyone to hear we you know, we may not be able to get every certified teacher at Franklin that we need for certain subjects, but it doesn't mean that they won't be able to provide it through some sort of unique way to look at ULC classes through the university and having learning experiences for kids. So, will you mean that's what 11th and 12th grade could look could look a little different in getting traditional subjects delivered with college certified teachers and not just high school certified teachers. So. Well, then that's what I actually was thinking about the ASU as a possibility. That that'll fit great because you don't have to

222have I mean it's ASU teachers. So, one final question is now that we are moving to a regional model, you know, and and it's based on high schools where Yeah. where is Brimhall going to fit? So, Mrs. Mesa, Dr. Easton has been working tirelessly on all those regional models and what school goes to what direction. I will tell you that our effort in Mesa public schools is to diversify our portfolio school offerings across all learning communities. We know the number one reason that kids don't take advantage of school choice and it and it it's in research is because of transportation. Right? It's very hard for my parent from Dobson region, Dobson learning community to get up to Kate Design Academy or STEM Academy up at the Red Mountain Ranch area. So, with that being said,

223we're going to continue to try to diversify diversify our portfolio in every region. So, our executive directors were purposefully selected because they have to be able to function across every delivery model. Does that make sense to you? And so, what I mean by that is there'll be some traditional neighborhood schools in their learning community. There'll be a Franklin school in their learning community. There'll be right a traditional comprehensive high school and there may be Franklin high school in their learning community as well. It's You got to think about these executive learning communities and regions more as supervisory than staunch boundaries if that makes sense to you. There will be some kids who go to an elementary school that are in the Skyline learning community, but because 30% of those kids from that elementary school go

224over the Mesa High School by boundary, they'll end up at Mesa High School. So, you can't get married to the fact that it's all boundary centric if that makes sense if that makes sense. So, Franklin High School will fit into one of the learning communities and be that executive director is going to have to know how Franklin High School runs and how to lead it forward with that principal. And the the last comment and I'll have it for Shepherd as well. I I love the idea of um junior high and high school mixed for those really intellectually capable kids in math or in reading and language. They're not limited to just junior high courses. They can I assume be able to take some high school courses as well. So, I I love that. So, that's

225all I have. Thank you, Mrs. Walden. No questions. Mrs. Chaffee. Yeah, I agree with board member Benson that there's some awesome opportunities. I know a lot of junior high kids who are in that advanced accelerated math option and it's like oh, again we're doing we're only there for 2 years and now we're trying to take high school classes. So, I think there's some great opportunities. Um how will we manage shared spaces in a way that we can ensure a safe and positive and age-appropriate environment? So, Oh, do you want me to Oh. Well, if he said good question, then that that now I'm nervous. Now, I think you know, it's it is a good question and I and I relate it back to when Brimhall opened. I have eighth graders on that campus with kindergarteners

226coming in. And parents couldn't believe that there's going to be kindergarteners on the same campus as eighth graders. Oh my goodness. And those eighth grade parents are like there's going to be kindergarteners having accidents down the hall where my eighth graders what and and I can tell you that that's probably been one of the the least concerns that I've had to address in any way, shape or form. And usually it's a kindergartner doing something silly and an eighth grade teacher being like so, what happens when a student does that? Thinking they're going to be suspended. I'm like no, we call home and we just kind of remind them about expectations. So, so I look at it the same way except it's just a few other grades. I have a 10th grader. I have a sixth

227grader. I have no concerns as a parent about the 10th grade sixth grade difference. But if my fifth grader is my oldest students and they're having a 10th grader on campus, that's a different lens to look through. And so, that's the type of lens that we work through. The campus is set up in a way where you you we currently have different restrooms, schedules, cafeteria, PE, everything already between junior high and elementary that's separated. So, for the most part those elementary students that would be there for the time being are still going to be very very separated. As far as junior high goes, junior high still junior high. So, sports for junior high remains junior high. Performances for junior high remains junior high. Um their courses, you know, their electives, they're going to remain junior

228high. So, it truly does function that way. There may be some overlap in performing arts or or like a higher math class for certain students. But for the most part separating the the younger students from the older ones, start and end times are going to be different is what it's looking like. Transportation is different is what it's going to look like like it currently is. So, there's a lot of natural barriers that are put in place and then with scheduling that kind of also lends itself to it. And the last thing is our elementary students don't walk anywhere without supervision. They don't walk from recess to class, class to cafeteria, cafeteria to class to bus without supervision. So, the wherever they're walking there's always supervision. Secondary students change classes like, you know, normal secondary students.

229But then we have supervision outside and in the hallways when that happens. So, there's a lot of systems in place that that help to prevent any kind of concerns that come up and having the kindergarteners all the way to preschool now to eighth grade, you know, we've had pretty good systems in place to keep prevent any concerns and I think it'll be the same for those elementary students while they're there and junior high still going to be separate for those events. Thank you for that thoughtful response. I appreciate that you're doing the work of thinking through that and I I agree. I think there's a different lens. I would agree like when it's your oldest going into it that feels differently than when you're like oh, I've got a 10-year-old who's or a 10th grader

230who's ridiculous sometimes and we realize they're maybe not so big and scary as we think they are. Um are there enrollment minimums that we are requiring to have the addition of grades 9 and 10? Like a minimum number of students who need to enroll. If we're enrolled at less than 25 kids as of the same probably deadline that we're going to set for Franklin Wilson, we're going to have to have interesting conversations in the spring. These are always the risk. It's the same thing that occurred when we did Kate STEM Academy at Red Mountain Ranch. Like you're always nervous about initial enrollment. Other at it we think we're going to allot originally four FTE for these campuses and that enrollment's 100. Right? But that's a single I've explained to several board members. That's a single

231year risk because if we enrolled 50 in the students in the first year and you allot four FTE, you're a little outside of allotment which affects the budget. But then the next year they roll up to sophomore year, right? And now all of a sudden you don't allot any more FTE. You have four FTE still and you're back right on target. So, it's a one year risk and and uh less than you can see why less than 25 becomes problematic cuz then the next year you're still significantly high in budget when the 25 kids roll up and you have 50 kids. You go oh, it's going to be a two three year budget impact. So, that's the general range. And then we do art these schools so the community knows this. We are going to

232have maximum capacities on grade levels forever because these schools can only fit so many kids. So, we don't we don't think we'll ever have over 150 kids in a cohort. These will always remain small, intimate learning environments for our community. So, maximum capacities at 150 kids on these campuses per cohort and it'll never be bigger than a 600 student high school if that makes sense to everyone. And that's kind of hard to wrap my head around as a Mesa grad like there were like 900 in mine. So, I think there's some great opportunities for students and families. Thank you. I'm just wondering Mr. Abrams, have you slept at all? Cuz my brain hasn't stopped like thinking of all these things and you have thought of a lot of things. >> I don't have a lot

233of superpowers, but I do have one superpower and that is when my head hits the pillow the lights are out for 6 hours guaranteed and my wife isn't the biggest fan of that superpower. But so, yes, it's a it's a very exciting time and it's a very busy time. But um I do I do get some sleep. No, I just want you to know how much we appreciate you. I think it seems to be very thoughtful as we've asked these questions. It's it's made to me anyway that you have thought through a lot of this process even without knowing for sure this you know, what's going to happen, but um I take it in it I take it from your community you have that you will get lots of feedback and some input on how

234to to work with them some things and and I appreciate the feedback and then the listening that because everyone brings a different perspective and so, um I appreciate the work that's gone into this and I appreciate being here tonight to answer all these questions. I think that we've are ready Mrs. Kirby to take a vote. >> With a vote of five years, we have approved the addition of 9th through 12th grades to the school at 4949 East Southern Avenue, which will be named Franklin High School starting with the 2026-27 school year with the intent to enroll grade 9 and potentially grade 10 depending on enrollment for the 2026-27 school year. We'll now go to D. Do I have a motion to approve the addition of grades 9 through 12 at 1407 North Alta Mesa Drive,

235Mesa, Arizona to be named Shepherd College Preparatory starting in the 2026-27 school year. Enrollment for the 2026-27 school year will begin with ninth grade students. So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Thank you. And we will start the discussion. Board member Hutchinson. Thank you, Madam President. Um Dr. Strawn, are we going to have some information from Principal Benza before we ask questions or do you want us to dive right in? I would prefer you dive right in. We are prepared to answer questions. Here here we go. >> Ms. Benza is up ready to answer. So And I I know she's ready. >> I'm ready to dive in with you. Okay, here we go. All right, so I've got I basically have two questions and it's and it's based on the description that

236we got. So for those of you that might not have read the description, it says that SCP, excuse me, SCP, Shepherd College Preparatory will provide a smaller academically focused environment emphasizing rigor, continuity, and college readiness. The program will offer accelerated coursework, advanced placement, dual enrollment opportunities, mentorship, early college and career planning beginning in middle school. Okay, so here's where my question begins. How do these qualities differ from our six comprehensive high schools? And and or in other words, how would how would Shepherd differentiate differentiate from the mission of our other high schools? Or in other words, why why would parents choose Shepherd? Um and then my second question and this came because of Activate today. I met a graduate of Gilbert Classical Academy at Activate. And and he said, "I want you to ask this

237question because it it it's based on what Mr. Abrams said. Does he need to come back up? No. No. No, he No No No No. He said, "It's not the course, it's the culture of the school." So what this what this kid said to me is he said, "How are you going to ensure that students are supported as they encounter the rigor and the very high expectations of a college preparatory school? Um because he said the attrition was it sounded like MIT. Went from 150 kids to 80. There weren't the supports for the kids. So first of all, why choose Shepherd as a college prep? And secondly, how will those kids with that type of a demanding rigor be supported? Okay, so to answer question number one, why Shepherd College Prep? I I think it's

238for families who are looking for what Mesa schools offers at our larger schools with our AP classes, dual enrollment, on level, but in that smaller environment where you can be more supportive. And to be more supportive, a lot of it comes down to hiring. So I think for me, my biggest challenge in the spring is going to be who am I going to bring in to help build that culture the first couple of years. I'm going to have to be really strategic in the teachers that I hire and the counselor that I get to hire at some point because we're not only going to build tradition and culture and build on the culture that we've created at Shepherd, but then also find ways to support our students. And one of the things that we have

239done, think I'm this is our fourth year, so we have a home room, we call it rodeo where the stallions are at the rodeo together and we try to build our culture through that. We try to teach our students about our community and support our community. We do grade checks in there. So we're going to continue with that into our high school, but model each grade level for grade level appropriate things that they're doing. So for example, their junior year when they're starting to really look at colleges and they're doing those college visits they're coming back and reporting that, "Hey, I went here. I saw this with my family." We're going to take that, "Well, what do you need to get into college?" "Well, you have to be able to write a resume." Then we'll

240help them with that. So we'll give them some of those supports. Um and we really look at a smaller environment that we can do that because we could really know our students. And I going to steal Mr. Abrams said that his seventh grade teachers know all of their students. That's the same thing that we have at Shepherd. We know our students really well. We know our community. So when we have our end of the year activities, the same thing happens. I have parents say, "Can we stay?" I had a young lady I ran into a young lady the other day at an event and she said, "Can I come back?" And I said, "No, you cannot. I I don't have anything to offer you." But that is we have a lot of families looking for

241that smaller environment. When I look at the the preparation that we've put into this and the discussions we have, I think about my own my own child and what do I want for him? And I want him to have a Mesa Public Schools diploma. Like that is, you know, that's top notch. But I I want a smaller environment for him. He is not going to be in an AP class in everything. He's not going to take honors seventh grade English next year. He's going to hate me when he sees this someday. But he'll take honors science. He'll take honors math. So we are really looking at how do we look at the whole child and support them because it's not right. There are very few kids who will be in an AP class for all

242four of their core academics. We know that some kids will want that, some will maybe want an honors, some will want to be on level. So we're really looking at how to have all of that within there. Um so it is very similar to what would be offered at our comprehensive high schools, which I've spent many years with those, but in a a smaller environment where we can really know our students and provide those supports. Does that answer your question? It sure does. Thank you. Mhm. Mrs. Benzen. No, I I mentioned when we were contemplating this a couple uh months ago. Uh I love the idea again because when you have academically gifted kids in certain areas, they are limited within the certain structure. But I also love that you just said you know, like

243my son's not going to take AP honors English. Um I'm hoping that you hire teachers that understand just because I'm awesome here doesn't mean I'm awesome here. Right? We We are all unique and have different things that we are really really talented in. I In my own personal experience, some of my kids had teachers that thought, "Well, you go to it was called ELP then. Uh you go to ELP, you should be here all the time." I'm like, "Uh no. They're still kids, right? They're still people. So um I'm hoping you're going to include some maybe some parent education as well. But they are still kids and we want them to be, you know, the the real goal with a college prep or even a Franklin High School uh we want them to continue on

244in their learning. Right? If it becomes so rigorous that they want to drop out, they're they're not going to want to do that. The other advantage I see to this as well as the Franklin uh you have the potential for having a community of kids that are together what, six years? Mhm. Seven years with Franklin, it's going to be more. I can just see some profound profound friendships long-term Mhm. because they've gone through all that weird teenage stuff together, you know? But they work together. So the small school model, it's not for everyone. Some people are going to want that big large rah-rah. But I I love the idea that we are expanding our choices. We're becoming competitive. And again, let's draw people back to Mesa. So I'm really excited about the college prep possibility.

245Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Malden. Any question? Yeah, so are we going to communicate to the whole community about the college prep in case there's a students from other high schools or junior highs that are interested in this opportunity? Yes. All right. Good. Good, that was an easy question. I was hoping to answer that one. No, well let let me let me explain a little bit more. You take the easy one. If we're not advertising on a constant basis in a market-based education environment in education, you should be advertising 180 school year and we've been working with the principals the last two years. You got to advertise over the summer. The summer's where parents make most of their choices. Like we have got to make sure parents throughout this district know that they have a

246place in a home for them to make a choice for their child. And so, the answer is yes, and for parents that did not happen to choose us this last year in transition from 8th to 9th grade, we're going to be contacting you, too. And we're going to say, "Hey, we have new options for you at the 9th grade level." Or sorry, at the 9th 10th grade level. Why don't you come back and choose Mesa Public Schools again? And I'm just wondering just to clarify, too, are we thinking about, you know, because we could email every parent in the district K-12. And I think maybe like there's going to be parents that are have kids who are just in elementary school that are thinking about, "Okay, where do I go for junior high or high

247school?" So, are we looking at something really comprehensive like that, too? Okay. Very good. I'm excited about a college prep school. What's different about this this change is that I didn't hear anything from anybody. We didn't get any emails like for or against. So, I'm not sure what that means, but I think having I've spread the word really well. Oh, good. Good, good, good. So, I think maybe it's a good enough thing that cuz sometimes people will email and they'll say like, "Please vote yes." But maybe they thought you'd be stupid to vote no, so they didn't bother to email us. Uh I I am excited for a a college a college prep school. And especially the ways that the district is using extra spaces is really exciting. There's There's been some stuff in the

248news, too, about districts with all this XX excess space and calling it wasteful. And that is not what's been happening at at Mesa Public Schools. I think we've been able to take extra space and develop really cool opportunities that I think will help serve everybody in our in our district. It's a It's a diverse city out in Mesa. I love it. I always joke around that it's like it's the biggest city that feels like a small town, I think, in in the country, right? So, I'm I've got no no feedback. Just I want you to know my enthusiasm and definitely voting yes. Thank you. This is Chaffee. Shepherd is a campus that is near and dear to my heart. My family makes fun of me all the time because I sat through Beauty and the

249Beast and I just sobbed because these 7th and 8th graders did a full-fledged production that put would put many high schools to shame with a functioning fountain and all of the vocals. It was so impressive. I I will make you teary to think about. Seriously, so impressive. And so many families are choosing Shepherd right now because of the theater and choral program. Like a third of the junior high students participate in the choir. Like that is a remarkable number. And we know that we've seen them perform. They perform all over the state. They're fabulous. So, I was kind of surprised when the proposal was a college preparatory program because everyone knows Shepherd for the arts program. So, how are we going to continue to show This is This might be a district question cuz I

250know that you support it. But how are we going to continue to show that we value and support the arts program at Shepherd? Uh well, I've had the same experience at Shepherd Junior High. I annually go out to their events and my wife has gone with me cuz they're so phenomenal. And I will tell you that uh the elective that you know, as we said with most small schools, the electives will not be as wide-ranging as a comprehensive campus. And I'm thoroughly convinced that the one of the primary electives that will be at Shepherd, not just at the junior high level, but in Shepherd College Prep, will be late related to music and or performing arts and or whatever direction Ms. Benza wants to take it with her staff. Um so, I I see it

251actually as a ability for the the school to flourish into a 7th through 12th grade performing arts as the primary elective area for for students. Um and then we will always continue to support just wonderful teachers. I mean, every every single thing that the amazing part about education is the teacher it and their passion for their subject and their uh inspiration for students in their subject is so important to student learning. And so, we'll do everything we can to continue to make sure that teacher thrives and those Sorry, those teachers thrive on that campus with that program. Ms. Benza, if you don't feel support from us, you just have a video tape of me saying we will support you. So, You just said it. And for Mr. Moore, I just want to bring up that

252there's some things I'd like to look at just with my arts background are solutions for facilities. Like you go to those concerts and they're already at max capacity in the auditorium. Their last choral program was very full. Their last choral concert. And so, when we start adding grades, I think there's some complicating things that we didn't have when we built those. So, facilities, storage, and transporting students, those are all things that come into play when we talk about arts. And just reiterating what I said before, let's look at those class fees because it's really really hard to support a performing arts program when you do not have the opportunity to collect fees. So, let's look at that program that we're already piloting in our junior highs and maybe bring back some information to the board

253to talk about that. Um I really appreciate that you're providing non-honors options because I do think students have lots of ways that they can engage. There are different things that they want to take as honors or dual enrollment. Um will the honors classes be double coded? Meaning that like honors students and non-honors students This might be a question for Dr. Eslis. Honors students and non-honors students will be taking classes in the same class. No, that is not our plan to do that. It's to have separate classes. Okay. Um and then Dr. Eslis, this is a question for you. The Rodeo class, is this like a freshman seminar class? Is this a class we're piloting? And do we have a curriculum to review for it? No. Um I will let Mrs. Benza expand on that, but

254it's it's really just a home room that they they start the day that way. Yeah, we start every we start four days a week with Rodeo. We've created most of our curriculum that we use in there. We've been We have you know, the Thrive program that we're that we do. So, that's one of the things that we do in there. We met with Lindsey Lenoff and talked about I hope I say it right. Naviance? Naviance? Naviance? And how we can use that as we move forward with the high school as well. So, we're looking at some of those things to bring it into there. I appreciate that. I think that sometimes we get into these gray areas of like curriculum approval with board, you know, I'm not going to beat that today. And I I

255just want to make a statement that we're hearing over and over again from our community that they do have these desire for traditional programs, for dual enrollment, for honors, for AP. And I appreciate the thoughtful approach that we're taking to meeting the needs of those students outside of Shepherd and Franklin. I want to make sure that we are articulating to the public how we are meeting the needs of those students at our comprehensive high schools because we've also received a significant amount of emails and conversations from parents asking for us to protect those pathways at our high schools. Thank you. Um one question I have is what about for me, the student that is not in any honors classes, but really wants to go to this great performing arts school? Is there a place for

256me? Absolutely, there is a place for you because we will have on-level classes as well. And they won't have be required to take an honors class. Like they won't have one any like requirement to do an at least in one honors. >> No, there will be no requirement for that. Okay. You might have just made one of these little girls I know's day. So, she was excited, but didn't think she could, you know, so thank you. Um I think I have one Yes, go ahead. Um my assumption is that because it's college prep, is it going to follow more of a classical education model? No, it is not. So, not based in the seven liberal arts of No, we are not going to do that. Okay. And College Prep, Madam President, is on grade level,

257too. Yeah, I agree. You you don't It's a little intimidating though when these kids hear college prep, they think they have to be So, when they hear these things, sometimes they think it's only if they're doing like high honors classes. Well, that's where I think the education of parents comes in. And hey, they're still kids. Yep. That's why on November 18th at 7:30 in my auditorium, we're having a parent session. You better say that one more time so that we can all write that down. What day is that? >> November 18th at 7:30. Show off Shepherd for my 7th and 8th grade will be from 6:00 to 7:30 that day. Please come to that as well. Yes. Ms. Sutton, oh In the evening, yes. Ms. Sutton, so Dr. Strum, I got a question. So, did

258I hear that um SCP will be allowed to explore a specialization? What if it might be performing arts or it might be humanities that that that that we are going to be based in student and community interest? And and perhaps if there is a specialization that that that our new college prep campus has that they can go that in that direction? Yeah, so so here's what I Here's the little style issue I just don't believe in. Uh and I've been in big districts before, you guys know that. Uh I I I can't tell you what a community needs when I we we try to get on camp every Monday and Friday we're on campuses, right? And we're trying to get out to every community, but Mesa's 200 square miles big. And we're active. And but

259the people that are going to know what a community needs more than me are those people and those people over there. And so, uh yeah, I mean, what I need you to hear hear me say is they won't be able to offer as many electives, we know that. They won't have the economies of scale, but they're They're to have to gauge off student interest and demand what their specialty and electives are and then our job is to support like you know, they they need to go attract kids. We need to support them when they get those kids and say this is what they choose to do. Thank you. Good. Any other questions? All right. Seeing none, Ms. Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five yes, we have approved the addition

260of grades 9 through 12 at 1407 North Alta Mesa Drive, Mesa, Arizona 85205 to be named Shepherd College Preparatory starting in the 2026-27 school year. Enrollment for the 2026-27 school year will begin with ninth grade students. And Ms. Benza, thank you so much for being here tonight. We really appreciate it. And thank you all for being here. We will now move on to E. Do I have a motion to approve to approve the intergovernmental agreement Arizona Department of Education Teacher Registration Apprenticeship Program? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Thank you. Any discussion starting with Ms. Hutchinson? And sorry, I moved really fast and I'm I apologize. I'm just really glad that someone else is over here trying to sort through their papers. So thanks for making me feel a little better.

261I I do not have any questions. I understand the program. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Benza. So I have just two quick questions. This is um My understanding is this is an apprenticeship an apprenticeship program such that I'm hired potentially as an IA, an instructional assistant who wants to be a teacher and I'm this is providing them with a financial pathway to get there, correct? Remember Benza, governing board in a way uh Just quickly it the register teacher registered apprenticeship program aligns with the US Department of Labor which has had an apprenticeship program for different fields, construction IT, things like that. And now or it had had has had education as well. Arizona's just been kind of late to the ballgame when it comes to teacher apprenticeship programs. And so the Arizona Department of Ed

262sought out Mesa Public Schools and another school district to be the first districts to have such model. Really because they have a strong faith in our pathways programs, our path to teach programs, etc. In this particular program and we can't expand it, but in this particular program we're looking at our high school graduates who went through the Ed Professions program who are aspiring to become teachers and in this model they get employed by us filling a need for us like an instructional assistant while they're going to call attending college. We have five who are currently in it right now. They're attending Mesa Community College under the Mesa Promise. So you can see we're building the pipeline and also filling our needs in our schools and also giving them great job embedded experiences in IA under

263the mentorship of the master teacher their teacher and then when they graduate with their four-year degree they're now employable and hired as a teacher and they have more confidence because they had that exposure and some experiences in this classroom. Really an IA can go to school at night and never tell us they're going to school at night anyway if to pursue a teacher program, but this is more of a bonafide program in alignment with Arizona Department of Ed as a partnership. So through the US Department of Labor the Arizona Department of Ed has this grant and they can use that grant to help support those in our case five individuals in this apprenticeship program. So they'll they can use the grant to buy clothing that's professional dress for a teacher. They can help buy coursework

264materials with it. So transportation, maybe they need a a gas card or something like that. So the grant is really to support these five individuals who are IAs for us meeting a need for our school district in the IA job because we have some still unfilled. Plus it's helping us with that teacher pipe building that teacher pipeline when they graduate. So we work with MC Mesa Community College in our in this case because this is our first year. We work with them and coincide to make sure that we give these individuals the best experiences both in our school district, but also in their college as they're pursuing the college of Ed degree. Okay, so on the that we have that made MPS district budget, I assume that the journey worker, that's the mentor teacher, correct?

265Did I read that correctly? There there opportunities for us to get stipend paid the teacher a stipend for being a mentor. Okay, that's >> So rather than just being IA IA supporting the IA is supporting that classroom. But the teacher is also involved in building the capacity of the IA. Right. So that's the journey person, correct? And then the other things that are in this budget are for the apprentice to have access to to help support their educational position. That's correct. >> Okay. I think that's the only Oh. How is this different from the associate teacher um program that we currently have? So we part we partner with Arizona State University with what's called the teach teacher fellows program where um when we worked with Arizona State University we aspired to um remove some barriers.

266Going back to most barriers are designed by the employer. It's also designed sometimes by us, but also by the college and the university as well. And so we wanted these individuals to to have school related experience be like an instructional assistant in our in our campus to meet the paraprofessional credit credentials. You have to have a AA degree, 60 college credits or pass the para pro test. So some individuals have that 60 college credits already or that associate's degree and perhaps they aspire to now finish their bachelor's degree and become a teacher. And so ASU has worked with us to make sure that a they're able to comfortably work without feeling the heat and also not having to take exhaustive night classes until 10:00 at night. So we really kind of worked the structure out

267for the schedule for the benefit of that individual. With that said, we can also develop a teacher apprenticeship program for not just the high schoolers going to the four-year program while being aid, but also we can also apply similar to the teacher fellows in apprenticeship program. We just have not done that. The other district that's applied this apprenticeship program, that's what they're leveraging where we're we're more focusing on moving forward those individuals through the Ed Professions who are aspiring to be a teacher and getting that four-year degree. Thank you, Ms. Walden. Yeah, so thank you and this is the first time that this is come before the board, this grant, right? Okay, that's what I That is correct. Yeah, cuz we So we got some questions about it. There was a news story that gained

268some traction and it said in it candidates only need a high school diploma or GED to apply for the apprenticeship program and it got a lot of attention cuz the headline said high school diploma qualifies for teacher program and so that made people really concerned that we'd have teaching in the classroom for students without the proper education. There's probably a word for it, but those images that you see where if you look at one side you see something, you look at the other side you see it's something else. When I first read that article, I did not maybe cuz I already knew what the apprenticeship program and what it meant, I did not see it that way. But then when I heard some I got some questions about it and I reread it, I still

269have it open actually. I'm like, okay, I can see how somebody reads it entirely different. So maybe perhaps their word choices was not correct, but it's really aspiring individuals who will eventually become a teacher and providing them job embedded experiences such as an IA while they're attending college. And then I'm assuming that we clarify and make sure people understand that there's still a background check or fingerprint clearance card to be in the classroom. Yep, they have to meet the credentials of just like any other They're an employee. They're an aid. They're no different than the aid who attends college at night that we don't even know they're attending college at night. They have to meet the the credentials of an employee. They are our employee. All right. Thank you. I'm glad you read that article,

270too, cuz you spurred some spurred some community interest. Yep. Thank you, Ms. Chaffee. Yeah, they definitely could have chosen their words differently and also the acronym is AZ trap. I'm like, that is my least favorite Arizona my least favorite education acronym out there. Maybe my most favorite, I don't know. Um but I agree. So I'm just going to ask yes or no question. We do not have 18-year-olds recently graduated from high school working as teachers in Mesa Public Schools as part of this program. No. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your questions. Ms. Kirby, I think we're ready for a vote. >> With a vote of five yeses, we have approved the intergovernmental agreement Arizona Department of Education Teacher Registered Apprenticeship Program. Don't say that 10 times fast. Thank you. All right, we

271are through action items. We are now on to first read of updated policy 5-209 school libraries media and resource centers. Ms. King, can you review the updates with us? Um, I was uh prepared to review the new policy with you since I did not propose the library policy. I So, yeah, let's just see. Is there any questions on the um the updated policy for 5-209? Board members, any questions on that? Ms. Hutchinson, and we'll go around. >> Yeah, okay. So, um I'm I'm not quite sure um the the source of the policy. Who wrote the policy? The new proposed 5-209 school libraries media and resource centers. >> Yeah, Board member Hutchinson, this is a policy that uh Member Benson and I worked on together collaboratively under the advice of legal counsel to make sure that

272we were in alignment with state statute and to update our our library policy to make sure that it was in alignment based on legal counsel. >> Okay, thank you very much. Um, so um we have uh the additional information um for the policies in red, correct? Correct. >> Okay. So, um I guess my question is the um let's see, it would be the third paragraph uh which is in red after the first two bullet points. Um and there are let's see, there's two additional bullet points that are added. So, would you um I'm I'm just asking, why do you feel that these two bullet points are needed? Um, Board member Hutchinson, after attending the ASBA conference, it was apparent that this is an area that that can be opening our districts open to to legal

273issues. We want to make sure we're in alignment with all possible um situations. And so, we worked together to revise this policy to make sure that our parents had a clear opt-out procedure if there were things that didn't align to their family values, and also to make sure that we were in alignment with ARS 15-120.03C. These were things that were missing from our policy in the past, and so we just wanted to make sure that we were in alignment and added those in. Okay, thank you very much for the explanation. I really appreciate it. Um I was wondering if um you would be um agreeable to maybe some edits. Yeah, do you have proposed ones? I I have I have a suggestion and um just to make the second bullet point maybe a little bit

274more clear and not as as wordy. Um but I'm not sure that that's this is the proper time to do that. Would it maybe might be better if I just sent it to you and see if you would if you would agree to it. Yeah, no, because I've already worked with another Board member on it. So, let's just talk about it in open meeting. Right now? Yeah. Oh, okay. >> And Member Hutchinson, are you talking about the established a clear opt-out procedure which is easily accessible and applies to all libraries including classroom libraries for any and all materials that are not directly related to colon, content, curriculum, or standards. Yeah, it's it's long. It is long. I will tell you that we have already a clear opt-out procedure. This is just putting it into our

275policy since we vote on policy. Um and that part about including classroom libraries was included in the discussion at ASBA that they highly recommended that school districts included that part. And we know the district has a strong policy strong process um for that already to make sure that that our classroom libraries align with our policy. It is not my favorite grammatical sentence, but as we know, not all legal documents are. So, unless you are like strongly opposed to it, I do know this has been reviewed as we know by legal counsel. I would recommend since none of us are lawyers that we lean on the legal advice and leave it even though it's grammatically awkward. >> I don't know. My my my I grade lots of essays. So, I I I've This is what I

276would suggest, that we establish a clear and accessible opt-out procedure for all libraries including classroom libraries for any materials that are not directly related Sorry, my screen's going to curriculum or standards. Okay, since this is a first reading, I will write up those statements and include them in our second reading for next time. >> I'm I'm happy to provide a copy to Ms. Kirby and if she would like to include it. I just think it it just makes it a little bit more more clear and streamlines it a little. I think it reads a little bit easier and Yeah, I I love the grammar, but much better. Thank you for editing it. I like it. Yeah, that's great. [Music] Anything else, Ms. Vincent? Ms. Ms. Vincent? Um No, one of the reasons that um we

277uh I feel really strongly about um adding the additional piece uh that includes AS ARS, pardon me, 15-120 is one of the reasons that .03. One of the reasons that we have families leaving Mesa is because they um are concerned about materials that may be in our libraries that are that are sexually explicit in nature. They um so, this in my mind puts one piece that parents can say, "Hey, okay, district leadership is listening to us. We don't want our kids exposed to this." So, I feel like we as a Board are doing our role, but then parents also have to do theirs. So, if you um as Mrs. Chappie and I were uh were working on this, she said, you know, um I have gone through the process of uh having books either removed

278or restricted using the process that currently exists uh and the procedure that currently exists. So, um I want to also encourage parents um to really take an active role in that. Don't assume that your kids are um take take a look at what's in our libraries. It's easily accessible. Um Mrs. Chappie mentioned a resource she uses which is Common Sense Media. Uh there's another website, takebacktheclassroom.com. It's really important that we honor parents and their ability to raise their children with their values without interference. And so, uh that's one of the reasons I think this is a step in the direction to tell our community, "Okay, my kids aren't going to be exposed to things if I don't want them to be." So, that was my intent. Thank you, Ms. Vincent. Ms. Walden, Yes. Yes, thank

279you. Uh for President Davis, I just want to throw in that I I really appreciate the way that you involved the Board in procedures and give us the ability to weigh in and make updates on procedures. That's that's been a really important change this year and uh definitely helps us be able to feel like we are are doing our duty in in governing. Uh and we do have a good procedure here with a process for book removal. So, I I don't have any edits on it. Uh I I really appreciate the Board members that were able to go to the ASBA law conference and incorporate the changes into the policy and procedure. And you know, our role really is to make sure that the laws are upheld. And I think, you know, the laws are

280there to to provide equality for for all families and parents. And so, with this with these changes and when we move forward in another meeting to adopt these changes, I feel confident that uh we can say that we're doing that that we are upholding everybody's rights. And uh thank you uh Board member or uh Clerk Board member Chappie and uh Benson for working on this. And also uh for scheduling executive sessions so we could talk to uh council about about uh all the legal issues and SCOTUS cases that go into library policies. So, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Walden. Ms. Chappie, any Uh I I tell people often when they ask, "What is it like to be on the school board?" Um that it's actually really good, meaningful work. And I appreciate the opportunity to

281work with a variety of perspectives. We have a range of families in our district, and I want to honor all of those families. Um and so, we we really tried to be intentional to honor a variety of perspectives and family values as we evaluated this policy. May I add one? Yes. I have one minor edit on procedure um because we do have a process of of either restricting access to books or um removing them from policy. Now, one of the things that I I actually want to highlight that Member Chappie and I really thought was important was extending the time of um for our Chief of Academics. That'll have to be changed. Um we increased days for you to be able to pull together a committee of people. And we also expanded um the the

282committee makeup. So, in under uh reconsideration of library book access uh second paragraph the um the sentence is the principal may call a study group of equal members. Um I think it should be shall call. Because may is optional. Yeah, I'll send that up I'll send that wording to Cameo. Okay, thank you. >> in the notes, too. Pardon me? Is it yes, I'll also have her note that in the meeting notes that we'll make that >> Thank you. And that's that's the only thing I have. Could we on the changes like when they get sent like have a different color or put in parentheses so we don't have to read them side by side? Cameo's on the color coding. Yeah. So, yes. Thank you. We will make sure that's done. >> Yeah, I'm not good

283at color coding. And thank you, board members. And I echo I am grateful to work with people that and we all bring different perspectives and I'm grateful for that and bring different, you know, shed different light. So, thank you all for your um input in this. All right. Now, oh, yes. I'm sorry. Are we now going to talk about the procedure or were we talking about the procedure while we were talking about the policy? >> all together. Okay. Yes, you want to go to procedure? Yes, go ahead. >> you wouldn't mind. Um if we take a look at the second paragraph um it's >> of the same of Well, sorry. Thank you for clarification. Page two. Thank you. Um and then the second paragraph um it says during the reconsideration process the book in question

284shall require parental approval for checkout. Um I'm not sure why that has been added. >> That was added under legal counsel. That was in that executive session where we received legal counsel. I thought we weren't supposed to be talking about what happened in executive session. Oops. I I don't think that's a violation of executive session when it's related to the law and it states something stated in the law and it's public knowledge. Ms. King. Yeah, um we we uh hear the admonition at each board meeting and anything discussed in an executive session is confidential. Is something two board members that were in executive session together, can they have a discussion about it uh in private? Yes. In a legally agendad executive session, you can. Mhm. Wouldn't be discussing it in one-on-one but not >> Okay,

285I will rephrase my answer. Board member Hutchinson, um we added that portion because the original statement was that the book in question would be removed from the library and that we were advised that I feel that it would be better that we have parental approval rather than removing the book entirely from the library. It still makes it accessible to students while it's under review without removing it entirely from the library because I don't want to see it completely removed from the library while it's under review. With their parents' permission. Correct. Yeah. I'm just double-checking our procedure. Cuz I'm I I don't remember that being in the procedure. So, um What that the book would be removed? No, because it says during the reconsideration process the book in question shall remain available for students. And this

286policy this this restructuring this is that it would require parental approval now to check it out. Yes, which still makes it available with parental permission. So, my I will tell you what when I when I worked on initially writing procedure, I wanted the book removed entirely until uh a committee had decided whether or not it was an appropriate to even be on our um bookshelves. Um Mrs. Chaffee and I reasoned together uh this is a nice balance. So, we don't remove it from circulation entirely but that title as it is being determined whether or not it is appropriate for general access requires a parent who is actually responsible for the minor child uh it gives them the ability to say no, I don't want you to read that. And that's all it's doing. So, it

287it's not removing it entirely from access. It is giving parents um back the power to say uh my child is allowed to read this. Mhm, no, I don't want my child reading it. However in the um the parent can do that at any time. It doesn't happen have to happen during the reconsideration process. Correct? A parent can A parent can >> This is part of the process as the parent pulls that this would trigger that that it would be immediately assumed that because the parent was challenging it, it was then unavailable for their child. >> then what you've got is one parent can challenge a book and then it triggers a a a procedure then that all parents have to get involved in. Well, a committee of parents. But yes, if you if you are

288a parent who would like your child to read that book, then you would have to provide written consent for your child to check out that book. And I will tell you, board member Hutchinson, I don't disagree with your perspective on libraries. Um I think that we have to often make compromises and represent our community. And for me this policy and this procedure and we don't vote on the procedure. Um but this policy represents for me uh good governance and being willing to work with the work with each other and make decisions that are good for the community under good legal advice and I as I told member Benson as we worked on this there are lots of things that can pull our focus as board members and it is really important to me that we

289stay focused on our board goals and that we spend the majority of our meetings talking about things that are focused on board goals and student outcomes. I I I totally agree with you. However I believe what I heard was that the current procedure pulls the book from the shelves and that is not I just want to make sure that everybody understands that the current procedure says that during the reconsideration process the book in question shall remain available for students. Um and the the change would be the book in question shall require parental approval for checkout. So, there is a change. That's all I'm pointing out. Thank you. And Anything? And I do appreciate the work that you have put both of you have put in and the collaboration that you have exercised to put this

290forward. I don't want to feel I don't want you to assume that I am I am not appreciative of the work that was done. I just want to make sure it was a clarification. Well, and to clarify um what member Chaffee was saying is uh as we cuz I made some changes to procedure at that to present. And I wanted the book completely eliminated from the library shelf until a decision had been made as to its appropriateness. Uh so, that I think is the change that she was suggesting, not the change from the initial procedure that the that the board had already been or already had in place. That that's what you're saying, correct? Yeah, because I am I will tell you I'm by far more of a hardliner on this. Um because I I

291don't believe any sexually explicit materials belong in our libraries whatsoever. Uh it is up to a parent to determine when whether or not their child is psychologically and emotionally uh ready to handle the material that is in some of the books. And just for a quick example, and I actually looked this up because I went, "No, that's that can't be that can't possibly be true." But um some of our high schools have Game of Thrones books uh novels on their bookshelves. I've never watched Game of Thrones and I haven't read any of the materials, but somebody said, "Well, oh, did you did you uh were you were you aware that uh viewership on Pornhub dropped substantially when Game of Thrones was on." So, I went, "No, that can't be true." Yes. Participation on Pornhub drops

292by dropped by 45% during season 7 of Game of Thrones. That material, in my mind, doesn't belong on our on our shelves, period. It doesn't have educational value. And again um parents want the power to raise their children with their um values and their structure. So, we compromised substantially. I I feel we compromise. We worked together. Uh, I would be by far more of a hardliner to completely protect children. But, it is, as Mrs. Chappie said, ultimately, it is the parents' responsibility. Like, we're going to do what we can as a board to keep materials as appropriate as possible, but it is ultimately up to parents. What do you want your children to have How do you think your children are mature mature enough to to access this material? That's not up to me as

293a board member, it's not up to me as a teacher. It's not up to me as a principal or a librarian. It is up to the parent to determine that. So, uh, restricting access until that decision uh, and again, we broadened the committee uh, to get multiple perspectives. Um, we want it it one school, we want parents from that school, but also parents from the general population. So, again, it's not just one homogeneous community that's looking at a book, but it is hopefully going to be able to take in multiple perspectives to have the best possible materials in our libraries in our um, both in our barcoded libraries and our um, classroom libraries. So, Thank you. And I just wanted to clarify, I board member Hutchinson was referring to the policy online that's current or

294procedure currently online, and member Chappie was referring to the procedure that board member Benson had brought forth. That was the the different the confusion. So, just setting that straight. Uh, Mrs. Walden, did you have anything? Oh. Um, I know there's been some Supreme Court cases that have also influenced library policies. I didn't know if maybe I I think Mrs. Benson's really familiar with them if you wanted to remind people what they're there. >> that was decided this summer. Mahmoud v. Taylor that was decided this summer. That clearly stated that a parent had a right uh, to that it is in the parental purview um, that they have the right to limit not just library books, but curriculum that uh, was not in alignment with their values. Thank you. Mrs. Chappie, anything else? All right. We're

295good. Okay. Mrs. King, we're on to you. It's all you. Thank you. Um, tonight I bring to you policy 3110 um, for first reading. This is a new policy uh, that this is not a revision to an old policy. We're asking you to adopt a new policy. And this is just to um, ensure a shared understanding between um, the governing board and um, superintendency about um, the authority to bind the district through a contract. So, through this policy we clarify that all intergovernmental agreements and any amendments to those are things that do legally require governing board approval. Um, we want to clarify that if the district leadership wants to create new staff positions or purchase goods over a certain amount that you have set in policy that the governing board needs to approve those types

296of contracts. Um, but then we also wanted to clarify that other types of agreements um, things like memoranda of understanding um, partnership agreements um, affiliation agreements, things that are really about the day-to-day operations of the district, we would like the board to grant um, that authority to the superintendent to enter into contracts um, and to give the superintendent and certain other members of superintendency the authority to sign on behalf of the contract. The other reason we want um, to ask the board to adopt this policy is we have been discovering through the years that we have um, a lot of a a contractual arrangements that go on throughout the district that are not necessarily signed at the leadership level and that does expose the district to a little bit of liability that we'd like to

297rein in and create an understanding throughout the district that only those um, positions specifically designated by the governing board have authority to sign contracts on behalf of the district. Um, and then the the final um, point to this policy is we as we've entered this very data-heavy world um, we've been more and more uh, entering into data privacy and data sharing agreements with our vendors to ensure that our student and employee data is protected and that it does not get disclosed um, and cause any type of um, leak of information. And so, we do a lot of those. They're all very similar in nature and we would like the board to um, allow those agreements to be signed by the chief technology officer or um, what if that position ever has its name changed, we've

298tried to account for that as well. Thank you, Mrs. King. Board member Hutchinson, any questions? Comments? Okay, we'll come back around. Mrs. Benson. No, I just have a comment. Um, when I uh, read through um, when I read through this, I the first question I asked was, wait, don't we Why don't we already have this? Like, don't >> Yeah, yes. I I mean, I just assumed we already cuz we we've delegated some authority to uh, Dr. Stroman and then he he has the authority to maybe have Dr. Easler sir uh, Mr. Moore sign something or Mr. Wang. So, I was like, what What do you mean this is a new policy? So, that's my only comment. Um, and I I I think we need our DPA people not necessarily here, but uh, I keep getting

299settlement agreements from my data being linked like all over the place. So, they do the best they can, but Yeah, that's why we are doing our best to safeguard all of our district's >> hackers are just Yeah, probably former gifted kids. Yeah. Um, it's interesting that you mentioned that. I actually went searching through the policies to find this policy and when I couldn't find it, I contacted the trust and said, what Why am I not finding this policy in our policy manual? And they were like, oh, there isn't a policy. So, uh, we wrote one. Well, thank you for taking care of that. Mrs. Walden. Thank you, Mrs. King for that risk assessment and explaining that. And I don't have any proposed edits. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Chappie. All right, thank you. Back row,

300do you have anything? You good? Good work. Thank you very much. All right. I don't We are now into informational item. Um, just really quick, but Dr. Strom's midyear evaluation coming up in January. Wanted to make sure all board members, including our newly elected members, were familiar with the board-approved instrument. And that was printed out for us and it's been shared in status a couple times. And like I said, it is printed out for you tonight. Does anyone have any questions about the instrument? And we'll start with Mrs. Hutchinson. Yes, thank you very much. Um, in this morning I was at the uh, Mason Public Schools Foundation breakfast. And then um, went from that to Activate. And Dr. Strom was was was with me in in both of those events. And and it it it

301triggered in me um, the importance of the promise, the MPS promise, and the MPS portrait of a graduate. Um, because in in both events, now the MPS uh, business breakfast was with with with community leaders. And and Dr. Strom spoke and he started his state of the district address with the promise. And with the portrait of a graduate. And I watched as over 100 people were nodding in agreement. They know this promise. They know the portrait of a graduate. And then at Activate, Mrs. Montes reviewed the promise and the portrait of a graduate with our students and had an activity where they chose an attitude that they could do better or a skill from the portrait of a graduate that they could do better. And then throughout the day, the students linked what they were

302doing in Activate with the portrait of a graduate. So, I'm I'm thinking, why aren't we linking Dr. Strom's evaluation with the promise and the portrait of a graduate. And I thought, where could we put that? So, I respectfully submit for the consideration of the board two edits to the professional practices in standard five. And I believe that Ms. Kirby um produced them for you, so you have a hard copy. And it would be it's 5.1 and 5.2. And the first edit that I'd like you to consider would be um that under the standard five, which is leadership, 5.1 would read understands the critical importance of the MPS promise and the MPS portrait of a graduate to inspire others to higher levels of performance. Um because I think that's what our promise and our portrait of

303a graduate does. It is it's really the core of our being. And it's what inspires us as educators, whether we're certified, classified, we're board members, we're administrators. It's it's what makes Mesa Mesa. And it's what we want in our graduates and what I think it's what we ought to expect from each other, particularly the superintendent. My second edit I think is is is is a slight edit, but I think you'll know where I'm coming from. The second edit would read maintains a caring and professional relationship with stakeholders, not just staff, but stakeholders. That would be students and community. Um grounded in the MPS promise and the portrait of a graduate. Um 5.2 reads in shared district values. Well, I think the shared district values are the promise and the portrait of a graduate. So, we're

304just making it a little bit more specific. So, I I respectfully submit those edits um that would incorporate the promise and the portrait of a graduate so that it can be included in um Dr. Strum's evaluation this um year. Okay. Board member Vincent, any thoughts? Uh I I I need to wait. You need to comply. Yeah. Uh cuz I actually saw the MPS promise um and the MPS promise in particular embedded throughout without it saying the MPS promise and portrait of a graduate. So, um m- if you'll send that those edits to me, member Hutchinson, that I have it. Oh, I have it. Yeah, you have it. You You Here, you you Here. Oh. It's there. You got it. >> it. There you go. Yeah. Again, I'm blaming my neck brace. Listen, you're making me

305all feel a lot better about myself. You're good. Will you look at that, Ms. Walden, anything? Yeah, I do think that the evaluation as it stands has plenty of opportunities to involve portrait of a graduate. This is the ASBA evaluation tool. We've used this tool for Oh, no, it wasn't ASBA. Isn't this looks just like the one we've been using? It is it is, but we didn't get it from ASBA. We we kind of meshed a New York model and a Wisconsin model and the ASBA model and we Mesa-fied it. >> Okay. Well, it it looks like the one that we've been using. It is it is. It really is. I'm I'm I think that uh it is robust and there's enough in here that we can involve uh those elements that you suggested without

306editing it. Uh I know we've had portrait of a graduate for a while from before I was on the board, so I'm not sure why why we want to address it in the evaluation now when it hasn't been done before. >> Oh, okay. I I I'd be happy to answer that question. We have a new superintendent. Um our superintendent before um had been a part of the process of portrait of a graduate and the promise when it was a community-based um discussion and we actually the community helped write it. Um I I I included it because Dr. Strum, being the new superintendent, that it would it would re-emphasize the the Mesa values that he now leads the district with. Okay. I appreciate that. Yeah. Um I I you know >> Just to be a little

307bit more specific. >> Yeah, no, that that makes sense. I I do feel completely confident in Dr. Strum's ability to uphold the portrait of a graduate. I I think that I said, you know, this is a robust evaluation, so I think the wording and the questions already exist within the evaluation that we could consider that. And also, I think for the evaluation, we've got our board goals, but also we've voted on Dr. Strum's 13 goals for the district. So, I feel like the the the 13 goals are probably going to lead the evaluation more than than some of the more more broad aspects of portrait of a graduate. I think we're going to be more focused about what the actual goals are, which is typically what you do in an evaluation. And I'm just going

308to go into my corporate experience here uh that uh I think mid-year is is definitely not the time uh to to change uh an evaluation or or sort of change parameters on a direct report. I think that the timing is sort of uh it's it's just unfair uh to uh to staff, I think, to change things in the middle of a of a contract. So, I I think if we do want to make changes, that maybe that's something that could come when we're starting a new year, a new evaluation process. Um mid-year is just just not the time, but again, uh I've been able to use this evaluation a few times since I've been on the board and uh I think it's it's strong. There's it's almost there's so many questions that you almost could

309say there's like more redundancy versus needing to add things, but I think it'll be more than enough to uh ensure that we evaluate with our portrait of a graduate in mind and of course the goals. Okay. Um the reason that um I I wanted to include it under leadership is is that we as a board have not talked about the tool with our new in applying it to our new superintendent. And so, I actually requested that we have it as an informational item so that as a board, a new board with new members, so that we would have the opportunity to talk about it. And and um and I thought it would be um just a a uh an aspect of clarity um that when we say ethical and professional behavior, that we are referring

310to our own Mesa promise and and and the portrait of a graduate. Um that shared district values, those that is the lens. And I and it just came to me um when I was watching the businessmen, read it resonated with them. He's we always start um community presentations with it. And and it seems that it's a value that employees have for each other. And and and it's it's not a reflection on Dr. Strum whatsoever. I just thought it would help him to know what we meant as a board um what the district values were. That I'm just trying to Yeah, I kind of want to call it sort of like a point of information with President Davis. I feel like that we're verging on on an evaluation out in the open where really there's a

311a right, I think, for discussions to happen in private for these kinds of matters. Like some of the comments that Mrs. Hutchinson are saying just sounds like it's verging on a critique right now. And I don't think that that's appropriate. >> mean it to be a critique whatsoever. I just I just thought that as as a just just for clarification, as a as a new superintendent, what the board could mean. I mean, and and if if the board does not um want any changes in language, I'm cool with it. I just I'm making it as a suggestion. >> Yeah, I think for the agenda item that the point would be for the board members that have not gone through an evaluation, do you have changes you want to make to the to the item? But

312I I I I just feel that we're just some of your comments to me seem like they were coming across that were in a way that were not related to the agenda item. I appreciate the the notice that we kind of wanted an opportunity as new board members to weigh in on this. And I know we're getting late, so I'm going to be mindful of time. Um as a new board member, I just want to reiterate that I really love that our board wants our work and the superintendent's work to be focused on student outcomes. I appreciate that Dr. Strum has aligned his goals with our board board goals. And I as a board member, I want more of our board meetings focused on data and strategies on improving outcomes. So, as a new board

313member, I've had the opportunity to review this tool. I feel very comfortable using it. And since we have an evaluation, a mid-year evaluation coming up in January, I don't recommend we make mid-year changes. Um and I would recommend that we make any of those adjustments maybe late spring so that then we can have them in place for the next year. Um I will tell you I'm not willing to remove the words ethical and professional behavior from the evaluation tool. I appreciate your I think it prompted this morning prompted Yeah. probably that, you know, um just under leadership, I actually don't think it would be under 5.2. Uh standard five is leadership of the district. So, that's the way I read standard five. So, 5.2 says professional relationship with staff, that would be appropriate. If we

314wanted to involve the community, I think that's in standard one, that's vision and culture. Because that to me extends beyond. But five, am I reading standard five correctly? It's how is he running the ship? So, that is just with staff. And I would actually have a problem with the word caring because that to me is very ambiguous. Uh what's caring to one person is So, I I I don't want to change it before January either, uh but I do think Okay, so what I'm hearing is we're going to leave the evaluation tool for mid-year. In the spring, Cameo, help me be my brain. In the spring in our notes, we will put to after we've gone through the mid-year, make if there's any changes for the next year evaluation. All right. Um Madam President, Yes.

315before you move on, I just want to model what we expect in Mason Public Schools from evaluation process. Evaluation tool is the governing board's to decide as a five-member team. I love evaluation, and the reason I love evaluation cuz I'm a constant improvement guy. And so, I'm looking forward to my mid-year evaluation, so you can give me feedback on things I need to get better at, on the things that I'm doing well, and I'm going to constantly look to the board to help me point myself in the direction of where improvement needs to occur. And the reason I'm saying all this is so that we can help our staff lean into continuous improvement at all turns of the corner. You modeling that behavior with me, me modeling that behavior with you, helps us all downstream

316realize, "Hey, we are a continuous improvement culture, and it's positive to get critical feedback on how to improve both leadership and outcomes for kids." So, I just needed to say that. So, whatever you guys decide, uh I'm very respectful. Thank you. I appreciate that. And that brings us to the end. Do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Beat you. Well, Mrs. Mann's already packing up, so apparently we have to move and second. >> I think Mrs. Baca is, too. I'll second it. Miss Hutchinson, Miss Benson, and any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby. Please take our vote. Should I vote now? It's not 11:00. Just kidding. Come on. Hello. Sorry, it wants to Google Translate me. There we go. So. Here here? With a vote of five yays, the meeting is adjourned

317at 9:56. Thank you all for being here tonight. Have a wonderful evening.