001Thank you. You may be seated. Call this meeting to order at 502. And tonight we um will hear from district leadership about the reorganization plans for the 202627 school year. We're also going to try a new format um to support timely and efficient board meetings. So during today's study session to ensure the board has enough time to to ask questions, we're going to limit the presentation to no more than 20 minutes. Miss Kirby, will you please run the timer? Um Mr. Wing, you are on timekeeper and keep us helping keep us on track. So um thank you to everyone for your work on making sure that board meetings run well. And Dr. Strong, we're going to turn it to you. Madame President, members of the board, we're here this evening to talk to you about
0022627 school year and efforts we're making to streamline and become more efficient in Mesa public schools. Our purpose in Mesa public schools is to serve every student by name uh know every student by name, serve by strength and need, and get them ready for college, career, and community. Uh we know to do this, it takes school-based personnel uh at a high level. And then to support those school-based personnel, we have district personnel. And our job is to design systems that are efficient so that our school personnel can spend the majority of their day interacting with students, improving learning outcomes for kids. That's our job is to serve our schools. And so this redesign is uh really thoughtfully uh putting in a position where we're valuing our school-based resources at the same time trying to uh
003with less funding um due to declining enrollment trying to put people in a position where we can have a more effective system to help serve those schools. Uh this is our portrait of the graduate. Uh we know that uh in the portrait of the graduate we believe in being collaborators and communicators. This is our job to communicate with the governing board on these redesign plans. And this started way back in the spring of 25. And collaborations wise, uh we do want you to know that that uh we're going to show you some outlines of ideas, but some of the critical positions that we're going to fill out of the gate, we want to bring those people on board in those new positions first, and then we want to collaborate on designing job descriptions downstream. So,
004in the spirit of collaboration, Mr. Wing and I have some general ideas on how to get more efficient as a school district. Uh but we also want to bring on more team members so we can collaborate uh through the process. Uh we appreciate uh this is from our listening sessions with uh several stakeholders. We had chat with Matts in the spring. Uh we had listening sessions with directors and principles throughout the district and some of the general feedback was we really appreciated this last school year where we had early and often transparency dialogue with school leaders and uh we updated them on our financial status and we made sure everyone was aware of the process and that they had feedback loops in that process this last year. Same thing has occurred this year so far
005and that we've met with people that are affected in this reorganization plan. We've communicated to several different stakeholder groups and we continue to want to be and desire to be transparent. Our organiz organizational efficiency goals uh we want to keep schools open as long as we possibly can. Uh, I'm not shocking anyone in this room because the news is hitting you constantly that there are school districts that are currently in the position where their budgets just in a place where they're going to have to examine school closures sooner rather rather than later. And what I cannot promise as superintendent Mesa public schools that we won't get there either. But what I can state to you with confidence is uh the business team and the finance team is going to try to explore every option to
006get as many revenue generating ideas into this district. Explore every option to make sure our district office is run efficiently so that we can keep as many schools open as long as we possibly can. We do also want to leave the last thing that most superintendents will tell you they leave on the plate is maintaining class size. We want you to hear that our funding ratios for schools are one of the last things we want to touch. One of the ways you can save money or be more efficient in a district with a budget is to take your funding ratio that may be 25 to1. How you fund schools, how you give teacher contracts to schools, and you just bump it up by 1 to 26 and then you bump it up by 1 to
00727. Remember, funding ratios don't necessarily mean that's what class sizes are because at a school campus a class size could range in third grade from 18 to 24, but you might be funding at 25 and then fifth and sixth grade might run a little high. So, it just depends on your student counts. But we don't we want to try to keep our funding ratio level throughout this district and we want it to be one of the last levers that we have to pull to make a budget work. So, we're going to try to delay that funding level uh increase as long as we possibly can. And we do want you to know we do anticipate having a $9 to $18 million budget shortfall heading in into 2627. Here's the reality. When new students come into
008the district, they bring a dollar, let's say. And when the new students come into the district, and they bring that dollar, you about 60% in Arizona, that's about the average. Depending on the district, you'll see it range from 55 to 65%. About 60% of that dollar goes into classroom stuff, right? primarily hiring the teacher, salaries and benefits for the teacher. Then 40% of it does all the other things. Pays to keep the lights on, pays the water bill, stands up when you're a growing district, stands up a new department. You may need to expand a department that does special services. You may need to expand your operations department. You may need to expand your transportation department. And so that 40% kind of does all these other things. And when you go into declining enrollment, the
009easiest part is that part of the dollar bill. The easiest part is saying, "Okay, we funded some teachers and now that we're declining by 100 kids, that's four teacher contracts that we don't need anymore." That's easy. The hard part's the other 40%. The other 40% support educational programming at schools, support district office functionality, and finding how to reduce budget and become more efficient. That 40%'s really hard. It's a hard effort. and and it's it's it's not nearly as easy as a thousand students left and you can cut 25 teacher contracts as a result. And please remember when we talk about cutting teacher contracts last year we dealt with about 400 FTE we had to cut of which about 144 were at the district office if you remember and so we cut some teacher contracts in
010the end we didn't cut 250 people right because attrition takes care of the majority of that we end up having to riff less than 100 people so when we talk about teacher contracts often times attrition can take care of that side of the piece but this other part this 40% is the hardest part to figure out how to become more efficient and that that's because it includes utilities, maintenance, and many other additional elements. Here's the reality. The reality is uh our enrollment picture for the next three years has us declining uh by about 4 to 5,000 students over the course of the next uh uh 3 years. Uh we have smaller kindergarten cohorts that are coming in. We have larger uh 12th grade classes that are going out. And the birth rate uh and we're
011seeing this a little bit in kindergarten numbers this year. birth rate was supposed to go up during the pandemic. In actuality, it went down and we're seeing a smaller kindergarten cohort than anticipated even this year on the books. So, we do know that we're going to decline in decline in enrollment. And here's the breakdown by grade level. K6 7 8 9 12. And the fact of the matter is in the 9th through 12th grade level, you see a large decline. 2,500 kids from last year's 40th day number. That's 17923 up there. That's the 40th day number published by the Arizona Department of Education. 17186 was our anticipated number for this year. We're actually a little beyond that at the high school level. We'll talk more about that as we approach our 40th day, which will
012be in October. We want numbers to solidify before we get too far in front of that. 16215 is a prediction for 27. 155419 is a prediction for 28. And so you can see there's between 17923 which is a realized number and 15419 which is a predict predictive number. We have about 200 students worth of decline at the high school level. And folks to put that in perspective that's basically like Dobson High just disappearing in the district over the course of the next three years. That does not mean please do not interpret that as we're closing Dobson High. That just is me saying a reality that that's how many students that is. And that's a decline over the course of the next three years. Actually from 23 to 28 that's a decline of about 20% at
013the high school level that we're anticipating. The issue with that decline at the high school level and remember part of this is just smaller cohorts of kid kids moving through the system. That's a big part of this is, you know, we we we used to have 4,000 to 5,000 kids in a cohort moving through the system. Now we're dealing with 3,000 to 4,000 kids in a cohort moving through the system. And uh we we know that the 20% at the high school level is going to feel different in a budget. And the reason it's going to feel different is because the weight for a high school student is 26.8% more than a regular ADM. And for an elementary kid, it's only 15% more for a regular ADM. So when you when you have declining enroll
014in high school, it hurts your budget a little bit more. And so what we know is uh in 2627, we think we'll decline by about 1,800 kids. We think that's going to be an approximate loss of about 1200 uh 12.5 million in our budget. We put that on a range of 9-18 million. We always want to remind people that the federal government keeps having unknowns. We're very grateful that the federal government released uh their funding for title one uh two uh title 1, three, and four as well as 21st century learning grants. That helps us out in the current year, but we're back in another federal budget cycle and we don't know what's going to happen with this next federal budget cycle. So, this all leads all this picture leads to uh the organization redesign.
015And before I pass it over to Mr. One thing I do want to say is this is the hardest part about uh cabinet level or superintendency level or executive level positions. We're we're starting a brand new school year, but our job is to be a year and two years ahead. That's what we're hired for. 40% of my time is spent in the next year and the year after. And so we want to be out in front of this. We want to make sure the board hears us early and often so we can continue to live into Mesa Public Schools having a really conservative budget that aligns with our values. Mr. Mr. Wayne, >> as Dr. Strong, as Dr. Stum indicated, uh, this fall, the business side, we prepare budget and staffing for the next school
016year and even the next few school years. And so what you'll see here um is an organizational chart chart, a re redesign regarding three primary areas. Our area superintendent currently we have three of them and our teaching and learning department as well as our student services department. Uh we are going to be recommending later in the governing board meeting uh the elimination of five assistant superintendent positions and replacing that with two chief positions. So going from five to two one will be a chaff chief of academics and one will be a chief of schools. I have a couple new or more slides to go into it. Uh but I do want to share that all of our uh interview process will be um posted internal only and that's noted on each of the slides or
017many of the slides. Uh let's start with the blue uh and that'll be the chief of schools. This individual will be responsible for the the systems and operations of all of our schools. Uh underneath that chief of schools, we will have executive directors who oversee our high school regions, our feeder patterns, that learning hub uh for each uh high school. Uh the individual um for example, Dobson High School, that feeder school will have an individual overseeing that that'll be an executive director role. You'll see within the the frame a lot of gray areas. Those will be positions uh director roles, certified roles, um that will be uh identified as we begin hiring some of these administrative staff for next school year. Also noted that in the green underneath the chief of academics, we'll have uh
018an executive director overseeing our learning department. We'll have one related services, data, and accountability. I'll go over that in a second. Uh what's unique about this organizational chart? Uh for one, right away it it uh screams collaboration. There will be no silos with any of these areas. Uh collaboration particularly as we decrease FTE. That collaboration uh with each other is going to be critical as we move forward. Each region will have a team player from each of those departments. So underneath that executive director of in this case I have Mountain View and Red Mountain as the the the image shows we'll have an individual from academic team. We'll have an individual from the related services team. We'll have a individual from u the data and accountability etc. Then in the green section, the rows going
019horizontal, that's where the chief of academics will oversee executive directors and directors uh overseeing certain areas such as that, academics and related services I show in this this screen here. It is important to note that we have not identified every single one of these position job titles. Hence, in gray, you see the words insert job. Uh that's because our intention is to uh hire the chief of schools, hire the chief of academics, and then there will be a domino effect where then we're going to proceed with hiring the executive directors who in turn will help us design what the insides will look like, what the needs are for Mesa Public Schools, both for each of the regions, but also some ancillary department staff as well. Ultimately, uh we're we're going to be reducing 40 FTE.
020Uh here it shows about 147 to 104. Um quick note, assistant superintendents, as a reminder, we'll be eliminating five FTE and replacing with two chief chief of academics and chief of schools. We're going to be reducing administrators and certified specialists. It should be noted the certified specialists are department staff, not school-based staff. Overall, we're looking at two what we'll show two and a half to three and a half million dollar savings. Now, to some of the rationale, uh three primary reasons. One is to make sure we're streamlining our efforts, having more manageable span of control where we have an individual overseeing a region versus multiple regions. We are still the largest school district in Arizona. I mentioned that this will require collaboration and teaming. uh really there'll be no way to have a siloed process
021anymore. When you are reducing FTE, it forces you to look at what we're currently doing, what's working, what's not or what's not needed. It also requires us to streamline some processes. Uh also with the feeder patterns, we can improve our communications at the local level uh and celebrations as well. Another rationale is to align our strategic decision-m removing those silos requiring that collaboration with the chief of academics his or her team and the chief of schools his or her team uh will will require or will make us or force us to have that strategic decision-m which we aspire as well. And again having that local um focus and then sustainability declining enrollment, declining in revenue. uh we do need to be fiscally responsible moving forward. Uh this means uh putting an impact at our superintendency
022level reducing that and also uh reducing non-school staffing along the way. Um having that u vision of the future still having the leadership building that leadership capacity building the leadership pathways for succession planning uh things as well. some timelines. Um, this was put together very carefully and uh hence not filling in the inner side of it yet. It'll continue to be built uh carefully as we hire through those positions and build the the rest of the uh rest of the org chart. Uh we began sharing this information with the board starting in April through June. We did notify everybody who may be affected starting on July 9th. That included the five assistant superintendent. July 15th, we notified and informed all administrators including principles, made them aware. Uh little later in July, we notified the certified
023staff. Today you'll see on the personal action we're recommending the elimination and non-renewal of five assistant superintendent positions but adding the two chief of schools and chief of academic positions. Tomorrow we're going to post internally only for those two jobs. Next board meeting on August 28th, we're going to be recommending hires for these two positions. Again, starting July 1, 2026 for next school year. And then we'll proceed going back to that domino effect. who are going to recommend the table of organization to include those executive directors and directors post those jobs internally late September recommend hires for that and then uh starting in September through December really uh building the job titles and job descriptions recommending those positions to the governing board and getting hires done before winter break. It's important that we budget and
024staff before winter break um because spring is not kind to education. and we need to get that um uh done by winter break. So, hence the the timelines through December. Just a reminder, internal only postings and hires uh intention to complete by winter break. Uh we wanted to make sure individuals who are not selected because we are reducing NFTTE have other opportunities within Mesa Public Schools. We give school staffing out uh in January. Uh, so there may be some interest from those individuals to other positions, school-based positions within Mesa Public Schools. Just give you a little snapshot of things we're working on. This district office redesign will save us about two and a half to three and a half million dollars. We are in the middle of a are actually just starting with a stipen
025audit um that we're intending on looking at making some adjustments to. As Dr. Stum indicated when you lose enrollment, when you reduce enrollment, um doing the math as far as uh teacher allocations, there'll be uh reduction in there as well where a school with four third grade teachers may only need three next year and mostly through attrition will um will make up those or that's where we'll be able to delete those those positions. So so far 7 half to 10.5 million and I understand we have more work to do because a previous slide Dr. Stro shared up to $18 million we're needing to seek. So we have more work to do. >> And with that we're open for questions. >> 40 seconds to go. >> Yep. >> Look at you. Thank you. Um board members,
026any questions? Anyone want to start? >> Um so thank you for the presentation. It's excellent. And I appreciate the breakdown of the dollar amounts and and the rationale. I just have uh one quick question and that is limiting the positions to post internally only. Could you just go back over that part and the rationale for only listing positions internally? >> Certainly. Uh to begin because we're the largest school district in Arizona, we have a lot of uh FTE a lot of personnel and we have talented personnel. So, our focus is really to to honor Mesa Public Schools and the work we're doing. Uh, while the responsibilities will shift, the job descriptions will shift, the job titles will shift, uh, and the approach will shift, uh, we wanted to give an opportunity to our employees first.
027>> All right. Thank you. >> Piggybacking on that real quick, if there is no one that applies, I assume that will then go an external posting. >> That is a safe that is a great assump assumption. Yes. If no one applies or somebody's individuals are not qualified for a position, we would have to go external. >> Miss Hutchinson, >> thank you very much. Um, so I I did notice that um that the reduction of full-time employees goes from 147 to 104. Um, but I also noticed that emphasis because it's on many of the slides that the postings will be internal. So, and you rightly mentioned that these are the people who have done the work in our district. Um, and some of them have done this work for decades. Um, what assurances do the employees
028have that the selection process will be fair and that truly Mesa internal candidates will be selected to remain with Mesa Public Schools? Certainly, we're going to go through multiple interview processes. Um to begin with, tomorrow we're post we're if per approval with the governing board tonight or if the board approves tonight, we're going to be posting the two chief positions. Uh we run a large interview panel, a small interview panel. That large interview and small interview panel will be facilitated by Miss Jenny and human resources and her team. Uh the panel will be inclusive with various stakeholders classified, certified, administrative, school-based, department-based etc. Uh the smaller one will be comprised of similar stakeholders. Um both interviews will will determine finalists and those finalists will move forward with uh for Dr. Stum and myself. we will
029not be participating in the large or small uh interview panel and then those practices will continue throughout the rest of the hiring. So uh the individuals, you know, there may be competition. So I can't guarantee somebody to get a certain job, but uh they're going to have to go through that interview process uh through HR. Um but but we've been explicit internal only postings. Um that's our primary focus and that'll be communicated in our communication tomorrow in leadership matters as well. >> And if I could follow up um the postings um how will employees be informed that the postings are posted? um that that that how how is there going to be how will the publicity be handled for these postings so that um employees particularly the 147 that are um going to be impacted.
030How do they know that those positions are available and when the postings occur will there be um detailed descriptions of the job so that they can adequately prepare for those interviews? Certainly uh to begin in those timelines um starting in July we notified all effective affected employees and we provided the same timelines we shared with you. So they were already provided the heads up in case they wanted to start looking at building their resume updating their resume etc. uh leadership matters. We have a platform tomorrow that all administrators and are required to review and uh in including that we just reviewed it this this afternoon. They'll be notified of the procedures, the timelines even when we're hosting interviews. A because we're going to need some of them to be on interview panels. So maybe pencil
031in some time on those on that calendar, but B for those who are interested, they have an understanding they can pencil in some time during those dates uh to be interviewed as well. >> And then I believe human resources is notifying the 147 as well, but I'll follow up and make sure that happens. >> Great. Thank you. Thank you for that. >> And that'll continue by the way, not just I'm using tomorrow's example, but that'll continue along the way through our >> in leadership matters. Yep. Thank you so much. Appreciate that information. M president. Yeah. Just to follow up real quickly to piggyback off of um member Hutchinson, the um the we have some of the positions clearly identified at job description uh title. A majority of them, however, have not yet gotten that. So,
032um, none of our employees that are affected can actually contemplate applying for a job that they don't know what the compass encompasses, what the work encompasses. Correct. So, is that are we looking at uh providing those opportunities after the chief of staff and schools? Not staff, sorry, that's you. School and academics and then the executive directors. And once they fill in the rest of the uh charts and columns. >> Yeah. Is that >> to begin with, our postings have the job job description. So if somebody doesn't get an email or doesn't read leadership matters, the job posting will have the job descriptions. But it is important for us uh Miss Benson to hire the chief of academics, hire the chief of schools. Conceptually, we have the executive directors of the regions and then those underneath
033the academics. We want to include those two individuals after build. >> We can't do the rest of the gray until those others are. That's what I That's what I'm saying. >> So, the two chiefs followed by the executive directors, both horizontal and vertical, and then we'll work with them to build the the foundation, the gray area. >> Okay? And that's when those jobs will be posted so that they have adequate time. Okay? So, uh, real quick, I, um, just I did quick math. We're looking at a about a 29 to 30% reduction in admin, overall admin. So, um, I know that, uh, the many of the stakeholders in Mesa want, again, as I said during the rift process, uh, as little impact to schools directly and direct classrooms as possible. So is the reduction in
034admin staff comparable to the reduction the percentage of reduction of our classified and our certified from earlier this year? Do we know what percentage that? So last year's off the top of my head last year's percentage we eliminated about 144 central office jobs. I think our total was around 400. So that's 1540th. Uh so put that at about >> oh gez% 30%. >> So it's comparable. So it's comparable to last year. The difference is going to be for this year. I we're we're hoping that between the stapens audit and this redesign plus the natural student attrition of contracts that we'll be able to make the budget whole headed into next year. So the the 30% you're referring to right now is 30% of the jobs that the 147 jobs that are available. I actually think
035that will be closer to 50 to 60% if we can get through this budget cycle. Once again, we're on current year funding. So, you say, "How would you not know that you can get through the photo cycle?" We got to know what our numbers are for students at 40th day and 100th day. And so, with that being said, if they if everything comes in as we think it may come in, we think we might be able to get out of the planning for 2627 with this being 50 to 60% of the jobs that we cut are are in this arena that we're talking about right now. >> Okay. because I I you know having just recently left the classroom um we are asking our building people and our teachers in particular to do more with
036less um and we need to make sure that that is um being being modeled at the top that that is occurring as well because really we're here for students and so anything that we do that should be our focus. How does this impact uh student learning and is it going to improve it? So that's my next question is can you kind of discuss just briefly the um benefits of um because you you addressed it briefly Mr. Wing the benefits of the um vertical alignment within each one of our high school districts. Uh how is that how do you how do you foresee that improving student outcomes >> to begin with? And I I failed to mention this Mrs. Benson County governing board. Um our intention is to have the that region regional team to be
037housed at a high school. So there's going to be more grounded connections with the high school and then the the feeder schools along the way. Uh so to me that's again one we're we're going to be in the boots on the ground at the schools and be a presence at the schools with this with this foundation. Uh the other part too and I shared it earlier um whenever you're reducing FTE uh that doesn't mean tasks necessarily go away. So it forces us to look at what's being done well and how can we expand on that what's being done not so well how can we improve on that what's being done that we may go why are we doing this because we've always done it and we need to identify all that uh another part and
038I shared this already is the streamlining of procedures and processes removing barriers uh for our staff in our uh calculations we did show a little investment in our information systems department um in that uh chart of the reduction of FTE more so because as we're reducing FTE we need to make sure we're leveraging all of our systems and our is department has been probably lacking compared to others where we can bump and leverage that that way individuals at schools can focus on the now what to improve student data outcomes versus the gathering of data and trying to analyze it it's more focusing on now what Dr. Mr. Stum, anything to add? >> Yeah. So, vertical articulation across school systems is uh really important. One of the things that our teaching and learning department did this
039summer is they ran our June leadership academy in a model where high school principle where high school principles were leading out regional development. And we got so we received so much positive feedback from elementary principles and junior high principles that they understood what was occurring on their high school campus and that the things that they could build on at the early grades including at the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade level knowledge of the work of the world of work and how that leads into college and careermies is drastically important. And I'll just tell you a little brief story uh about my dad's teaching experience to tell you how important vertical articulation is. And and that is at a high school level. He was always interested in understanding where second and third and fourth grade
040math talent was. And if you don't have vertical articulation and those kids come up in the summer and they work with your high school math department in order to improve their mathematical skills and computational thinking and quantitative reasoning and then they go back to their elementary side of things and they just have to do second grade math in the second grade again or third grade math and the third grade again after improving their skills in the summer. That defeats the purpose of helping kids get more and more advanced skills. And so when you're functioning on a regional level, what should happen is these executive directors should be paying attention to what site leaders are trying to drive on their campus. And then they should be able to marry like this experience leads to this experience
041and that experience leads to that experience because one thing I'm a firm believer in is Hecman's work. And Hecman says skill begets skill. You can't you can't creatively think on a unstudied foundation of knowledge. Knowledge is the first way that you get to critical thinking. you have to have knowledge to critically think and uh so skill beget skill leads into that and that you build a kid's skill and now you need to know what the next learning progression is and the next learning progression is and we think these regions will be able to focus on those learning progressions from a K12 prek12 system. >> Okay. Okay. So, what I'm hearing you say is that um potentially this adds to the ability to actually really live into the promise that we are serving our students by
042strength and need because we have this open-ended open dialogue vertically within each region. Uh so, if we have a spectacularly gifted language student, for example, in third grade, then well, hey, well, maybe we're not going to limit them just to third grade reading materials. Okay. So do you see that um sorry one more one more? So do you see that uh this also um provides the ability to rebuild smaller communities um much like when I was young like school and church was where you built community and friends and family and uh you connected in that way. So if we have it this vertical alignment and we have executive directors um that are housed because uh also I I I think I heard you say Mr. Wang that um majority of admin is now going to
043be at the building level right where where >> the regional teams will be at the building level. >> Yeah. So in that regional team is there going to be a lot of oper I I see I'm not going to ask it as a question. I see that there's going to be a lot of opportunity to now have uh regional communities kind of develop because now we oh I know I'm going to go to Dobson. I know I'm going to go to Westwood assuming they all stay in and work in that. Do you see that as a added benefit as well? >> Yeah. what what we know from from uh our study on research of why people choose systems is and it's no different than the HR research in that people choose a system but they
044leave a team right they choose a system they leave a team that's what HR people will tell you and uh on the school-based side parents don't choose Mesa public schools they choose Dopson High they choose Serin they choose Palmroy. And if we can get parents bought into their local community, right, and buying into that system of choice within their community, uh we think we have a better shot of making sure kids stay with us. K12, one thing that we know from research is mobility hurts kids. And and uh you know, even in within school year mobility is even harder than across school year mobility. So when a kid switches first quarter to second quarter, that's really hard on a kid. And so what we're hoping is that that people find a home within their community
045and say, "I really belong to to the Doppson Mustang community or the Westwood Warrior community and they have we we can wrap our services around with this executive director team." I do want to mention this this housing these administrators at the school sites has more value to Mr. Moore, Mr. Wing, and myself than the educational value. It also allows us to start to reduce the district footprint of buildings because we'll be able to house more people centrally here at Stapley campus and then we can uh look at our facility and our facility footprint which is another which is another efficiency we're after. President Davis, >> um I would love to see some data on how maybe if other districts have restructured, how that has improved student outcomes because I'd love to see that information if
046we have that. Um but my question is how are we going to provide consistency throughout the district when we're looking at these regional communities? >> Yeah, the the biggest aspect of consistency is going to exist in the two most important hires in this in this structure out of the gate. We've had we've got to have a chief of academics and a chief of schools who collaborate together well, integrate the learning experiences and understand that in a parent choice market, we can't have everything within a region be exactly the same. There's got to be choice within a region. Now, across regions, we may replicate those choices. So if we have a design thinking choice in the Red Mountain region, how do we rep if it's successful? How do we take that and replicate it in other
047regions? But it's going to start with a strong chief of academics and chief of schools who model our promise and our portrait and collaborate and communicate and make sure that we understand what's happening in every region and whether we want to replicate things in other regions because they're working well in one region. >> One more question. Um, looking at those enrollment numbers at the beginning, it's showing that our our high schools got hit harder than we expected. How can we figure out where these students have gone and why? >> I appreciate that question. One of the things we've been uh thinking about executing is uh exploring our no-shows for the summer at the high school level and hiring a third-party external researcher. And there's groups out there that do this type of research. It's just
048going to cost a little bit of money. We certainly do not want to spend a full teacher FTE on this, but we'd be we'd be more than willing if the board and board president were willing to give us permission. We'd be more than willing to uh hire a research firm to go out and contact these no-shows and kind of learn like why' you make the choices that you made for your kid. Now, I will almost guarantee you that a lot of the choice was people were mobile and they moved. But from the people that didn't move, we would be very interested in learning why they didn't choose uh our system uh for their subsequent year. But we can talk about that in individual check-ins if you want to and whether you would want to do
049that. >> Suchinson. >> Thank you, President Davis. Um, I've I've heard the word um collaborate a lot and I'm glad I'm glad to have heard the word collaborate and and it seems to me that as the system is um personified that um uh each person that is hired will be brought into the mix and will be part of the collaborative team. Correct. So we we hire the chief of schools, the chief of academics, then executive directors and directors and as we fill out with with real people this model um they will collaborate to fill out the rest of the of the of the jobs. Okay. My suggestion would be and it's from being long time in the district. Um you guys are relatively new and I do mean you guys Dr. Strom, Mr. Wing. Um
050there are people in our um district who have been doing this work as I mentioned for decades. My suggestion is that you consult andor collaborate with those people. They know this work the best and when if you bring them into the discussion, I think you're going to have better decisions. Um I know that a lot of the the executive directors because they it is an internal process will be of people of the district. I get that. But they don't always know the work. And when job descriptions are are being developed for a particular position that has been deemed to be appropriate for this particular model that the people that are doing the work are considered and they are asked because it's part of the Mesa tradition whenever there has been a reorg that the superintendent
051brings in the people who do the work and and I think that they can provide some really valuable insight ITE and may help you to craft those positions to truly impact as as member Benson said the student outcomes. If we if we are going to be efficient, then let's make sure we know what each job is and that it meets the needs of our kids. And the best people to know that are the people that are working with our kids. Um, so I I really I'm I'm I'm hopeful that not just for the sake of efficiency, but so that we are living our promise to our community, but most importantly to our kids. That student outcomes will be enhanced and we will support our schools better in this model. But we better ask the people
052doing the work to make sure that the model and I'm I'm going to look for that collaboration as the model progresses. >> Three minutes. >> Thank you. Timekeeper. >> Um go ahead. >> Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. I I just had a quick followup. Uh because I we were talking about the regions. Historically back in the day, Mesa used to be in regions, didn't it? at some back in our history. >> Miss Walden, my historical knowledge is yes, they had regions but not to this degree. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So, it's not entire it's not entirely new though. >> All right. Thank you. That was it. Thank you. Do we see um on this chief of academics is special education falling in one of those um lead one of those job titles? it is
053and some of the the actual terms may be changed depending on you know the guidance from the the two chief positions when we hire them but uh it'll be underneath that executive director related services I'm not saying I think the related services is a pencil >> but you get the idea >> just as an example of collaboration there we were going to uh call those executive director of regions executive principles but in feedback with someone that's been a 20-year employee of Mesa public schools. Uh we and and then ALP we've determined that it's better to the public to view those as executive directors. Uh and so uh that's what Mr. Wings is referring to when he talks about the names aren't aren't necessarily pencileled in yet and that's the flexibility we're trying to go with
054uh moving forward as we hire people that they'll have input into this system. >> Thank you. One minute. Any other questions? We appreciate the time that's gone into this. It's, you know, it's all these job titles are tied to people and so that's always a hard thing as we live into this budget and these different, it's hard. It's dealing with people and so that's always a hard thing to do. Um, but we want to be mindful of everyone and making sure that we're communicating and that communication is out there. Um, I do want to echo Mrs. Ben uh Mrs. Hutchinson on collaborating. I think talking to our teachers, seeing where their needs are. I've heard a lot the last couple weeks on teachers from teachers and making sure that we're hearing what they need at
055that level. And so, as we plan out this new design that we make sure that we are listening to those that are are are out there in our classrooms working with our kids every day. So, um as we move forward, we appreciate um this communication and we hope that it continues out. Um do I have a motion to adjurnn the meeting? >> So moved. Do I have a second? >> I'll second it. >> Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? Mrs. Chaffy votes votes. I With vote of five yays, the meeting is adjourned at 5:48 and we will be back at six o'clock for our regular meeting. Thank you so much. Thank you. Call this meeting to order at 6:03. I'm sorry we're a few minutes late. We
056were trying to get some dinner in real quick. Um, welcome to Thursday. We have a new day and a new time at 6 PM. So, um, and just a quick reminder, any citizen who wishes to speak on an agenda item must complete the sign-in sheet in the lobby prior to the public comment time on the board agenda. Also, you may have noticed a couple changes in the formatting on the board agenda. Next to each agenda category, we listed a time. These are all approximate, so don't hold us to it. Um, and designed to support a timely and efficient board meeting. We're going to do our best to stick close to them, but again, they are approximate. Um, we're also going to be using a new timing for the information items. formally discussion items. So you'll
057see that change. Also, we will also have up to 10 minutes for the presentation, then up to 10 minutes for questions. Since this is our first uh meeting using the structure, we will we built in a little extra time. So, we'll do up to 15 minutes for the presentation and 15 minutes for discussions or questions. Um, and Mr. Wing, we've asked if he will be our timekeeper and u Miss Kirby will please run the timer. So we also ask for your patience and understanding as we work to make the best use of everyone's time at these board meetings. So with that um this evening the pledge of allegiance will be led by Miss Arinda Man, assistant superintendent of Elementary West. And then please remain standing for national anthem which is recorded from Kino orchestra. >>
058Please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat up here. [Music] Heat up [Applause] [Music] here. [Music] Thank you. We will begin tonight playing a 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 a 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
059in the lobby. The public may speak on any item of business on the agenda that the board discusses or requires the board to take action. If you wish to comment on an action or discussion item, please complete a request to address the board form before the item is discussed. The form is located in the lobby. Members of the public will be given a maximum of 3 minutes to speak once recognized by the governing board president. Please state your name before you speak. We ask that all speakers show respect and courtesy to others. During the second regular meeting of each month, the agenda will include a call to the public, which is an opportunity to speak to the governing board about a school district matter that is not on the agenda. Please submit a request to
060address the board form to participate in the call to the public. If you would like the board to consider adding an item to a future agenda, you may submit your request in writing to the board at least five working days before that meeting. The superintendent or governing board president will consider your request. Thank you for your attendance and involvement in tonight's meeting. >> This is an official governing board meeting. The board has important business to conduct that is essential to the operation of the district. Everyone is welcome to express ideas or concerns to the board in accordance with the agenda. The poster in the boardroom describes positive behaviors expected and behaviors that cannot be tolerated. Please speak and act respectively and actively listen. Be kind. Verbal harassment, abusive or foul language, intimidation or disruption have
061no place in a classroom or the boardroom. Please note side conversations or reactive comments. They can be disruptive. It is the 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 this meeting, you will be asked to leave so the board can conduct the business of the district. Um, we are now going to turn the time over to Jen Snyder, director of communications, as she shows us through some of what's inside Mesa Public Schools. Miss Snyder, it's all you. All right, there we go. All right. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jen Snyder. I'm the director of communications and engagement for the district. Uh, we have decided to change the superintendent report to find
062out what's inside to show you a few of the things that are going on around the district. So, here we go. And I have the clicker. All right. First up, uh, I want to bring your attention to a beloved tradition at Red Mountain High School. Every summer, Red Mountain staff goes and delivers signs to two students who earn a five or a five on one or more of their AP exams. For those that don't know, five is the highest you can get on your AP exam, and it's an incredible feat, and we love seeing that our students uh celebrate for their outstanding academics. Next, the finance department M public schools was awarded the certificate of excellence in financial reporting from both ASBO, the Association of School Business Officials, and GFOA, the government finance association for
063the 39th, I'm going to say that again, 39th consecutive year. We want to thank our finance team for all they do as we continue to be outstanding stewards of our taxpayer dollars. This a recognition that we're pretty proud of. If you have driven down Center Street between Broadway and Maine, you may have noticed a beautiful new mural on the city of Mesa's community services building. Our own Micah, Mesa Creative Youth Agency students, designed and painted this project. The students pin in over 500 of working hours to create this mural and included in the hot summer months. Uh I encourage you to drive by and check it out. It's absolutely stunning. All right, as we get closer to the first day of school, I'm going in chronological order, by the way, for this. Uh, Lincoln Lincoln
064Elementary's annual bus tour helps get their students and neighborhoods ready for the first day of school. The tour takes Lincoln staff by the bus stops and hand and they hand out candy and t-shirts and bring out lots of cougar energy. And it's a great way for them to get excited for the first day of school. Speaking of first uh getting excited for the first day of school, freshman orientation took place at all six of our comprehensive high schools. Uh they went all out welcoming the class of 2029. Uh from lovely from lively pep rallies to link crew showing freshmen around, our new freshmen were sure to feel home when they stepped onto campus the first day of school. The back to school event in partnership with community bridges was a huge success. Thank you to
065all NPS staff which include district staff, principles, Dr. Stum, President Davis, Clerk Chaffy, um, for showing up to volunteer. Over 1500 students received free backpacks, school supplies, and even haircuts to start the school year off with confidence. It was a great event, and I know our principles were super excited anytime that they saw one of their kids. Uh, this included Principal Arborghast, who saw one of her students from um, back in the day, who's now a Mesa police officer. And then and then came the big day, first day of school. We were thrilled to welcome back our students to our schools at Energy West High. Our staff was ready and the students were so excited to see their friends and teachers. We had district administr directors and administrators on every campus on the first day
066of school. They saw lots of things to celebrate and were there to help with any issues that they may have had. And one of our directors sent us this note um because as the big moments are special, but sometimes it's these little ones that make all the difference. So, I'm going to read this out loud. Mrs. Nunees, an English language development teacher at Jefferson Elementary in Mace Public Schools, helped a fourth grade girl shake out first grade jitters and turn nerves into smiles. Mrs. Nunes greeted her by name to help her ease into her day. In Ma public schools, we know students by name, serve them by strength and need. Thank you to Miss Nunes and the many dedicated teachers and staff across the district. The first day of school was filled with laughter, warmth,
067and excitement. Last week, 30 Porter students were selected by the staff to receive positive phone calls home. The students were recognized for being responsible, respectful, and safe, as well as demonstrating AVID skills such as writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading. And then, are you ready for it? Football's just around the corner. Our annual football media day was held yesterday at Dave and Busters. Members from the boys tackle and girls flag football team from all six of our high schools were present and interviewed by local media. We can't wait for Friday night lights and to see our incredible student athletes in action this fall. And that concludes uh this find out what's inside. I want to remind everyone that the district has social media that has even more of these stories. Every single one of our
068schools has social media accounts and I encourage you to follow them all. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, Jen. That was great. And now, Dr. Strong, we're gonna time turn the time to you for recognitions. President Davis, members of the board, at Mace Public Schools, we know our staff and students are at the heart of everything we do. It's their dedication and talent that truly sets our district apart. Tonight, we're going to introduce a little change to the recognition process for our state level champions and honores. We're also going to honor a couple other people. Uh to streamline our celebrations, we're implementing this process. We'll ask honores to stand from their seats to be recognized. We'll then take a brief break uh during which the board will be in front. pictures can be taken
069with the board and then after uh the pictures get taken with the board, we can tell you and your guests you can stay for the board meeting if you desire or you can continue your celebrations elsewhere. In the long run, we will have a display out in the courtyard area for you to take pictures with your family and friends in front of Mesa Public Schools. Uh uh media med media elements and uh hopefully as we streamline this process uh we we'll be able to honor all those who are uh both state champions and honores throughout the state of Arizona. Tonight we're proud to recognize Amy Brighton Bucher Brighton Buer uh principal at Kerr Center for Agra Science who has been named Arizona Future Farmers of America Administrator of the Year. Amy, please stand to be
070recognized if you would. [Applause] It's it's been a privilege to be out at Kerr Agra Science and watch the kids learn. I will tell you uh the idea that that that Amy generated is fascinating to watch kids learn the state standards through the agricultural elements. And one of my best moments of last year was watching a young man who explained to me that his uh chicken or hen went for four. And I said $4. And he said no. I said 40. No. I said 400. He said no. Apparently this chicken or hen went for like $4,000. And so that goes to the kids scholarship fund and we're very and we're very uh uh grateful uh for all those uh farmers who come and support our kids at FFA events uh throughout the state of Arizona.
071Uh I'd also like if she's back there if someone can pull her out front right now. Miss Erica Lassu, Miss Lasswear, could you join us for a moment? We'd like to take a moment. This this is a little out of the norm. We normally honor state honores and and administrators of the year honores. Uh but uh I'd like to take a moment to recognize Miss Square. Mr. Square uh is here with us tonight and has been at quite a few board members uh board meetings for the last three years. Eric is a proud Mesa High graduate and has been with NPS for 5 years. Most recently, she was my administrative assistant when I was associate superintendent and she currently helps Mr. Wing out as the chief of staff. Her husband was offered a great opportunity
072in Utah. I promise you, we tried to help had to convince her to stay here. Uh we thought about virtual marriages and other ways to make this work, but she's committed. She's committed to joining him in Utah in tonight's Miss Lassear's last board meeting. and the board and I would just like to take a moment to thank you uh for all your contributions. Thank you Erica. We wish you well. And then finally uh before we get to the picture time uh we'd all like to take a moment uh to just pay a lot of gratitude to Miss Joe Benza. Uh this morning uh we had the opportunity member Hutchson I know was there. I probably will miss someone. President Davis was there. I was there as well. I'm sure there's several people in the crowd
073there as well. Uh we had the a moment and opportunity to honor Miss Benza. Uh this is Miss Jill Benza, the mother of the principal. I want to be clear on that. The mother of the principal at Shephard uh Junior High School, and she recently passed away. She was a resident of Mesa since 1981. Miss Spenca proudly worked for Mesa Public Schools for 26 years in a career that saw her earn a college degree um and rise through the ranks of a lunchroom employee. I believe I heard this morning like either Pomroy or Saran or maybe Chrisman. I heard Chrisman Chrisman this morning uh during the eulogy. Uh so she was a lunchroom employee that ran uh rose to the level of assistant superintendent. Her career is a testament to the power of education to
074change lives. One thing that came clear this morning is how passionate she was about helping those who had less. Um and she was just a staunch supporter of getting as many resources into those who had lesses less hands. Uh for decades, Miss Benza actively served the community through the United Feed Food Bank, city committees, and the Rotary. Her service and dedication to others was celebrated in 2015 when she was the Mesa Woman of the Year. Mrs. Benza's impact and legacy at Mesa Public Schools will be felt for years to come. And so, we'd like to just honor her as we uh break now for pictures. Thank you, Miss Benza, for all you did for us. If you could take time to take pictures, uh Erica and Amy, the board will meet you down front here.
075for for you Casey. >> I don't know why. >> Yes. [Music] One more time. >> All right. Ready? One, two, Thank you. And if you want to continue your celebrations, we are not offended. One bit. Go have fun. Thank you. Um, we now this moves us into our uh public comment section. Okay. Now is the time on the agenda designated for public comment on agenda items. Mrs. Chappie, do we have anyone signed up to speak? >> Yes, we have five people who've signed up to speak tonight. >> Okay. Since we have five speakers, each person will have three minutes to speak. And Mrs. Chappie, will you lead us through this agenda item? >> Absolutely. I will call the first three names and then I'll let the next two know that they're on deck. So our
076first three people will be Jason Smithson, Mark Low, and then Amber McCaffy. Right after that, we will have Laura Metaf and Peter Bole. If you'll come up to the podium and ex say your name and how you're associated with our district. >> Members of the board, Dr. Strong, thank you guys for having me here tonight. My name is Jason Smithson. My son's a second grader at Webster Elementary. Um, I come here as a concerned parent um of a child with special needs and also to advocate for more than 10,000 students who receive some type of special needs services within NPS. I'm deeply concerned about the proposed elimination of the assistant superintendent positions, but most importantly, the position held by our assistant uh superintendent for special education. While I understand these changes are tied to difficult
077district-wide layoffs, the loss of our most visible and effective advocate is devastating. Over the years, I've spoken to thousands of families of children with special needs. The common thread among us is a profound sense of invisibility. Too often, we don't feel seen and we don't feel heard. Many of us feel like afterthoughts in a system that is designed to embrace every student. Are you aware that when district officials visit campuses, they rarely step into special education classrooms? The silence is felt and the absence is noticed. As parents, we are already climbing a steep hill, navigating services, battling stigmas, and confronting misconceptions. Unless you've raised a child with special needs, it's impossible to fully grasp the emotional, mental, and physical weight it places on a family. Each school year, we face the same questions and fears.
078Will my child be safe? Will their IEP be followed? Will their needs be met? Will they be bullied? Will they be accepted? These are the very concerns that push many families to leave public education in favor of homeschooling or private alternatives. And now, with the proposed elimination of a role that directly supports and uplifts our children and families, I fear even more students will be lost to the system. For me personally, the only reason I am not homeschooling my son today is because of MPS's Rise and Sore program. In two and a half years, I have watched my son go from a non-verbal, independent playing toddler to a child who communicates in full sentences, engages with friends, and thrives. All thanks to his dedicated teachers, therapists, and instructional aids. While I understand the need to
079evaluate administrative roles, I urge that if you must remove the position, I ask that you please give special education an executive director role. Roughly 20% of our students receive some sort of special education services. Special education is not just another department. It's a lifeline. I ask that you please don't let our children be collateral damage in this budget decision. Let them be seen and let them be heard. Let us continue the progress we've fought so hard to achieve. Thank you guys. This could be a little bit different note. Family of low, first name Mark. Madame President, board members, tonight your board's being asked to approve $350,000 on subject 260331 for 1:1 nursing services, SLPs, psychologists, etc. for three students that is not in alignment with board goals. Superintendent can collaborate continuously where your board can
080only collaborate during your board meetings. That's a glaring problem. Board members are at a distinct disadvantage with the work product they were elected to produce with no pay. When board members are presented with an executive summary that does not constrain those asking for funds to be transparent about how the funds are spent, it can and does lead to waste, fraud, and abuse. The funds spent on consultants who were hired to identify how MPS can market itself to the community in order to attract more students failed miserably. I have seen no presentation of how funds requested are spent during your board meetings. Where and how do you get confidence to know how funds are spent? My experience shows that public records requests are slowwalked or and ignored. And the recent removal of superintendent contact information from
081the Mesa Public Schools website superintendent page tells me that transparency and accountability are not on the MPS's superintendent's agenda. That's a huge problem. Is $350,000 to support three special needs students with nurses, SPLs, psychologists, etc. $116,66 per student and in addition to the base amount spent on every other student receives in support of their learning appropriate. This statement is made in the request. Mesa Public Schools initially intends to utilize the following vendors: Educational Contracting LLC, Everybody Matters, Inc., and MGA Home Healthcare LLC. Troubling are the words initially intense as they do not demonstrate the thoughtful research that taxpayer funded paid public servants continuous collaboration work product which ought to be presented to your board for its approval. Details matter. The lack of hard cost and vendor commitment provides opportunity for waste, fraud, and abuse. Tonight's
082request from the associate superintendent, although relatively small, does demonstrate a pattern regularly used by this superintendency on this board as business as usual, which puts each which puts each board member who participates by supporting it at risk. Meanwhile, Pora school Peoria school board tonight will have its first read draft of no DEI initiatives along with no critical race theory. Peoria is getting back to education. Mesa public schools Hello Madame President, board members, superintendent strong. My name is Amber McAfee and I am the governing board president of EBIT and we my two of my board members are here with me and we are here to say thank you for signing the IG. We are committed to offering quality CTE to all the students in Mesa and we are very excited to see your academy model and
083see it succeed. I'm here especially to ask board member to board member if we can have a closer collaboration if we can celebrate in some of your celebrations and we can speak more collaboratively on needs and how we can work together to basically bring the needs of the workforce into Mesa and the East Valley. So, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Have a good night. >> Good afternoon or good evening, Madame President, board members, administration. I am Dr. Laura Metaf. I am a proud Westwood graduate and I am an East Valley Institute of Technology School Board member. On behalf of EIT, I want to thank each of you for signing our IG for the forward movement of our workforce here in Mesa and in the East Valley as a whole. I have been
084a CTE teacher and administrator for most of my career and I understand the power of what CTE does and Mesa schools has led the way in that area. I would also um second my colleagues uh request that perhaps we can collaborate as a board and look at the areas that we can push this forward even further. But I thank you again for your forward thinking and your support of our students, the community, industry, and education as a whole. Thank you so much. >> Good evening, Madame President, members, and administration. My name is Peter Bole. I also serve on the EVIT governing board with Dr. Metaf and President McAfee. And I am also here to thank you. I know that might not happen often from this podium, but we are so grateful for the continued partnership
085and collaboration with Mesa Public Schools. You are our largest feeder district. We love that we're just in your neighborhood right down the road and with this IG, which you have unanimously passed, and we can't wait to get to more great work together, especially as uh President McAfee mentioned, you transition to uh different models at different schools. So, we look forward to another just strong few years of partnership. Thank you so much. President Davis, that concludes our public comment. >> Thank you. We'll now move into um the review. We now have re review 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. >> Yes, Madame President. I I believe when a public
086comment addresses a consent agenda item, the item gets removed. Was item D removed from consent? >> It was not. >> May I have that item pulled? >> Okay, you bet. Thank you. >> I'll give I'll give a minute. And >> yeah, usually when there's comment, it ends up automatically getting pulled, but I still saw it on consent. Make sure we refresh our computers too as that gets changed. >> You're fine. Okay, mine's okay. I'll I'll continue moving on. Um, do I have a motion to approve the personnel request, including the addendum? >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> I was just Oh, you're fine. It moved on my computer. Sorry. Sorry. I didn't want the timekeeper getting mad at us, Miss Cam, Miss Kirby. So, >> are you good? >> Thank you. All right, we're going to
087move on. Um, do I have a motion to approve the personnel request, including the addendum? >> So, moved. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> And Mr. Wing, will you tell us a little bit more about this personnel request? President Davis, governing board, Dr. Stro, superintendent, audience. Uh, as shared in earlier this evening's study session, uh, we are recommending an organizational redesign and starting to today that includes recommending to the governing board the elimination of five assistant superintendent positions while adding two chief positions, chief of staff, I mean, excuse me, chief of schools and chief of academics. Thank you, board members. Any discussion, >> President Davis? Thank you. Um in um thinking about the comments made by um Mr. missing. Um I I welcome that um we have a member of the
088public, a parent who has made some suggestions. Um I would encourage staff and parents and students as well as the public to write to the board with their ideas. It's really easy to write to us. Um, you go to the MPS website. The governing board is right up at the top of the uh homepage. And if you hit the governing board page, you scroll down to contact the governing board. Um, in the in the spirit of collaboration, I would encourage the public to um write us questions, ideas, comments, concerns um such as Mr. Smithson made um this evening. um and that we we keep a record of these types of comments and concerns and and the suggestions that he offered. Um I think the this is not where more cooks spoil the broth. This is
089where more perspectives lead to better decisions. So um I would encourage us to um take into consideration and also encourage folks to contact us Thank you, Miss Benson. >> Yeah. May I make comment um uh to piggyback off of member Hutchinson and um the parent that spoke earlier, approximately 20% of our student base is um falls under special education. So, I had actually uh as a sidebar asked Mr. Wing, are we going to make sure that that population is um adequately taken care of? Because while in a general education classroom we have a diversity of need the diversity of need in sped is immense. Uh what I taught gifted should be under it's a special ed category. Uh many people don't qualify it as that or discuss it as that but that's in fact what
090it is. So we need to make sure that we are servicing that population uh and making sure that supports are there that are adequate to take care of the vast I mean it is a huge spectrum of needs. So that is um one of the questions I had as well. So I like that the parent that we had a parent that came and spoke to that. So that's just all I wanted to say. >> Thank you. to solve them. >> Do you have something? >> Yeah, I I think what we're learning out of this is we just may just have a naming convention problem. There is a complete line with an executive director that will oversee special education services. It's just called related services right now. And so that's where the collaboration process kicks in
091that Marcy said. And it provides six people across different uh uh six different regions to help uh integrate those special education and exceptional student services. So uh it's good knowledge to have and you know we just got to get our naming conventions right I think because those supports are there underneath an executive director. >> Thank you. >> So thank you. That's a good point for our superintendent. And I just kind of wanted to to throw out that I I do have a lot of experience in trying to gain efficiencies and I worked in the financial sector during the market crash and saw a lot of merger and acquisition activity where you know we had companies closing and downsizing and one of the things that I I learned and observed is that when you focus on
092efficiency and you focus on metrics you get better. So I do feel very confident in this reorganization that as as we're looking at data as as our superintendent is data oriented in that focus on efficiency in that focus on outputs that we are going to get better. I think that we will find that our students and and all their different categories will have more of their needs be met uh in this new focus that we're taking. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. Any other discussion? All right, seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five yays, you have approved the personnel request, including the addendum. Do I have a motion to approve the qualified evaluators for Mesa Public Schools for the 202526 school year? >> So moved. >>
093Do I have a second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you. Any discussion? >> Seeing none, Miss Ker will please take our vote. With a vote of five yays, we've approved the qualified evaluators for Mesa Public Schools for the 202526 school year. We'll now move into our consent agenda items. All items listed will be considered as a group and will be approved with one motion. If a board member would like to spotlight or comment on a consent agenda item, please do so after the vote 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? >> Second. >> Miss Ker, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five yays, we have approved the consent agenda items
094according to the recommended action for each item. >> Sorry, I had a Madame President, can you make a comment about consent? >> Okay, if you refresh. >> Yeah, I did. I already did. And it moved. >> Thank you. It moved to the first. Sorry. >> Can I make a real quick comment? Um, and u Mr. Low brought up that um he really wanted to make sure that we were overseeing how the money is spent and where the money is spent. Um and in um the spirit of that, I really appreciate the uh my request uh being met that we are we as a board are given actually uh who we're paying and descriptions for that. So we we do now have a better set of eyes on what's happening. So I appreciate that. Uh and
095of course I'll have questions that I'm sending you to tomorrow. >> Thank you. We'll now move into action items. Our first action item will be the consent agenda item that was moved for a purchasing contract increase special education student services. Um approval recommended approval of a contract increase for $350,000 for a specialty service to due to three students requiring indiv individualized nursing support. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. Do I have a second? >> Seconded. >> Any discussion? >> Um, yeah. Could we have um some clarity on um the uh pricing, Mrs. Baka? And the uh I I know it this is not strictly or solely for the three students that currently need um additional assistance. And also, could you um let us know where is this money coming from versus, you know,
096like does that make sense? I know we're not going over budget because I already talked to doc Mr. Moore about that uh the other day. So, could you just give us some clarity and the um community clarity on the whole process? So, the whole account, the this is an addition because we had three new students to the district who require a one-on-one nurse with them for them to be able to attend school. And so, last year we had three students. This year we have six students that require full-time nursing support to be um on a campus. And so, but there's a range. This is one area. So we do provide nursing but there are school psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, um all that are on that contract. So these when we have positions that are
097not filled by employees, we have to seek out to find the providers in our community from agencies. And so that's what this is for, to provide um to hire agency providers in the community to serve students in our school. And I think it's good to know that we are always looking to have employees fill those positions. So it's an ongoing recruitment of employees all year all the time. Um and on occasion we do find people who fill the position and then we close the contract and fill it with an employee instead of an agency provider. But it is multiple different providers providing services to obviously many more students than three students. It was just the addition late addition of these um students who enrolled in Mesa and required that support. >> Mrs. Baka member and
098Benson, can I just elaborate a little bit? This agenda item is approving is recommending the increase to a contract for new nursing services. And so the 300,000 is an estimate by Mrs. Baka's team um to provide services for these students. But as she mentioned, there's a reconciliation process that goes into place. This is not a blank check of 300,000 to these vendors. Um this is just authorization to spend up to an additional 300,000 because of these new students. So um as uh these students receive services, Mrs. Bach and her team reconcile those invoices and we make sure that we pay for the services that we are being rendered um not to exceed 300,000. So, um, but as those services change or they decrease or increase, those are brought back, uh, via the the vouchers. And
099then if we ever get close to exceeding this 300,000, then that would be brought back again to the board. So, um, just know that's a it's a procurement agenda item, but it's also like a procurement agenda item for special ed. So, I hope that explains a little bit too about the procurement process. >> And the the funding is Medicaid reimbursement. >> Yes. >> Yeah. It doesn't come from M. So, it it is specifically a special education um funding source. Correct. >> The reimbursement for Medicaid is based on Yes. services provided >> and IDA um requires that we provide services that are listed for every student's needs >> under the special ed category. >> Correct. To give students to access Yes. >> Yeah. >> pardon me. >> To give students access to school and to those
100services. >> Right. And these so these types of funds we usually think of Medicaid as providing you know um health services but Medicaid is also providing services to our special special kids who who need that assistance and sometimes it's at great cost but it's but it provides them the opportunity to have a public education and and as Mr. Miss said it it they are seen and they are served and and we welcome them in a wide variety of ways and sometimes the federal government is providing that assistance to make sure that these students have the services so that we can make meet their strengths and needs. >> You are correct. Yes. >> Okay. >> I just want to clarify that amount is 350,000 correct not 300,000. Is that No, you're fine. I just want to
101make sure I had it right. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? >> I just wanted to clarify too, I mean, I'll be supporting this that uh I support school choice, but when it comes to educating every child, public schools don't get away with anything like some of the charters do. You're not going to find these services at charter schools. So, while it sounds really high and it says, well, it's only three students, by law, the district is required to provide all needs and services for that student to attend school and and get an education. Uh to board member Hutchinson's point and to board member Benson, I appreciate your comments and pointing out that this is this is Medicaid reimbursement that's part of that pot of federal money that goes to help schools knowing that the
102school has to provide this this education. I I do disagree in the public comment that it's related to DEI uh as these are medical services and we have to follow the law in the district and that is that is state and federal law. Special ed students have federal protections that even the state can't override. >> Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, would we please take our vote? With a vote of 5 years, you have approved a contract increase for $350,000 for specialty services due to three students requiring individualized nursing support. Moving on to our next action item is our board goals. Do I have a motion to approve the 202526 board goals? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Thank you. Any discussion? We'll start with Miss Hson.
103>> Yes. Thank you. Um board members, I would like to offer an amendment to the graduation goal. I believe you received a copy. um uh a new copy of the graduation goal. And I added a sentence because um we have some of our high schools, particularly Red Mountain High School, that has a 94.38% graduation rate. So I added a sentence that says however once a school reaches a 95% graduation rate is it it is expected that the school will maintain that rate. In other words, we don't expect a school that's at 95% to go 5%. Um that would be that they the kids are like a box of chocolates. you never know what you're going to get. And and and I and I looked at that goal and I went, "Oh my gosh." Um I'm
104supposed to get 100% of the kids graduated. Well, while we we certainly would would love that, um um we're we're we're dealing with a lot of variables. And so I'd like to propose that if a school did reach 95% graduation rate, um they would meet the graduation goal by sustaining and maintaining that 95% rate. So, I'd like to move an amendment to graduation goal number one, um, which is the last sentence that was added, um, that you have in front of you printed. >> And that last sentence is in on the one that's on the agenda that's attached to board docs, it looks like, too. Am I missing something? It's added. No. >> Okay. >> So, we don't So, we don't need to amend. >> Oh, thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. >> Okay. >>
105We're trying something new and I'm going to try to get used to this. We're going to try to go in order. So, Miss Hudson, then Miss Benson, Miss Walden, and Miss Chaffy, and myself for questions. So, if you see me looking a little bit like I've lost my mind, that might be that I'm like used to looking both ways. And we're going to try to make ourselves a little more structured. So we can keep our movings our meetings moving and I'm not like trying to guess which side wants to go first. So anyway, Miss Hutchinson started it. Miss Benson, do you have anything? >> No, I'd like the addition of the once you reach 95%. Uh it is you just need to maintain that this parallels what we expect from um Dr. strong and if
106we are um working in collaboration not only as a uh board and as a uh working collaboratively with district leadership and we're working collaboratively with our um building admin these goals should um hopefully be able to be attained with uh very little problem as I glance through um the data that we were given. Uh I do want to give a shout out to EVA who apparently earned 35 out of 35 points. Uh it's a little uh little known and I that is one of this the high schools I have in my feeder pattern and um I I actually did make the assumption that it was a behavior school and it is not. It's credit recovery. Uh so I was corrected in that. So um I like I I like that they've done that. Um, we
107probably should indicate that in our CCR I because you can't go any higher than 35 points. Um, in fact, who knew you could get 35? And as I look at the results from graduation rates, a majority of our high schools are uh actually a majority of our high schools would have already met this goal for this year. I if not I think only one uh and again Red Mountain once they hit they're so close to 95. So I I think these are reasonable goals and again I think that um our whole function as a public school district is to educate children and the goal is to get uh graduation to happen and that begins at elementary school. So we have to make sure that we are focused uh laser focused at the elementary level um
108because it it's sequential. So we I I think this is I I think it's a stretch goal and I don't I don't think it's an impossible. So I think that gives enough motivation to our uh staff and our teachers uh our principles um district leadership to really hone in and focus in on what our primary function as a public um school system is and that is to educate children. So I I and I I really like the addition of the not making them think they have to have 150% graduation. >> Thank you, Miss Alvin. >> Yes. Thank you. Yes. So our our top high schools in the country, no one has a 100% graduation rate. I think the most you can get is 98% because there's always that attrition that goes unaccounted for. So I
109I am comfortable with this change. I want to ask Dr. Strong with your goals. Uh be because we want to support you and in your goals as well. Do you have any issues with the this addition? >> No, no issues. And there's room enough in my goals to have a 5% increase as a district this year. Right. That's the goal because we have some schools that need to move up. But I will in preparation for the future year uh tell you that as our schools get higher and higher, we'll need to understand there is what we call a ceiling effect in statistics that we may not be able to expect as a district a 5% increase if all of our schools start to approach that 95% 96%. That's my caveat. >> So I am comfortable.
110So, I think it's good to call out that they'll maintain that rate. But certainly, I think they know and our principles know and they're smart enough to know they can go above it if they want to try to go over 96 97. I think that's going to automatically happen, but it's important to to call out that obviously no one's going to ever get to 100%. Um, I'm really thrilled with these goals and the superintendent goals. I feel like that, you know, this started in 2023 in in trying to move the board to an academic focus and it to me felt like it was a direct response to our our families in the in the community that is, you know, looking at student outcomes and that's what that's what the board is is there. That's what
111everything should be done in the district is to promote student outcomes. There's been a lot of focus on money in education. It's a it education's been to me like a real political hot topic for five years now. And I feel like in trying to pay attention to the community, to our families, to you know what what do people in Arizona expect that this is the direction that people want. They want to know that we're spending our resources and our time on promoting our students and getting them ready for the future, teaching them how to think, not what to think. and and so I'm really excited that we're continuing this endeavor uh that was started in 2023 and focusing on on academic proficiencies and I think these goals will go hand inand with Dr. STM's goals.
112If these goals are achieved and the majority of the goals are achieved, I think that uh that should be national news. I think if we can move the needle in in the direction that STRM is aiming for, that's something that's really special and really hard to do. Something that I've seen in government that's frustrating is it takes a long time to enact change. Uh so, I mean, I feel like now we're kind of we're accelerating that. We're trying to get past that hump of of pushing an iceberg, right? But the things are being set up, the the positions, the reorganization, the focus on accountability that we could see something coming up in the next year, the next two years, even even if there's budget shortfalls and and maybe there's schools that have to close, that
113we're still going to show the public something really special and turning around the academic proficiency, the graduation rates, and being able to tell families that if you send your kids here, they are going to be prepared for the future. in a way that we hopefully create kids that can be self-reliant and confident adults. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Chaffy. >> I do think this is a great addition to our graduation goal, especially we know that our students are earning more credits and so as our high school students earn more credits each year, it should be a very reasonable goal that we increase our graduation. Um, and I I really do appreciate that we as a board are focusing on academic goals. I've learned as a board member that you can focus on a lot
114of different things. There are a lot of different emails and a lot of different things going on going on in schools and I've learned that you can't solve every problem and it's not our job to get involved in every situation. But I do know that as we work together as a board, as we work with superintendency on really trying to improve outcomes that we are going to impact student success like board member Bur Walden said. >> Thank you. And I want to thank um board members for their work in helping put together these goals and the research they've done and reaching out to principles and leadership to find out is this attainable. And I appreciate the input that we've gotten from everyone. And I just as looking at these numbers from last year for our
115high schools, a huge shout out to our high school campuses and our leadership and teachers and staff at all of these schools and the hard work that's gone into to making these numbers increase and we're grateful for their all their hard work that's gone in. And so a huge shout out to them. Um, and with that, any other discussion? Oh, Miss Hutchinson. >> Thank you, President Davis. Um, I sit on the Read on Mesa um board and um Read on Arizona has established the Arizona Literacy Plan and their goal is 72% proficiency by 2030. They they list some key drivers, you know, particularly expanding access to um highquality early learning, um providing professional development for educators, um providing evidence-based literacy solutions, but one of the key drivers is engaging families and communities. key driver. And
116I'm I'm going to suggest to our community that these goals cannot solely be the responsibility of our educators. They have to be the goals of this community. Engagement of our community and our families. And so I'm I'm going to toss a little challenge out there to the SCAKs to the PTO's to our district parental advisory committees that they address the issue of literacy, meet the needs of their kids where they're at. And one of the things that parents can do that will move the needle the most is to make sure their kids are at school. Chronic absenteeism starts that solution starts at home. So let's make sure that our educators know that we support them as a community. This is not solely on them. They are the professionals, but this community needs to make sure
117that we're supporting them. So, let's let's see if we can't come up with some creative ways. And Read on Mesa has a website on the city of Mesa page. It's very informative on how parents can help their kids want to read, read better, read for comprehension. Um, I I really recommend every family getting behind the board goals. Thank you. Any other comments? >> No, just just to piggyback off of member Hutchinson. Um the way that you become a better reader is by reading or being read to. Uh the way you become a better writer, the way you become better at math, uh is by doing it. It's just it's just like an athlete, right? An athlete cannot perfect their sport. A musician can't perfect their um music. An artist can't without practice and without repetition
118and doing things over and over. And I agree with member Hutchinson. It is not strictly education does not is not just within the walls of a school. It is vitally important that parents um are involved in reading to their kids, making their kids get off their silly technology devices and read. Um play math games. There's tons of things and uh different different free activities you can do that actually make um math facts, for example, fun to do. So getting those uh out to people and making sure that um that we we we have to change the paradigm that school just happens and education just happens within the walls of our school. That's not true, right? Education begins at home. Uh and um parents, we're here to actually support you in raising your children as competent,
119literate, mathematically sound um adults. So, uh, I I liked and I was wondering why the, uh, Arizona literacy plan was on here. I was like, what are we voting on that? What is this? Uh, although it was very informative. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Any other? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, would we please take our vote? with a vote of five yays. We have approved the 202526 board goals. We'll now move in to we have now changed this information items. Um tonight our first presentation is an update on the 14 intensive schools for the 202425 school year. We're going to follow the format I introduced earlier with 15 minutes for the presentation and up to 15 minutes for discussion. Mr. Wing, are you ready? All right. And I have Dr. Stum, are you starting us
120or how are we going? >> Madame President, members of the board, uh, you know, nothing great in life ever happens on your own and we have a great team here this last year that did a lot of work to help with our school improvement process. and uh Miss Deator, Miss Mesa, Dr. Eastless, Miss Baka, Miss Man, like a team of people did this work. And so we're just proud to bring this presentation to you. And uh you know, the work doesn't stop here. It's about cycles of learning and coming back and improving on the next cycle and the next cycle. And I'll toss it over to Miss Statory >> or Miss Mesa. Start. >> Yeah, I'll start. Thank you. Um, Madame President, members of the board, today we are here um to update you on
121our work with school improvement um that we affectionately call school improvement action planning. Um, and so last year at this time we brought you our introduction to this work um which was last August was our first um conversation about this and then we also in November brought an update to you about what we were doing at that time and where we were going next. So this is our next step around um providing information for you around what work was done since that time and um how schools ended up measuring up as far as um meeting their goals. So our goals for today are to provide an update around the intensive school work to share some stories. Um one of the a couple of meetings ago um member Hudinson asked about what's happening in those schools
122and can we share stories. So we do have principles here to share that work with you and then also the progress data about how these schools uh really ended up meeting or achieving um some of the goals or growth. Um and then finally we'll wrap up with discussing next steps. Where are we in next steps in this work? So last year when we uh began this work, it really started in the summer with an analysis of our data around uh doubleASSA data as well as our FastBridge data and really thinking about how schools are doing um over time. And once we had all those indicators, we looked at all of our schools and we identified 14 schools that we felt needed some more intensive support. That's where that word comes from. And we really thought
123about how to do that work with a collective effort with through crossf functional teams which really um ensured that we were working together across departments to make sure that we had uh provided support in those identified areas for specific schools in order to ensure that they would make progress. And so our goal was then to create that system and ensure that our goal was to really see if 11 of those 14 schools could meet at least three or four of those goals that were set by the board last year. And so when we started, we really got laser focused on the work of of intensive schools. What did that mean? It meant really thinking about uh the needs that they had and then put putting that work into action and monitoring and evaluating what we
124were doing with that work and then as we move through those processes, thinking about how we could uh scale that work into a continuous improvement model um that right now exists in K8. So, I'm going to turn it over to um Mrs. Delator so she can talk more about the specific work that was done with intensive schools. >> All right. Good evening. Um thank you for having me today. So, I'm going to get started on a a page that has a lot of writing on it and I realize that. So, um I'm just going to focus on the headings of that and and allow you to read those um under the subheadings. So, within this, we went through the school improvement process with our intensive support schools. um starting with identifying of a need. Um
125that came through data processes, having them dig into multiple pieces of data to be able to identify what are some areas of need on your campus based off that data. Then going into creating smart goals based off of that. The next step was go into a root cause analysis um which if you've ever seen that is a pretty intensive process where you're really digging into what is the root cause of this being the problem within our data. And we took it even further through going through a um fivey process that digs even deeper. Um and from there we asked them to then create theories of action or strategies that they would then utilize to be able to address the overall problem or need from the data. Um from there we then took them into action
126planning which was fairly intensive. It goes through who is going to be responsible for each action step. What are the dates that those are going to be accomplished and what are the measurements that are going to tell you whether or not that action step was um impactful. And then finally we went into resource alignment. So not just resource alignment when you think of funding. That was a part of it definitely when you're thinking about for me in particular I'm over our title one grant. So, how do we help our schools to align their funds to meet the needs of those particular areas of focus? But also, how are we utilizing resources such as people on our campus? So, our instructional coaches when we have identified needs, we've created a theory of action and an action
127plan. How are those instructional coaches on your campus supporting that work? And then what other um resources are you engaging to be able to support that work? And the part that we did with our school improvement co or sorry intensive support schools was exactly bringing them together to go through this process. And again it's a very intensive process. So after going through it one time we then brought them in as smaller groups and we had various individuals from directors specifically from teaching and learning and special education sitting alongside the schools to process through this work. We then created also a one step uh onepoint rubric for them to be able to assess how are we doing through this process to determine whether or not it's working or not. Um goal behind that is to really
128build that sustainability. Um so that we this becomes part of what we do on a regular basis as a district. Um and with that again there was a lot of support provided to each of those schools opportunities for processing with directors andor other specialists in the room from the various departments. After each of those steps, we then provided individual feedback and support to those schools again through the directors in teaching and learning and special education. The next step um this actually is our scaled work. So we um saw a lot of success from this work and really seen that we were able to provide the additional sports from all the departments for the schools as they went through this process. So we scaled this work for K8, all K8 schools in the spring starting in
129January. We did a very similar process, but it was massive, right? It was all our K8 schools. So we really took it step by step again utilizing that onepoint rubric and those opportunities for feedback and support. So at after every single step, the schools received feedback on how they did through that process and how we could best help them align their um process even more. Um so then from there they created again action plans, professional learning plans which they are living out currently. Um as well as alignment of those resources to those the areas of action. These are our goals that were set for the schools. We talked about this earlier. So I'll just show those as a reminder and I know you have the presentation as well. The next two slides are going to
130go into um a visual to show you exactly how our schools, those intensive support schools did. So, you're going to see across the top the four goals that were set and then see boxes of either um green, yellow, or red. Green shows you that they met the goal that was set. Yellow shows you they showed progress towards that goal and red is that they did not meet the goal and in some case well in many cases went backwards as well. So um you're going to also see that there's percentages on some some of them. We intentionally place those there to show you just how close those schools were. Um and so we're this is really exciting work. You can see a lot of um red and yellow or sorry, yellow and green on these slides,
131which tells you a lot of our schools showed progress and met those goals. So, we're very proud of that and we want to make sure that we're recognizing the hard work our schools went through to meet these goals. >> Mr. Deator, >> can I ask you a quick question? >> Sure. just because I want to make sure Kino is recognized a little bit. If you go back and I know we're going to have uh Redbird and Poston come up and present explain what happened at Kino across ELA and math and making progress with minimally proficient and partially proficient kids in every category. What happened? >> What they did to get there? >> No. Oh, >> the data showed they showed increase. I just want I want everyone to understand yellow yellow means Kino showed increases
132>> across each of the goals. Exactly. >> They just did not make the overall goal 220 and 20. >> Yes. So um and and Kino had a lot of intentional work through project momentum as well, but they definitely showed that progress through those and all of those yellow areas show that and again very exciting to see that increase in all scores from our from many of our schools. All right. Um this is just another visual representation of that data. So you're seeing the ELA and the math pass rates um for ELA. Five of our schools of course met it. three of our schools um moved towards the goal with a total of 57% of our schools um showing increases in that particular area. In the math pass rate, you see that 11 of the schools
133met the goal. Two of the schools moved in progress, which is a total of 92.9% of our schools making progress. And then on the below proficiency growth again you see that five met the goal and nine made progress which tell which which tells us all of the schools showed progress towards the goal. And again you see the same thing with the below proficiency in math. Six of the schools met the goal and eight of those schools showed growth which again 100% of our schools showed growth in this particular area. And I'm going to stop talking so I can let our schools share um the amazing work that they did. Madame President, to respect the schools being here and the fact that we're this is the first time doing it. Can we give each school five
134minutes? All right. >> You bet. >> Do I have four minutes and 40 seconds? >> Okay. All right. Hi, I am Anie Ericson, proud principal at Redbird um elementary. So, we actually um made all of our goals last year and we became a B school. So, huge um accomplishments at Redbird. Thank you. All right. All right. So, this journey, I want people to know that this did not happen overnight. So, we started this journey in 2023. The administrative team and teachers began a multi-year collaborative school improvement progress to strengthen our tier one instruction. I think it tier one instruction um in ELA and math. In fall of 2023, administrators worked closely with teachers, district content specialists, and our MTSS leadership facilitators to review Redbird's school improvement plan. This collaboration identified our school greatest needs that
135led to the creation of an intentional planning document for our teachers. By spring of 2024, the teachers determined priority areas including understanding standards, um, standard alignment, learning targets, success criteria, tier one small groupoup instruction, assessment, while also developing UDL scaffolds to ensure we have equitable access to all of our students. Redbird also has um an Ames program on our campus as well. Um, so during the summer of 2024, teachers were paid dedicated planning time through the grant to apply this framework to their intentional planning documents. And when school started, um, all teams were expected um, uh, to use their Wednesdays to create this intentional planning doc. Additionally, the administrators created a quadrant data analysis sheet for each grade level to help them identify each student's needs and strength. and um as they tailored instruction using
136FastBridge data. And then finally through walkthroughs by administrators and coaches, our focus was entirely tier one instruction in just ELA and math. All right. And then this is how we implemented it. Um teachers used Wednesdays and we stayed laser focused on tier one instruction. The admin team um provided weekly feedback to teachers on their intentional planning documents and through this a culture of learning developed as teachers act actively sought feedback through emails, checklists and walkthroughs. In April, this was not an easy process. So, we needed a little community circle um where we gave staff their voice to share honestly about the process cuz again this is a a huge undertaking to ask teachers and they told us what what do you need in order to make sure that we are moving forward in this process.
137Using um this insight, administrators and coaches tailored the fourth quarter walkthroughs to provide this feedback that teachers were asking for. And then the data process at the beginning of the year, teams used the initial fastbridge data to target tier 2 and tier three instruction and to identify student subgroups that needed extra help. And then in grades four through six, teachers strategically identified bubble students. Um, thank you to the R& providing all of that information to us. Um, bubble students that needed to move up, catch up, and keep up and, um, organize supports accordingly. And then as we got our middle of the year FastBridge data, grade level teams redefined those quadrant data analysis to highlight our progress. And then we created new need subgroups, including some of our EL learners and our students with IEPs.
138And then teachers and coaches then held data conversations with students ahead of doubleASA and EOI fast bridge assessment so our students knew um what their growth goals were as well. >> We got one more minute. >> Okay. All right. And then the next step I'm almost done. This is my shortest part. All right. So everything we did was great. So we're going to continue that momentum um of our previous year but um our teachers wanted and are now creating a attached to the intentional planning doc they had asked for a unit planning doc to get the big picture. So teachers are now focused on the priority standards deepening their understanding of the learning curriculum and enhancing student agency so that kids have um choice and voice in their learning and then additionally our data digs.
139So, we're looking at not just BOI, MOI, and EOI, but how can they drive um daily instruction using um the data that they get from kids every day and we are hoping that now we will also reach the 5% goal and meet all the goals next year as well. Thank you. >> Yay. >> All right. So I'm Mike Pier principal at Poston and so I'm excited to tell you a little bit about our story. Um so our three goals going into from this intensive school work was um first create teams. Our create teams are um interdisciplinary teams of ELA, social studies and science and they were focusing on reading and writing instruction. Our math teams were working together to develop scaffolding support for tier 2 um instruction and support. And then our teams were learning
140to work together as teams. Um at the secondary level oftent times they work in silos. And so we really wanted to break down those silo walls and have them working to the best interest of all of our students. So as we moved forward um we utilized our create teams um to create smaller cohorts of students so that we could really focus in on knowing each individual student by name and serving them by strength and need. um our coaching team um which is made up of uh myself, my assistant principal and our two coaches, our school improvement coach and our instructional coach. Um we create the coaching team and we really provided feedback on their tier one instruction through walkthroughs. Um we uh started focusing with our ELA teachers on performance level descriptors to really ensure
141that they were not only planning but assessing at grade level standards so that we can ensure that that was aligning. And then our um and then they would work with our science and social studies teachers um to ensure the same thing was happening. Our math teams um continue to utilize our intervention period which we call pause time between seventh and eighth period to use data to identify students to pull into retach um so that we can uh provide those additional tier 2 supports for math. Um one of the things that we found extremely helpful is prior to ASA our teachers utilized data conversations with each of our students. And when you look at a co a teacher workload of about 190 to 200 kids on a case load um they worked there very rigorously um
142to meet with all those kids and it was eye- openening for the students and also eye opening for the teachers and it was awesome to watch them work as coaches for our learners which was awesome. Um we also uh then ensured that going into um the second half of the year and also into summer um we actually planned for quarterly planning days where our teams met with our coaches and all day planning days where they were able to really focus together and make sure they're staying on top of our um theories of action and really planning not only for the wrap-up of this of last year but really diving in fourth quarter to prepare for going into this year. Um we provided support on Wednesdays dedicated at um our Wednesdays to make sure they had
143team planning. We all came together in our media center to make sure that we were planning with supports. Um we reached out to district teaching and learning to ensure that our content teachers had specialized um support instruction on how to engage with the curriculum and their curricular resources. Uh, R& was fabulous with building our data the way we wanted to see it so we could help our teachers really personalize that. And then through constant feedback from our coaching team, we're able to help facilitate improvement in the moment and also through our planning days. So going into ne this year, which I'm really excited about, we saw some great growth and we're going to continue because we use the same process moving forward. We are going focusing on our performance level descriptures and our tier one
144instruction. We're actually increasing data targeted intervention with our pause time um across all of our um core curriculum and we're continuing data conversations. We're pushing our teachers or encouraging our teachers to have two data conversations as they progress through fastbridge prior to double essay. And we're also um expanding professional learning opportunities. So all the junior high principles have collaborated to ensure that the third Wednesday of every month we're working with district content specialists and we're breaking down the school silos to ensure and that wasn't my just my idea that was all of us as junior high principles um to uh really make sure that we're providing content specific support for those teachers to engage with the curricular resources adopted as well as that um understanding by designer backwards design planning time. Um and if we
145have title money um we will be utilizing that to provide paid uh planning days as well. So there we go. Um so thank you for that. >> Um yeah this has been a um a team effort as Dr. Stro said and so um our next steps would be to continue to monitor the work that we're doing with schools and ensuring that we're continuing to pro provide that cross functional support but also then expanding the focus to 912 and ensuring that they are able to walk through the same process and um with the support that's been provided in K8. Um and then just as we look at continuous improvement and creating those systems just living in those um in that system I guess is the word of always monitoring what we're doing. um maintaining a laser
146focus, assessing what we're doing and and tweaking it if we need to to ensure that we're continuing to make process progress. So that's our that's our presentation. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. Questions? We'll start with Mrs. Hutchinson and go to >> this is amazing. And um Principal Ericson, thank you. Princip Where's Principal Michael? There he is. Um thank you. Thank you so much. Um, it's incredibly energizing to hear you, but what I really appreciated was that students had voice, teachers had voice. Again, you're modeling the portrait of a graduate. You're giving kids agency, but you're giving the educators who teach those kids agency. And I really want to thank you because I think that's really the secret sauce >> and and I know um Principal Ericson having worked with the Dobson region last year
147and and and hearing your story um this has taken an incredible amount of work and and Michael I know you you're you're you're you are an inspiration. you work so hard and you're both making an incredible difference in your communities. Thank you so much. And to have the support from your staff, I love it. I mean, it's awesome. So, thank you. Thank Thank you very much. And and Superintendent Stum and Miss Mesa, thank you for providing a real life example to the real life problems that we were trying to solve. Thank you very much for providing the example, >> Miss Vincent. Thank you. >> Um I just wanted to comment that and I uh said it earlier that um graduation starts in elementary school. So if we get our students proficient at the elementary level,
148our junior highs, by the time a student gets there, if they're so far behind it is statistically it it is so difficult to get them caught up. So, uh I like the focus on I the the um the growth aspect as well. We know that uh in our um our lower income schools, they are also highly they there's a high Hispanic population oftentimes that we have ELLL kids that uh English is not their first language. So, I like that we added to your goals an ELLL goal because as I look at at schools that potentially didn't reach their ELA goal, I'm wondering is it because they had a high population of ELLL kids that they're doing the best they can, but they've got to gain proficiency in English before they can or um so the
149other but then I have a question. So um when when we provide our schools with resources and curriculum but we our kids are are tested on standards and it's my understanding that now we list essential standards right so how clearly does the curriculum that we provide to our teachers to use how clearly does it line up to are teachers being able to teach to the standards without having to go out and search for other supplemental materials that in order to shore that up. Do we have have we provided quality because I know the year that we had co or during ESR money we we adopted four curriculums pretty quickly. So are do are you seeing a connection? Do we have quality material that or do our are our teachers going I don't know what to
150do. How what standard does this do? Does that make sense? I know I'm rambling. >> Dr. East, could you take a first shot at that? And and I'd love for the principles to come up and come. >> Yes, I'd love for the principles to come up, but um first and foremost, when you go out and adopt a curriculum, just remember that those curriculum companies are meant to um what's the word I'm looking for? to help to align to a broad um group of standards across the nation. And so in Arizona, we're local control, so we have our own standards as well. But so what I'm trying to say is every curriculum is not going to meet every single need. We do uh a very um lengthy process through a request for proposal and get lots
151of feedback, but we have criteria that we look for so that we have hopefully the best curriculum that will align to those standards, but there's always going to be a need for some supplemental resources in particular with our ELA and math curriculum. Um I would say that there is a strong alignment to our our standards, but again, there's always going to be a need for filling some of those gaps. But, um, I'll turn it over to our principles to speak specifically about what they're hearing and seeing from their teachers as well. >> All right. He's making me go first. Um, yes. So, like, um, Miss Isa said, absolutely right. So, when there's curriculum, it's broad, right? I mean, I've taught in Illinois, I've taught here. So, um, nothing is exactly the same. You always look
152at the standard. Um, if the standard is not an Arizona standard, then you don't, right? then that's not a lesson that you know the teacher should be focusing on. I do love that now the um state put out the essential standards because now I think it gives the teachers a little bit more of a laser focus of which standards to hit a little bit harder, right? Or really make sure that those kids are um understanding those. Um but yes, absolutely. Um I I do know that the um scholastic um it was a little shift. You went from a basil to a workshop model. So, um, as long as our teachers understand that, right, that small group, that's what we focused on, small group, tier one instruction, and that when you're doing those small group, you're
153doing tier one. When it's time to do tier 2, then it's time to do tier 2, right? So, I think and I have, um, a young staff. So, um, that's just right. I think a learning curve for them that might not be the same at schools that, you know, don't have that. So I think that's what you also have to take into consideration not just the curriculum but your staff that you have and making sure they understand that. But I absolutely think both programs you know been all over. Yes. A program but again look at your standard make sure you know that standard is aligned. >> Can you remind us how you spent your ESR dollars? >> Oh yes. Um so um I was one of the first to step in on the um ESSER
154dollars when um we wrote that grant. And one thing that I did notice at um at uh Redbird when I got there, so um just so you know, I am a Mesa parent as well. So my son went to um Red Mountain Ranch, graduated from Red Mountain. Um and actually um quick shout out taking him to um Arcadia University on um uh Tuesday to um you know, go farther. But um one thing that I did notice is that Redbird classrooms had no books for our kids. So, um, like I walk into, you know, my kids' school and I'm like, "Oh, wow. They have a a plethora, right, to pick from." So, one of the things that we made sure is that at Redbird, every single classroom has about 350 to 400 books to pick from
155besides our library that we made sure also had books. So, our kids have books, they can check them out, they can take them home because that accessibility is not at home. So, we also made sure they had that. I think one of the one of the the fulfilling things of being an educator is the art of planning and implementing lessons. And so really focusing on that backwards design um and util starting with the standard identifying the learning targets and success criteria and then diving into the adopted curricular adopted resources um and then pulling that in and aligning it to that. So, we're utilizing it to support standardsbased instruction instead of just working through a textbook that is written for a broad nationwide market for those companies. One of the things I'm super excited about that's
156going to be happening next Wednesday is working with teaching and learning and like I hinted to with our um our junior high teachers, content teachers, is they are really going to be starting to dive in with the support of teaching and learning utilizing that backwards design, identifying those learning targets and sex criteria, and then with the help of our content specialists at the district level are going to be instructing and helping our teachers regardless of where they're at in their career, their expertise, start diving in finding those resources that are out of our adopted curriculum to match the standards and then develop their lessons around that. So, I know I'm not the only one um for the junior high principles that were excited to see this work. Um we actually have identified four schools. We're
157splitting up in those four content areas. I'm hosting math. Taylor's hosting um uh science. Thank you. Uh Kino's hosting ELA and Stapley's hoping hosting uh social studies. And so we're excited to see how we can build that expertise um because we're all doing slightly different things. We're doing those crosscurricular teams and bringing that that expertise by utilizing backwards design standards focus by utilizing and then pulling in our resources to provide that support. Then we can see where the holes are. Until we actually do that, we can't see what holes we are in the adopted curriculum that we might have to go to external. >> Thank you, Miss Walden. turn. Uh, so thank you so much for the principles and staff that showed up tonight and I commend you for your efforts and it's my favorite
158thing is to be able to hear about improvements that are happening uh in our schools. It's the best part of any board meeting and especially approve improvements of this magnitude. I just had a follow-up question that is for superintendency. So for our schools that weren't able to to meet these goals, what efforts are being done with these schools, are we continuing on with the work that's been done or is the work getting ramped up? >> We are the the the effort in public education will never be ceased or stopped and the improvement will always continue to occur. We are ramping up. Uh we have project momentum schools working underneath the Arizona Department of Education that are strictly focused on the gears and backwards design and curriculum. And I think the person that's leading out that
159work with some of these schools who maybe need to continue to focus on improving this year uh because we didn't get as large of improvements as we wanted last year. Uh Amy Deator is leading out that work. So Amy >> Yes. So as Dr. ST mentioned um we have 10 schools that are engaging in project momentum this year which goes very much into the work we're doing with continuous improvement um but at a very deep level. So they will be focused around gears which focuses on our collaborative teams creating collaborative teams ensuring that those are highquality collaborative teams where we're regularly looking at data making decisions as we move forward with instruction as well as that instructional design using the backward design process. um I am their supervisor. So we have a very systemic process
160that we're going through to engage in professional learning come together as a collaborative group all 10 of us on a specific campus looking for those pieces um discussing next steps and along the way from each of those processes receiving support from uh teaching and learning and special education along the way to be able to support them. So I feel really good about the work we have planned as we move forward. But as Dr. Straw mentioned, continuous improvement. It's always looking at how is what we're doing working. Having those regular data cycles to determine that and making shifts if necessary. That's the point of continuous improvement. It doesn't mean you stick with it and you never change, right? Sometimes you have to make some moves. So we're really excited about the work that we're going to
161be engaging with those schools. We also um as mentioned scaled a lot of the work um for K8 schools last year in the spring. So much of what um both principles mentioned is happening at all K8 schools this year um as well as leading learning um for our principles is going to be around the instructional design. So we have a lot of I think very um strategic moves happening to help our schools. >> About two and a half minutes. >> That's excellent. Thank you. I don't have any other questions or comments. >> Thank you, Mr. Chaffy. >> Yeah, I just wanted to highlight for the board that well, first I really appreciated that we had an elementary school and a junior high because I think that gives us a broad perspective. And there were some
162common themes that time was used effectively, that they used data. So, thank you so much to Renee. I heard those shout outs a couple of times. Thank you for making that easier. That's an easier lift for our our principles and our teachers. That they engaged students, that they used tier one instruction, and that's something we talked about early on as a board, and that they used collaboration. And I think that as we move forward in looking at making improvements in ELA and math that we need to keep having those conversations as board members is how do we how do we make those things happen on our campuses? And Miss Mesa, my question is were there any roadblocks that the schools encountered? And is there anything the school board can do to help help out some
163of those roadblocks? Um I think in that in our early work um roadblocks was maybe time finding time together because I um we had to really make that a focus and a priority. So some things had to come off our calendars to put that first to then right then re um align what we were doing to ensure that we were now focused on that and that with that we were able to provide the support around. So I think now that that is um part of our system we've got a better handle on that. Um, and I think it's just really digging in and ensuring that all of our teachers really have the time and support to be able to understand what they need for from the curricular resources to ensure that they are able to
164utilize them appropriately and consistently to u meet the standards. And I I think uh the next step which you know time is always of the essence but um and I don't know how you'd support this but it is part of the support that we're providing as an instructional leadership team from superintendency through down through directors is really um meeting every week to talk about what's happening in classrooms what instructional practices do teachers and leaders need support with so that when um they do need something then we're able to identify that whether it's time whether it's money, whether it's another resource, if we are in the work and we understand what that is and we're all all collaborating. Um I think that that's been probably the biggest um takeaway is that the collaboration is key and
165and in ensuring that when we're talking together and sharing that that then we're able to go back and provide those resources. So, um, I'll keep you posted, but time really was, uh, of the essence in that restructuring of our resources to ensure that we had now the focus on, uh, continuous improvement. >> Thank you. >> Speaking of time, President Davis, you're welcome to extend the time for the governing board. >> Well, thank you. Thank you for those participating tonight. And I loved hearing that we're collaborating collaborating with different schools across the district. I love that we're working together. I think that that's what we want. I think let's use each other and the resources we have and all work together. That's what we're going to do to move this forward. Just a note to my
166board members. Um on in docs, there's a spreadsheet for follow-up questions that will also be published on Cameo. Correct. >> Uh yeah, it will be published for the next board meeting. >> For the next board meeting, >> okay, on board docs, there will be answers to those questions. So if if you get thinking and you have other questions, you can input them in there and we'll get those answered and they will show on board docs. So, um, going forward, so we have more opportunities to follow up with questions. Um, and our next presentation I'm very excited about. Um, over I've been involved in athletics for a long time and um, this we are going to have some athletic expectations for the 202526 year. I know as board members, we've received lots of emails this last
167year about what's gone on and in some of our events and so I'm looking for forward to hearing what we're implementing. So over Mr. >> Eubanks. >> Yep. Madam President, members of the board, Dr. Stum, thank you for uh having me and my athletic directors that assisted me in uh creating this. And thank you to Mr. Cler for not wearing his no Toro's tie today. He did not wear it, which was uh which was a positive. Um so game day expectations for students, fans, and sponsorship. This is really um I would say on the cutting edge of Arizona when it comes to expectations. This does not exist in other places in other school districts. Um, I sit on the AIA sportsmanship committee and oftent times we talk about student behavior, uh, treatment of officials, um,
168uh, athlete expectations, etc. With club sports becoming more and more prevalent and and and just kind of the chaos that ensues with that, that learned behavior sometimes makes its way to us and so we have to do our best to help correct it. So to get started um what are what are sports to our school? So oftent times um sports um band activities leads its way and it's the first opportunity that a lot of our community has interactions with our high schools. They get to meet our coaches. They get to see what high school junior high might be about. It's visibility from the community which can often be positive. A lot of the times it is right the interactions but it also can be negative. Um, so oftentimes what might seem small, and here's just
169some uh brief examples of some things that are on social media, some news articles over the last year, which may not seem like a big deal. You have one up there talking about um an athletic director resigning the week before school. Apparently, that's newsworthy in the state of Arizona as a big deal. So, that had 1500 views. Um, last year you had a uh an athlete that high-fived their coach incorrectly and that resulted in 10 athletes quitting the team and then the coaches then resigning. Um, people lose their jobs because of uh decisions that are made within athletics, whether it's recruiting or violations from the AIA. So, there's a lot of scrutiny that's put on athletics as well. But here's here's a super positive thing connected to athletics. Last year, seniors in Mesa had a
17098% graduation rate. So, um, so that's across all high schools, all seniors. That was the, uh, number we came up with as, um, as our seniors last year. So, seniors that participate in athletics. I apologize, >> Mr. Eubanks. >> Sorry. Yes. >> Let me Hutchinson commented on how important the whole community getting involved in literacy is. And I think with this data presented right now, if if the community wants to know, families want to know what's the number one thing you can do for your student besides your own support, surround them with great peers. And one of the great places to find great peers is in extracurricular activities, clubs, and then in this case, athletics. It keeps kids engaged. It keeps kids involved. And that's why you see that when kids are involved in extracurricular
171sports that uh hey they have a 98% graduation rate. >> Yeah. And and and often people ask what's that connected to? That's that's high expectations and built-in relationships that students have over a period of four years. So So it's it's pretty easy to see if if you know Coach Enders over at Red Mountain could get his hands on a kid as a freshman, he's going to be pretty success successful by the time he leaves Red Mountain High School. So, uh, that's a big kudos to to all our schools and and the why. So, over the past several years, we've seen several negative interactions. This is statewide. um declining uh amount of officials um electing no longer to uh continue to work or or um just we're having to cancel games because of lack of officials
172because it's not worth their time to come out for the $75 to be yelled at, cursed at, etc. Um so that's the why. Mesa Public Schools is going to lead the way in showing our expectations of what we expect from our fans, our students, our coaches, and officials all together as a group. So, the MPS fan initiative is what we'll be rolling out this year. So, we do have a uh pre-recorded PSA. This is the the written language for it, and you're going to hear a version of it here in a little bit, but this will play for every event that has an audio system that it can be played over. So, you're going to hear it at football events, indoor gymnasium events, baseball, softball, etc., where you have a high level of um fan
173interaction. So, um it's going to be super professional. You're going to hear we're gonna we're gonna kind of force them to listen to it. It's going to be please stand for the pled the the national anthem, then this is going to play then the national anthem. So, everyone will be nice and quiet and they're going to listen to this and then we'll continue on with the game. So, it's going to be pretty neat. You'll hear it every event you go to. And then athlete expectations. We are going to have some signage that we put up. Dos and don'ts throughout the district. Um they're they're expected to treat officials with respect. Um and sportsmanlike behavior directed at opponents will not be tolerated. Um athletes are encouraged to represent Mesa with pride and humility. So that's really
174going to come from training from the athletic directors to the coaches and coaches to the kids. But um this in some capacity is already being taught, but it's going to be really honed in this year and and with super focus. And then the student fan interaction. Typically at the high schools, you'll see that there is a group of students that usually lead the charge when it comes to uh the uh the the chance that they elect to uh everyone's smiling up there that they that they elect to uh begin to cheer. So the athletic directors will meet with them three times a year before each season and talk about expectations, what can be said, what can't be said. And the and the big focus here is cheering for our team, not against the other team,
175not singling out another player from the other team, not not um not singling out a number or chanting something towards the other team, but rather cheering for our team. Now, it's no one's going to be perfect, but we're going to have we're going to have we're going to have things in place by the ads to address that immediately when it does take place. Uh coaches, coaches are role models. Recently this year, uh the AI, this past year, the AIA changed their ejection model from one game, if a a coach gets ejected, two to two games. And if it happens more than once, they can be removed from the from the entire season. They can be suspended for the year. I have never seen that happen, so I don't expect it to. And actually the ejections
176from statewide have gone down substantially since this has been implemented from one ejection to two. So uh coaches have been on their best behavior. We're fortunate enough to I believe have some of the best coaches in the state of Arizona across all our sports and they do an excellent job of of representing Mason a positive behav positive manner. And you can see up there we listed some coaches of the year over the various schools. parents. Okay. Uh parents, um while generally when when they're at events and at games, if there's a bad call by an official, typically the the the normal boo or that's a bad call, while we're going to try to hone our parents to not have that behavior, what we're talking about is generally a little more aggressive than that. Um, oftent
177times we're removing parents and fans from games for um, continually berating like standing up in an empty or in a gym that's completely silent, cursing. Um, we we've had to uh, trespass some some fans in the past. So, so when I talk about parents, we're talking pretty extreme behaviors. Um, so so the typical fan behavior, you know, we we're wanting to be positive, but I it's countless times I've had to do it. All of these guys have had to do it. Go up in the bleachers and say, "Hey, would you mind relaxing? Let's take a step back. Let's focus on the game and and and enjoy ourselves. The the traveling call that the official made is not the end of the world." So, [Music] and then uh we do we we have collaborated um with
178our AT TV department and uh created some videos. We are going to have individual videos for each high school that will be played prior to our larger games um setting the tone for our students, our community. Um Chad, if we can go ahead and and >> Hi, my name is Riel and I play for the Mountain View football team. Chant loud but never rude. Treat players, coaches, and officials with dignity. >> My name is Co Lopez. I play volleyball at Skyland High School. On the field or in the gym, we represent our schools with class and pride. I'm an institute legacy. We uplift our teammates and our everyone deserves a team. >> My name is Kai K. I'm a basketball player here at Mesa High. We celebrate effort the game. >> Hi, my name is
179Aliana. I attend Doson High School and I play for the flag football team and varsity girls basketball team. We lead by example, follow the rules, and keep it safe. >> Hello, my name is Jameson Way and I play football here at Mountain. No booing, no taunting, no hate. That's how we show love. Welcome to today's event, and thank you for supporting Mesa Public Schools athletics. Our student athletes compete with pride, and your role as fans, families, and community members is just as important. Mesa Public Schools is committed to creating a positive and respectful environment. That's why we have clear expectations. Cheer for your team, not against the other. Support with pride. Lead with respect. Every athlete, coach, and official on the field is someone's child, teammate, and friend. Let's represent our community with spirit, sportsmanship,
180and unity. Thank you for helping us set the standard for what it means to be an MPS fan. So that's the uh the the audio you heard at the end is going to be the PSA that's played after the national anthem. So that little 45 second clip. Um and it will be um recorded by there's a lot of pride with announcers in Mesa public schools. I don't know if everyone's aware of that. So I I said we'll just use we'll just use Mesa's and everyone and that did not go over well. So so so everyone's announcer their own voice will be heard during Yeah. So it'll be recorded and very nice. Um, so anyway, but a version of that again will be individualized for each school. So Mesa High, let's say they're playing out of
181district school, it will just be Mesa High or Skyline or Westwood kids with coaches, etc. Um, and then officials. Um, the officials are going to be treated with utmost respect. They're going to look forward to coming to Mesa. They're going to come in. They're going to check in with the athletic director. They're going to be shown to their locker room. They're going to have a bottle of water and a snack waiting for them, a special seat. They can watch the game and then if they request it, which it has happened in the past, requested security to their vehicle after a game. Um, which may seem a little overblown, but there's been some pretty heated games in the past and and we've had to do it. So, pregame ops meetings. We are going to initiate some
182ops meetings that take place for our highlevel events that require um some coordination with security. Um some examples would be Battle Brown Road, Mountain View Red Mountain, uh Mesa High versus Mountain View Hoop Hoops and a few others. Volleyball, we get into some as well. And what that'll entail is meeting with security, talking about exit plans, where students are going to sit, how many security guards are going to bring, just coming up with a comprehensive plan. So this is a model that that myself and actually Mr. Clea had implemented over in Tempi at Desert Visten and we were there for the Tuki Bowl. So Goofan ticketing. So anybody that purchases a Goofan ticket via uh Mesa Public Schools will then have to acknowledge that they agree with this item here. Um they will so that
183will validate if we have an issue with someone in the stands or someone that has to have a talk to they would have accepted uh this uh as a uh understanding and agreement to get into the gymnasium. Um, this is also something that we will be placing on banners and signs signage around our schools as well that will be uh made to look in the school's particular colors, not not just the Toro blue or uh Westwood blue because I'd get some heat for that. It's Toro blue. Sorry, warrior. See see what I have to deal with around here. And then we also um will have school announcements. We have the ability to post all this on TVs throughout the school and and kind of rolling announcements and so um Kylie Thomas in my office is
184coordinating that with the school and getting those loaded as well. U mares we have created some u marquee messaging. I'm not going to play the whole thing, but as you're as you're sitting on the road in the corner, you're going to see some of these messages coming up um on the mares um talking specifically about sportsman sportsmanship um expectations for games, etc. rolling with the other school announcements as well. And then we do have I'm trying to skip here. Uh we do have some schools that have video display scores tables. So these will be um displayed on the scores tables alongs with along with ads and other information that they have rolling um rolling announcements for on the school. So that is the presentation I have and turn it over. >> Thank you so much
185board members. Uh Miss Hutchinson, any anything? >> I love it. Um, and I and I'm I'm pleased that Mesa Public Schools is leading the way. I um we're the flagship and we ought we ought to be leading the way. And I and I I appreciate and I told you this in the email I sent you today that I really appreciate the thoughtfulness >> and the professionalism that you have displayed. I know as as a collaborative team to come up with with this. Um um I love the idea of high expectations. Um and when Dr. Strong mentioned relationships, little known fact, I was the girls tennis coach at Mesa High a long time ago and I still get Facebook messages from my number one and number two player. Um relationships are important. This type of model
186of behavior is going to foster positive relationships and and I really think that this is an extremely important endeavor that you guys have done. It's we got lots of emails last last time and it was it got it it was like mindblowing behaviors that we were we were being told and and and having not taught in high school for a few years now um it was it was blowing my mind that that was actually going on because that didn't happen when I was teaching at Red Mountain so or Dobson. So I really appreciate the efforts and I think it's it's it's spectacular. Thank you. >> Yep. I'm David Clea from Mesa High School. Uh we know as leaders, we have a lot of eyeballs on us, >> especially in athletics. And I think it was
187this summer, I met Joe Goodman at Ned's Subs, and we had a nice lunch. I had purple, he had red on, and we took a photo out in front of the sub shop, and I put it on social media, and it surprised me. people I didn't even know responded with, "How could you have lunch with a Toro?" So, what I've decided is Joe and I throughout the year are going to meet for lunch at various places in our school colors and we're going to have fun with it because we know as leaders, our kids are watching us, they're watching their coaches, and they're watching their parents. And if they can see the two of us having a good time, I think that goes a long way. We all want to win. We're all competitive. I've
188been a part of rivals as a player, a coach, and now an AD. And for whatever reason, it's flipped to where now rivals are poison. But back in the day, we grew up with our rival. So Mesa is the biggest and the best. And so little things like Joe and I going to lunch, I think, is going to go a long way. So that's our plan. >> I would add, Hi, Joe Goodman, Mountain View. Uh I would also add that that in part of these conversations we will be encouraging kids a lot of what they should do and not just focusing on what they should avoid because you can't just leave a void and hope they fill it correctly, right? Uh you have to give them things. And so you know as part of this
189conversation we'll you know we will talk about what I call good good wholesome smack talk, right? I mean, when you go to a basketball game and they say, "You got swatted." Like, we're okay with that, guys. That's fun. That's part of the game, part of the atmosphere. But it's that negativity that we we're going to really address, but try to encourage them to use their voice positively. So, >> I paid for lunch, though, by the way. >> Thank you, Miss Vincent. Um, so purple and red, that's the uh red hat society for us old women. So that's good, those two colors together. Uh, so I'm glad to hear that uh some some smack talk is going to be allowed because I my daughter was the JV basketball coach over at Dobson. Um, and I used
190to say last spring I'm the my first um negative like newspaper article uh about a board member is the fact that I was very energetic in cheering for Dobson. Frequently I offered the um officials my glasses. Is that still going to be allowed? >> Probably not. You'll have a talking to if uh if we're doing that. >> No. No. The the AD loves me so I'm not worried about that. Uh well, because you know I'm I'm not athletic. I'm not quite sure where my daughter came from, but um a huge part of sports is the psychology, right? And the being able to get into the minds of the other player. That was the only thing that made me even remotely decent at softball was I could get into the head of an of the other
191of the other team. So, we're still going to be allowing those kinds of things, right? It's just the the viral profanity that >> Yeah. We want we want our image from the outside to be that we're we're respectful in everything that we do. >> But we still can get into the minds of the other players. >> You'll have to tell me a little bit of more about what you mean. >> Okay. So, short story. I played softball and I was the catcher. Okay. So, when a batter would come up, I would say, "You may as well swing because you know it's going to be a strike. Go ahead. Swing. Come on. You know it's going to be a strike. And inevitably they would swing. Is that still allowed? >> Well, I don't know that anyone's
192going to hear it. That's what we'll we'll have to see. So, >> no, no, no. I mean, if I were if I were still a catcher. >> Well, I I don't know that anyone's going to hear anybody say anything like that. So, so probably it will go under the radar. Sure. >> Okay. So, my next thing I the the things that we got um that got written to us were pretty vile, right? Uh I mean they were they were really above and beyond what would be expected. How much of that do you think relates to um social media and the exposure of kids have? >> I think a lot of it is related to club activity and club sports and not being reigned in. There's a fear I I believe when you get into the
193club scene and the club world, you're dealing with people that are making money. Okay. So when you have money being exchanged in the club world, you don't want to lose kids. So you're more likely to appease families, appease kids to keep them >> regardless of the behavior, regardless of what the parent says in the stands because they're paying >> your electric bill. >> So then that translates over to us when we have expectations and that doesn't always doesn't always work for what we're doing. So yeah, it's it's been an ongoing fight. I mean, I remember, geez, I've been doing this for a long time, and a previous school I was at, the student section all planned to bring the bouncy balls uh during a game, and in unison, about a thousand of them threw 500
194bouncy balls each onto the court during the game. So, that game finished with just parents in the stands. There's been we I mean, we've had to like like you saw those ops plans. There's a reason those exist. exiting fans out, exiting these students out of this door and this students out of this door and holding our kids until those kids are in their cars leaving. And you can come up with every plan you want and then there's a brick wall that's not school property and 40 kids hop that brick wall and start a fight with the opposing school cuz someone's, you know, something happened on the weekend, you know. So, it's it's it's a difficult thing to try to plan for everything, but man, we sure try our best. So, >> okay. And then I
195have just one final question. your pregame your pregame ops meeting is that just going to be with uh other Mesa schools? Um and if not, how how logistically is that going to happen? >> Yeah, typically it is. Typically, it's for rivalry games. So, when you can expect a high level of away fans traveling is when we're going to have these these types of meetings. So, that would be Mountain View going to Mesa, Mesa going to Mountain View, or like I said, the Battle of Brown Road will be pretty much sold out. So what we will talk about is security placement, who how many security guards are bringing, how many we need, where is our exit strategy, if something happens during the game, how are we going to exit the stadium, etc. Yep. >> As I
196looked through that last night, I was like, how how logistically is that going to happen if it's, you know, a majority of the game? I to me that would be just so much time. >> Yeah. No, I mean, yeah. So, so the first one will probably these be these guys playing their football game in a couple weeks. So, they we'll be able to model it. But, yeah, it it doesn't happen as often as you think. It's the big highly anticipated, highly attended events, thousands of people. Yeah. >> Thank you, Mr. Walden. Any >> Thank you so much. Uh, I would like to just uh echo my colleagueu sentiments and appreciating the work that you're doing to help make our athletics a more positive environment. Uh, I've I've never liked the hostility in athletics. I I'm
197not surprised by your statist statistic that our seniors that participate in sports have a 98% graduation rates. I've certainly observed that those those kids are really engaged in school. there's all these positives that athletics brings which makes the negative something that was just like never palatable for me. So I was very dis really just disinterested when kids get really hostile about about games because at the end of the day it is just a game, right? It's important but you know it's it's for most kids like the next day the sun's going to come up and you're still going to have a regular school day and everything's going to be just fine whether you you win or lost the game. So, I'm very supportive of these of these changes. It is interesting that we got more
198emails this year about these events. This going into my third year on the board, I don't really remember getting many emails about sports the first two years on the board. It's definitely kicked up. So, I feel like uh this is very proactive and again, as uh Miss Hutchinson said, you know, Mace is leading the way. I think that's great. >> Thank you. And a funny thing is a lot of those kids after the games will go hang out and grab a burger after they yell at each other for two hours. >> My brother played uh varsity sports. He did baseball and football and we went out to a game and uh when they were shaking hands in the line, one of the kids just started fighting another student and this big fight broke out and
199and he's like, "We just kept our helmets on till we got on the bus in case there were more fights." So like I mean I've seen it up close. I was there. Pretty wild, >> Miss Chabby. Yeah, thank you. Like board member Walden, I I grew up as a dancer and so I always am at the football games like, can we not cheer politely for everyone? But I'm married into a very athletic, very Toro proud family and we go to those football games and we cheer loud and I appreciate that we're focusing on honoring your team. And I know that you also have responsibilities on your campuses outside your athletic duties. So, thank you for taking the time to do this to keep our kids safe and to make sure that we can have enjoyable
200experiences at these games and and celebrate our kids. >> I just want to echo everyone and say thank you. I know that um it sets a tone for our communities too as is a lot of these community members attend these games and these functions. It's, you know, it this is Mace Public Schools and a lot of these first taste for some of these families as they come to these games. And so, I think if we can lead the way, what a great opportunity we have to um be positive. and I echo the relationships. I was just pulling up some alumni stuff for a college uh event I have in a week and I found my old Kino uh roster and all of those girls are still dear friends of mine. They went to Mountain View,
201I went to Westwood, we played club here and there, but we're all still good friends. And I think the importance of relationships and these kids, you're right, they go to they go hang out after these games. They're all good. They're all buddies. And so, you know, just fostering this positivity, I think is great. I'm all for good rivalry. Believe me, I am all about a good rivalry. But at the end of the day, >> I've seen you I've seen you at tour of volleyball games. I know. >> But at the end of the day, we're all here for, you know, good things. So, thank you. Thank you for putting this together and leading the way. And I do think Mesa Public Schools is just setting the tone here and I appreciate that. So, thank you.
202>> Yep. >> Thank you so much for being here tonight. We appreciate it. Um, timekeeper. Look at that. >> I didn't have to give a two-minute warning. >> I love that. >> We are at the end of our meeting. Um, do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> So moved. >> Do I have a second? >> I'll second it even though it's not 11 o'clock. >> Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five yays, the meeting is adjourned at 8:09. Thank you so much for being here.