001Please stand for a moment of silence. [Music] Thank you. You may be seated. I call this meeting to order at 5:06. A quick reminder, any any citizen who wishes to speak on an agenda item or at call to the public must complete the signin sheet in the lobby prior to the public comment time on the board agenda. This evening, the pledge of allegiance will be led by Dr. Eis, assistant superintendent of of teaching and learning. Please stand. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag. Thank you. We do want to um welcome you tonight and we do have some superintendent missing and we miss them. We do have uh Mr. Wing is joining us virtually. So there are some here just not in our room tonight. So thank you.
002Um we will begin tonight by first playing a video on board governing board procedures. Then I'll read a statement. Welcome to the Mesa Public Schools governing board meeting. We appreciate your interest in the district. The five elected governing board members serve without compensation and volunteer countless hours. The president and the clerk of the board are elected in January. Under state law, the governing board may only discuss and vote on matters that are on the agenda for tonight's meeting. Agendas are posted 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 in 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
003comment 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 address 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
004your 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, and disruption have no place in the classroom or the boardroom. Please no side conversations or reactive comments, they can be disruptive. It is a governing board president's responsibility to maintain proper order so
005the board can conduct its business in an orderly and efficient manner. If you are disruptive or interfer the conduct of this meeting, you will be asked to leave so the board can conduct the business of the district. We'll now be moving on to our calendar and I'm going to turn the time over to uh Dr. Stum and he has switched sides on our DAS here tonight. So got to get used to looking this way. President Davis will update you on what's happening over the course of the next couple months with the governing board. July 8th, we have a a governing board meeting starting at 5:00 pm. There will be a public hearing there regarding the budget if uh committee members are interested. July 22nd, we have another governing board meeting, a summer start time at
0065:00. Starting in August, just a reminder, there will be a change to governing board meeting days and times. In August, regular governing board meetings will start at 6:00 p.m. and will be on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month instead of Tuesdays. We will continue to post the board agenda on every Friday before the meeting. This will allow the board and the public to have more time to review content before the meeting happens. Uh July 31st is the first day of school. We're excited. We just today got out and made the coming back to school video. So, we're really excited about having kids back in school on July 31st and we continue our preparations. We were over at Westwood High School filming some of that and the new gym floor. If you don't have
007an opportunity, get over there to see the new gym floor. It's absolutely phenomenal. A lot of work happens in school districts over the summer. August 14th, uh, we have a regular board meeting on a Thursday at 6 PM. And August 28th, we have a regular board meeting on a Thursday at 6 PM. Thank you, Dr. Stum. We will now go um watch a we're now the time for public comment and call to the public. First, we'll watch a short video on the procedures. The governing board welcomes comments from the public on non-aggenda items during the call to the public. Please remember, as a general rule, public comments will be limited to 3 minutes and the duration of an open call to the public will be 15 minutes. The president may set specific time limits for
008speakers and the duration of the call to the public to maximize the opportunity for individuals to offer their viewpoints. Comments must pertain to a matter that is within the jurisdiction of the governing board. This is not an appropriate forum to complain about an employee, student, or others. Please use the procedures established in policy 1-302 for this purpose. State law prohibits board members from commenting on or discussing the matters presented at the end of the call to the public. The board may ask the superintendent to review the issue or place it on a future agenda. A board member may also briefly respond to criticism of a board member or the governing board. Thank you for allowing this meeting to be conducted in a peaceful and productive manner. Before we begin, just a quick reminder that policy
0091-302 says that call to the public is limited to issues within the jurisdiction of the board and is not an appropriate forum for persons to complain about a specific employee, student, or other person. Mrs. Chaffy, how many speakers do we have signed up tonight? Madame President, we have six speakers who have signed up tonight. Okay, we have six speakers. Each person each person will have three minutes to speak. Mrs. Chaffy, I would like to thank you for serving as clerk and I'd like you to lead us through this agenda item, please. Absolutely. I will call out the first three speakers and I will let the next three speakers know that they are on deck. When you have when your name has been called, you can come stand over on the side and when it is
010your turn, you come up to the podium. Our first three speakers will be Jeff Thompson, Georgina Monsalvo, and Lindseay Hill. On deck, we have Ed Steele, Daniel Woods, and Carrie Davis. My name is Jeff Thompson. I'm just a concerned uh citizen. Want to congratulate Mr. Strong on his new position and wish the best. You've been here for three years. You know where the dead weight is. You know which heads need to roll. We need to we need to get rid of the dead weight. We need to get the proficiency rate up to the one of the schools that above the schools where you came from. And over the past few months, we've had retiring teachers speaking because the regular teachers were afraid to speak because of retaliation. And when somebody's scared to speak out, this
011is creating a hostile environment for these teachers because they're afraid to speak out against anything and buck the system because you guys have a little system here. our HR department. We need to have an independent one that's not loyal to anybody because our HR department's not doing their job. We had the previous superintendent trying to suppress a homeowner and they retaliated against the wrong person. Maybe I just hope that they follow through with that. but also the teachers. I talked to them and they said that they didn't didn't even trust the the president and the previous president in here because they don't have their interest in mind, especially the previous president because she's got this small amount of teachers that had are radical and have different beliefs and stuff. We had a parent in here
012was talking about the boys in the girls bathrooms. We need to have monitors in there to keep the penises out of the bathrooms of the girls. We need to project them. You've got this transgender code that you got for the transgender or the gay people or whatever to overpower them. Where's the ones for the the blacks, Hispanics, the Indians? Where's your policies for those people? Why are you just giving power to these people that they can walk all over everybody's rights? I don't know how any of you guys were raised, but but by letting all this happen, you have no moral values. It just it's just sad. It's not even that bad Appalachia that you guys are doing letting them get away with here. Make these kids use the the staff bathrooms. These girls that
013want to be boys, the boys that want to be girls, let them use the teacher's bathroom. Keep them out of the students bathroom. I just don't Georgina. Good evening, board members and district staff. My name is Georgina Monsalo and I'm here on behalf of Stanford Children Arizona, which we work to support student success across our community and our state. I'm here to comment on the restriction of wireless communication devices. We want to express our support for a bell-to-bell cell phone policy. We've heard from countless educators and families alike who are concerned about how phones are a distraction in class, create privacy risk for students, and lead to a variety of discipline issues during the school day. Preliminary research from Angela Dougworth shows that the further the phone is from a student, the better off they
014are. Whether it's store in lockers, protected yander pouches, or collected some other way, the most important element is that students should not have access during passing periods. Stand for Children has created a set of resources for the community, including a learning session on how smartphones and social media are impacting students. You can explore all of these at stan.org/az. Thank you for your time. Hi. Um I am Lindsay Hill. I'm a parent, an employee, and um I just want to say thank you for serving on this board in the summer. Um I can't imagine this is easy. Um I I have come to a few um board meetings recently with the gender inclusive or the gender policy, whatever it's called. And um and that was really overwhelming. Um, and I've had a lot of time to
015think about it. Sorry. I don't know your experience, the gentleman who just spoke, but my child is transgender, and it has been one of the scariest things for him to experience. Excuse me. Anyways, I was really scared at that after that meeting by outing myself and so I haven't shown up but I've been listening to the comments. I've been listening to the call to the public and I've been trying to follow I don't understand this whole school board stuff and the consent agenda and all that. I would love to learn if you have any resources for me. But in listening to the other parents comments, I was really struck. Um I think it was at the virtual meeting a parent spoke about how they've had to pull their student out because of racial slurs in
016the school and um they felt like they also mentioned that they wasn't rigorous enough for their student and so on. Um I just want to say that I feel like we have an issue that is not being addressed properly. When people call for removing the DEI policies and getting that curriculum out, I think that's contributing to this policy or the the problems. I feel like if we are if we are teaching our children that there are us and there are them that they are liberals and there are conservatives that there are blacks but you know if it's just so binary where the world is so dark that it limits them and it keeps them in these little tiny boxes and I can say I grew up in a very conservative LDS background I served a
017mission in Tennessee. I know that that small conservative thing, but when we open up our experiences, and I would love to speak with you if you'd like, but if we can open up our interactions with each other and meet other people who are different, we will all see that we are all just the same. But when we start putting these exclusions in, that's when we start separating each other out. It's not us and them. It's all of us. and I don't know what you can do about it, but good luck. Next, we will hear from Ed Steel, Daniel Woods, and Carrie Davis. Good evening, members of the board superintendency. My name is Ed Steele. I'm a community member here, but I also speak for a number of concerned citizens, parents of Mesa public school students,
018some of whom are afraid to address this body for fear of retaliation. Um, Dr. Strom, I I know you're taking note of this. Um, you've heard it said before. We've had people at this podium coming up speaking for others saying that they're afraid to speak up. That has to change. That is a toxic work environment. No teacher deserves to to work in an environment where they feel afraid to speak up. Um I I don't know what the plan is. Um I I just hope there is one. That's all. Um I want to address course mojo which is on the agenda again this this meeting. Thank you all for for postponing that vote. Thank you for putting the effort into addressing the community's questions and concerns. Um, it seems like the district is starting to rely
019more and more on technology and less and less on teacher skill and experience. Um, I find that to be a troubling trend. Um, parents are also concerned about it. Technology, especially AI, can come across as biased. It it can have a liberal bias. We've seen examples of that over and over. Um parents want neutrality in the education of their children and they don't feel like they have it here. You know, um Dr. Stum, another issue, you know, you've got your hands full here. I I can see that and and I have every confidence that you're up for the task. Um, I would like to ask that the board make a motion to table this vote on course mojo one more session. Um, the reason is even after answering the questions and concerns, parents still have
020a lot of anxiety about having their children under the purview of artificial intelligence. We would like to ask that the board or superintendency provide an opportunity for the community, some community members, uh, to come in and observe this program in operation so that it can allay some of the fears that they have overlaying this. You know, we're in this we're in the summer session. I don't think it's urgent that we vote on this today. Um and you know we shouldn't rush the vote at the expense of causing additional anxiety for our parents. Um just ask that you please listen to the stakeholders. Put this off one more time. Allow an opportunity for the community concerned community members to come in and observe this this program working. Thank you. Hi, I'm Dan I'm Daniel Woods. Uh
021good evening uh President Davis, Dr. Strom. Um I uh went to uh Mace Public Schools um post and junior high and it was my brother uh class student body president that got the colors changed from orange to teal. So thank you for wiping away my nostalgia, brother Bighgam. Um but uh yeah, I came tonight to talk about the AI because I I heard about the course mojo and I actually have an AI business. I create uh conversational voice agents for the cleaning industry. So I have a lot of cleaning companies where you call, they don't pick up the phone. It's the AI handles it, answers questions, can can uh overcome objections, book price. It's it's incredible what the AI does. And um when I was in school, I I learned to love writing. And I
022think writing is so critical because writing is thinking and our kids need to learn how to think. Um, I have two boys, uh, 10 and 13, and I actually developed an AI writing tutor that they are writing essays this summer. Every day they spend 45 minutes writing. I'm that dad. Um, so, but it's awesome because what it does is it it uh formulates five questions. Uh, they take them one by one and they'll turn in their draft and they'll say, "Okay, what did you mean by this?" And it will challenge them and it'll ask them all kinds of questions and then they can think through the material and by the time they're done, they have a complete essay. But I put a prompt. So I I'm I'm going to run out of time here. Um
023so what I wanted to share was that we already know that uh large language models are leaning left. That's just how they are. And I'm concerned about ideology being uh you know put put upon our kids in school. And at the very least our school should be politically neutral. Now at home my prompt that makes this thing work I put I I told to act like Dr. Jordan Peterson, but we don't know what the prompt is for course course mojo. We haven't seen it. We don't know what it how it's told to react, how it's told to push back. And so I'm formally requesting that the uh course mojo memorandum of understanding be removed from the consent consent agenda um and then tabled for at least two weeks so so we can see what the
024prompt is. I don't want to just see how it interacts. I want to see what the prompt is because that's what as a AI expert I know that's what is the brains of how it's supposed to interact with the students. And the really cool thing about AI is think about it. We're doing these like group classes now. Well, a teacher can only give so much individual attention. My kids are learning to write really well. This thing is kicking booty academically. So, I'm excited about AI in the school. But political neutrality, but also if you think about it, this AI is going to be individual. It's going to have more time with the student than even the teacher. And so we just need to know if this thing is going to be politically neutral at home.
025We'll we'll make it Dr. Jordan Peterson. At at a minimum Mesa public schools, we need to be politic neutral. So trust will verify and we I want I want to see the prompt and I'm sure good evening board. My name is Carrie Davis. I'm a community member and I'm here to speak about course mojo. In the Wall Street Journal this past week, there was an article that made reference to a study that had been performed last year analyzed brain electrical activity of university students during the activities of handwriting and typing. Those who were handwriting showed higher levels of neural activation across more brain regions. Whenever handwriting movements are included as a learning strategy, more of the brain gets stimulated resulting in the formation of more complex neural network connectivity. The researchers noted most students in
026college and many high school take notes on laptops, tablets when they take them at all. AI tools that summarize lectures and meetings may soon render notetaking obsolete. Students will likely retain less information as a result. So, I'm in opposition to the board adopting the course mojo learning tool. Thank you. Madame President, that concludes our public comment. Thank you. We will now move on to our consent agenda. Um items. We'll now 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. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the personnel request including the addendum? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? Um, yes. Really quickly, um I
027had a a few parents reach out to me regarding pay for performance for district leadership and wanting to know if there is access to what those pay for performance goals are for district leadership versus what they are at uh the teacher or individual staff level. Um, and I know that we voted on remaining or having pay for performance goals remain the same next year. So that because of a lot of change happening in 2526. However, I would like to also have us um look forward to beefing up our per pay for performance so that we are actually moving the ball forward academically um the way that it kind of used to be. And I have a question into uh district or into HR about uh the amount that we shifted over to base uh pay
028without it being part of the base salary. So I I want us to as a board just not tonight but be thinking forward to address paper performance and making sure that we're actually beefing up academic results because of that. But our goals, leadership goals, are they available? Would a would a community member have to do a public records request for their public? Is that how they would get? Mr. Wing, are you with us? Miss Jenny, would you like to come up to the mic and address this matter? Uh, I will tell you from previous experience, personnel goals like this are part of a personnel file. I don't know if that's where Miss Jenny's going to take it. Uh, but, uh, Miss Jenny, good evening. Thank you for the question. For the board, we could provide
029those goals for you. For the public, it would be a public records request. Would you are would you like me to provide those for you? Um, I don't want them right now. I just I I do want the public to know that if they are uh interested in what are the goals I assume they can do can they do that for teachers as well or is it just a district leadership? It's a public document so the goal itself should be able to be pulled from a records request. Um the results um it could be confidential depending on what the goal is. It could include student data. Um, but it should be a public art's request which would be redacted if it's correct like any student names or identification would certainly be redacted. But Miss Benson,
030that's the personnel file portion of it. There's certain things that that no one will be able to get. I do want to assure the public that our goals for our administrators are written in the same format that our goals for our teachers are, that our goals for our classified staff are. And then I just want to return to the meeting item because this is we're getting a little off task from the agenda item. But we'll work with you and if you send those uh requests to Miss Jenny, we'll make sure that we get get you what what you need within the law of personnel files are very protected in the state of Arizona. Okay. Thank you. The reason I brought it up was because we're voting on approving stipens. So that's pay for performance. So
031any other discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, please take our vote. With the vote of five yays, you've approved the personnel request, including the addendum. With this approval, we have one employee to recognize as a memoriam. Dr. Mr. Strong, will you please tell us a little more? Thank you, President Davis. Tonight, we recognize Chelsea Blair uh in Memoriam. Chelsea worked for Mesa Public Schools as a technology instructional assistant at SulkQ Elementary School for 10 years, over 10 years. She excelled at supporting students and their use of technology. Her kind manner and dedication to the Sulk community will be missed. Thank you. And our thoughts are with the family and that and Sulk. At this time, we will now move um to our consent. All items will be considered as a group and will be approved with
032one motion. Board member would like to spotlight or comment on a consent agenda item, please do so after the vote. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda according to the recommended action for each item? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Thank you, Miss Kirby. Will you please take our vote? I voted too. Mrs. Benson votes yay if it didn't come through. Board member Walden votes yay. With a vote of five yays, we've approved the consent agenda items according to the recommended action for each item. Mrs. or Madam President, may I make one real quick comment? Yeah. Um, I spoke with Dr. Stum about the item number C, ASU's Hispanic motheraughter program. Um, I I might suggest that we rename it if it's open to all students rather than
033just Hispanic mother and daughters because perhaps that's why we have mostly Hispanic mothers and daughters that uh participate in it because it's named the Hispanic mother and daughter, but it's my understanding it's opened up to all students. Correct. Member Benson and U. Miss Davis. Yes, it is open to all students. Unfortunately, we don't have the authorization to change the name of the program. It's ASU's program that's been in place for many, many years. Thank you. Moving along to our action items. We are at action item A. Do I have a motion to to approve the proposed fiscal year 202526 budget? So moved. Do I have a second? Seconded. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Thompson, will you and Mr. Alexander please share your presentation with us? Scott, do you want to give any introduction at all or
034are you fine for me just moving forward? You got this. Gotcha. Madam President, members of the board, I'm happy to be here to present the 2526 proposed budget and estimated property tax rates. But before I dive into the details, just go over the quick timeline. Again, we're here talking about the proposed budget tonight, coming back in two weeks to have the board officially adopt the budget. As you all know, the state budget has not yet been determined. So, um, we are issuing uh preliminary forms that the auditor general issued. So, we may be coming back in September to uh revise the budget based upon what those final budget figures end up coming out to be. Um we could come back in December for a revision if need be, but for sure we'll be back here
035at least by May 2026. So, um we'll see what uh the total revisions come out to be, but definitely in May we'll come back. So, again, state budget not yet approved. Uh auditor general issued preliminary budget forms. Some some basically some basic uh bare bones budget forms. We did make some estimates on funding levels and rates on this and we'll talk about that coming up. The auditor general did add uh make some changes to the forms themselves by adding new rows basically asking us to pull out the carry forward for uh fiscal year 26 meaning what we think our carry forward is going to be at the end of next fiscal year. We have not completed this fiscal year but we have to uh estimate that. The reason I'm bringing it up, it it impacts
036the pages for maintenance and operation, classroom, site fund, and the DAA. Um, by pulling out those estimated carry forwards into one row on those pages, it makes the comparison between 25 and 26 look different. So, you'll see some negatives on the far right hand column, and that is primarily due to pulling out our estimated carry forward at the end of next year onto one specific row. You're not going to mention my conspiracy theory. No, go ahead. Six months ago, I said to Ken, I really wish they'd put the carry forward on a separate line item in the budget and all of a sudden it was there. So, I think somebody's listening. I don't know. Definitely surprised to see that. But um going forward after next year, it should be a little more comparable. But here
037are some of the assumptions we made. We assumed a 2% increase at the base level by uh for maintenance operation and also the transportation support. We knew the classroom site fund increase of $50 per pupil. That's included in this and our teacher experience has increased from 25 to 26. So um that's we get uh an increase in funding if we have more experienced teachers as compared to others in the state. Big factor in funding is our student count. So for this particular budget we have implemented and used a drop of 1,800 students and our K12 unweighted average daily membership based upon our October figures. Those are the figures that we had good numbers on at the time. So we based our projections based upon those numbers. We did not include um possible continuing or one-time
038items. As I mentioned, the state budget is not yet final. We don't know what other items may be included in there. So, we did not include anything that was not official yet other than the 2% that we were feeling pretty good about. So, the additional Prop 123 funding that had expired. Um there's talk about that continuing on. That is not included in this budget. If something like that were to be part of the state budget, we would include those figures once we know them in future revisions. This page just shows average daily membership um comparing three different points in time. Our adopted budget last year, our final revised budget that we did in May and then our proposed going forward. So you can see the sped prek we've had a flat projection with K8 and
039912. We do estimate um from our May revision probably 7 $800 stu or 800 count uh reduction from that. So we will find out uh when we come back in uh early fall to see where those numbers come and those will obviously affect the budget but this is just some a reference for you really high level here is just information from various budgets budget pages in the budget uh m classroom site fund daa those are our budget limits big thing to note here is bond building fund zero dollars um we anticipate being completely out of bond monies at the end of this current year so zero going into next here. Adjacent ways is another one, $8 million. 3 million of that is for projects that are currently scheduled or um in place. So, we will
040be paying for those early in the coming fiscal year. The other $5 million is for a levy um to continue those adjacent waste projects that um we have throughout the district. And then federal and state grants at 55 million. That does not include some carry forward funds that we have not yet determined. So, we will include those amounts when we revise next. Here's a little bit more details on highlights. All of these things on this should have already been brought to the the board's attention through the budget matrix or through the meet and confer process. First one is a $900 stipen uh and impacting all funds. That's a total there. We also have some increases for employee benefit costs, utility costs, course fee costs. those are being offset by position reductions and some savings in
041our Arizona state retirement rate. So with that going down, we do have some savings there. These are just again highlights. There are other changes as part of this budget, but these are the main ones. We mentioned carry forward several times. Um I just wanted to put a slide here to show where we think we're going to be on carry forward. The 2024 column there is the only one is the actual the 25. Even though we're coming up to the end of the year, we're going to be closing our books uh shortly, but we have two two and a half three months to finalize things. So that 2025 estimate is where we think we're going to be. And then the 2026 is another year down the road um where we think we'll be. But M and
042classroom site fund, we're projecting sort of a flat carry forward to continue on with what we're doing. That's part of what the whole budget matrix is to go through and look at all those things again based upon projections of student counts. The capital you can see is $15 million in estimate at the end of next year. We go through a zerobased budget process and that's the amount that we wanted to make sure we had at the end of the process. So that's why that's there. Um I would be surprised if it's that low, but you never know. I think we'll be a little bit higher than that going into next year. Um now going to the uh assess valuations and tax rate. The main thing on this page is estimated. Um I want you to
043remember that throughout this is our best guess at the time. the state budget has not been adopted yet. So, um these things may be changing, but this is our best guess as of this point in time. I always present information on the net assess valuation uh between last year's budget and next year's budget. Um so, a 3.8% increase in the net assessed valuation for our district. That is um a little bit lower than what we've seen as far as an increase before, about 4.7 or 4.8. Nevertheless, an increase of 3.8% in that net assessed value. And again estimated tax rate. This is the summary of those again estimated um tax rates. The main thing is to look in the lower right hand corner bottom is showing that the total tax rate is showing a decrease
044of 4124. That includes both the primary and secondary rate. Both of those rates are uh also going down individually. We do have an asterisk there in the 2026 column that uh talks about the levy for adjacent ways and that uh rate is a 0.16. So even with the adjacent ways being part of the primary, we still are seeing a decrease in the primary rate and the overall rate in general. This last slide is just an estimate or a history of our tax rate over the years uh basically 10 years looking back to 1516 of 7.45% um to where we're estimated to be at next year at 6.11. The main uh increase or decrease is due to our bonds expiring and not bringing on new debt but paying off that debt and also our M override
045is fewer students we will be um having less override monies. So again this is just a page to show the history of what we've had over the past 10 years and that we are on the downward trend of those tax rates. That's all I have. Any questions on any of this? Thank you Mr. Alexander and thank you Mr. Thompson. Board members, any questions? Madam President, um I appreciate that Mesa has had a pretty flat tax rate over the years. What are we doing to ensure that our tax rate stays flat and stays consistent and doesn't jump back up if we were to pass a bond? Well, I think we look at it closely. That is the main thing we're looking at. So, we're constantly balancing um what our needs are versus that tax rate. you
046know, we all we we definitely need bond money. Um, and and that will come at a cost. So, we're trying to balance those things out. Dr. Strong or Mr. Thompson could probably more speak more eloquently on uh plans to do that. Yeah. Here's here's the difficult part in public schools, uh, district public schools in the state of Arizona. Uh, charter schools are funded, uh, with capital dollars out of the general fund. And we know that charter schools get about $2,500, a little under, per student annually, uh, for capital dollars. We in the district public schools space get about $750. Now, there's a reason why that occurs. And the reason why that occurs is originally when charter schools funding came out, districts were largely passing bonds and actually overrides were a little tougher to pass back
047in the '9s when the charter schools uh uh came came about. And and so to cover the difference of district schools being able to bond, charter schools got more money out of the general fund. The fact of the matter is is then when bonds become a little more difficult to pass, which has been the trend in public schools over the course of the last decade, overrides have become easier to pass, bonds have become harder to pass, then what ends up happening is we end up getting funded at $750 per student, while charter schools get funded at $2,500 per student. with our non-renewal of the last bond cycle when we went out for 2023 and with the conservative approach of the governing board in Mesa public schools. This is the first district I've ever been in
048that pays off their debt in 10 years. That's very conservative. The reason that's very conservative is you save on a ton of interest when you're not paying 20-year debt service notes, which is the typical time frame for a school district to pay 20-year debt service notes. And so what what ends up happening when you're not releasing new debt and you're paying off your debt quickly, the fact of the matter is is then you create fluctuations in your tax rate. And so it becomes difficult on the next bonding cycle to pass the bond because all of a sudden you have to go back out and say, "Hey, we're going to spike the tax rate." And so what most CFOs try to do is they try to balance out everything with all the little levies that occur
049to keep the tax rates gradually going down and having kind of a plateau to the that that tax rate, which is what you see on the latter half of of what's happening in Mesa Public Schools. Please know that we're going to come out with a line item budget in Mesa Public Schools for any sort of bond package that the board's going to consider. And the boards has to consider it and the board's got to call for the vote. It won't be a district administration thing. We have to put the evidence in from the board for the things we need to get done in Mesa public schools from a capital perspective. But the public needs to understand that the reason the ask in public school districts occur is because we're not on general fund funding. We're
050not on charter school funding. And in fact, we've ran bills to get on charter school funding and they haven't passed at the state legislature. And the reason they don't pass is because if all public schools were to hop on to charter school funding at the state legislature, we'd break the general fund. And so it's it's just this dynamic that's occurring right now in in in in choice options in the state of Arizona. And I'm not talking positively or negatively to school choice. What I am saying is these are the facts. All right? And the facts are we try to manage that tax rate to keep it flat and gradually declining. Understanding that if at some point we do get a bond to pass, which is something that public schools need. Why? Because we collect a
051significant amount less than charter schools do in capital funds. then we don't want to all of a sudden come out and say, "Hey, the tax rate is going to spike by $3 per ass per $100 of assessed evaluation." It's a very nuanced conversation. And to be frank with you, with a 10-year payoff in Mesa public schools, it's a really conservative approach. And with the tax rate recently coming down in Mesa public schools, uh you can see that that approach is is working right now. And we're pretty pleased with the performance of our business office in managing that tax rate. I do not know if that answered your question, but there's there's the in-depth uh discussions. Mr. Thompson, did I not cover anything that that you expected me to cover? No, you absolutely highlighted the uh
052tenure factor. I I think the only thing else I could add is that um with decline in student enrollment, our our budget has been flat or declining and as uh Mr. Alexander presented, our assessed value is going up. So that also is have so there's just tax rate has so many factors going on at one time always and all of them right now are uh resulting to you know a little lower tax rate for for our community. Understanding that when your house value goes up you know you might still be paying more in taxes. That's always a fact but hopefully you're a little better off for it at the end of the day is that your house is worth more. But um those those are all dynamic factors and I just highlighted as doc as
053Mr. Alexander said these are all estimates. We do not you do not as a governing board set a tax rate. You establish a budget. You submit it to the county and the county will finalize that tax rate. And sometimes it's very close to what we've estimated. Sometimes there can be other factors in it that we can't anticipate. But I've often heard boards say, you know, we're going to set the tax rate this evening or something like that. I just always want to highlight you're not a taxing authority and you can't set a tax rate. All you can do is establish a budget, submit it to the proper authorities, and then the taxes come from there. Thank you, board members. Any other questions? Okay. Um, and I'm hoping this is the appropriate Can you um give
054us some rationale um on regards to I I appreciate that Mesa always anticipates and provides a carry forward, but when I look at the three categories, we're talking about a hundred million dollar carry forward. um that this year we rifted several um several positions that let's get some rationale out. Why are we holding close to $und00 million potentially in carry forward funds? Um can you explain that? Well, there's a couple different reasons for that and 100 million is over multiple sets of funds as far as capital. Um correct? you know, so those are some things that we're not know. Uh some of that's going to pay off with the bond um not passing. So that that will be use some of those things. Classroom site fund is another one that um the unknown of that.
055We don't know what our student count's going to be. We don't know what the state sales tax are going to be. So part of that is where we build those things in. Um just four or five years ago, we were talking $400 per kid. Now we're up to $800 per kid. So those are things we're having to navigate the risk involved with those things. Um I'm trying to think what else do you guys have here, Dr. from Yeah, I'll I'll add uh this piece. Uh right now at the governing agency level of the state and the federal government, there are a lot of things that are in flux and I'll use an example that's very specific. Direct service claiming at the federal level, which is Medicaid claiming. We get dollars in from Medicaid uh for
056the services we provide students on our campuses. Those dollars are in flux at the federal level. And then the state has to consider where to whether to backfill certain Medicaid dollars. And so you'll see a balance in Medicaid that's contributing to the balance of our carry forward funds. And and the fact of the matter is is we need to carry when there's when there's uncertainty and variance in decisions beyond our levels, we need to carry larger carry forwards. Uh, I will also tell you that if we're talking like Dave Ramsey style education and your own personal finance uh style, most most of what he teaches is having six months worth of emergency funds. And other states like the state of Iowa require solveny at a much higher level than the state of Arizona does. And
057so when you're talking six months and we're a $500 million budget, we're talking $250 million, not $und00 million. And so we we'd actually in Arizon in Arizona if we were on Iowa rules right now, we'd fail their solveny test because we only have two three months worth of run rate if all of our revenues dry up in terms of solveny. So I know $100 million seems like a big amount of money, but you got to remember this is the biggest district in the state of Arizona and our total budgets across all our budgets have ranged depending on the year and federal grants from 600 to $800 million. So I'm just trying to put things in into perspective. Mr. Thompson. I would just also share that this is very much a factor of current year funding
058for students. If you go back prior year funding, we were a capped at 4% and we could basically operate because we knew that we had a year to adjust. And the reason that's so relevant in school districts is because of teachers contracts. We want to honor those. Nobody wants to be making changes to staffing after we've committed, right? And so with the advent of current year funding that was changed a few years ago and and this really bothers me because at the end of the day we're one of the lower funded educational systems in the country and I don't want to put money aside. I've always had a philosophy that we should spend every dime we have on the students when we get it. But the reality is and we experienced it this if you
059remember just a few months ago we were here talking about we had an unexpected decline in students. We thought we might be kicking into the carry forward. We were lucky to work hard this year to tighten our belt. Um, we had a few one-time payments. If you remember in May, we had about $3 million come through that we weren't necessarily sure was going to happen. So, we had some factors that have helped us bring us back to a healthy balance. But the reality is that balance is there to manage the unpredictability of what we're looking at in student enrollment next year. and we hope that the 1,800 is the right amount, but if it's wrong, and there are more students than that, the only way you're going to be able to maintain contracts is to
060have carry forward. And so, it's it's just really got to be there to to offset the potential. It gives you one year to make a decision. That's it. Because the other part about carry forward is it's one-time spending. You don't get to keep it year after year. So, if we spend our savings account, it's gone. So really understand that I would love to see every dollar out the door for the kids right now in teachers pockets in staff's pockets supporting our children. This was something we were able to achieve partly through ESSER and the ability to because we went from about 19 million to 40 million during that time. So we have increased our carry for very purposefully during that time where we had some additional dollars to create that. So understand we never dipped
061into our operating budget specifically to do this increase. But when we had the opportunity, we took it so that we just have a cushion because that student cap change can come. It can come quickly and it can have a huge impact. And what I want to see and what I always was trying to achieve with our budget is stability for your staff so that you can survive the year, make the tough decisions, communicate things just like we did this year. how think about all the great things we did early. Staff knew what was coming. These were hard decisions. Not something anybody wants to go through, but basically people were given five to six months to decide, you know, where their next job was going to be and they were still employed. I don't know many
062employers that do that nowadays. So those are the kind of things that we want to have so we can attract and retain good quality staff. So really appreciate the question, why are these balances so high? Some of it's through necessity. Some of it's because, as uh Mr. Alexander indicated, the classroom site fund is just tricky. It's got very specific reasons to be spent. We'd like to spend more of it. We keep getting more of it when we're told we're not going to get more. We We were told very specifically this $800 level per student wasn't going to last for two years in a row. And now it just keeps going and going. And so we didn't know that sales tax in the state would maintain at the rate that it has. and it so now
063it's become a thing that we've got to deal with and it's important we decide how to spend that and as was said the capital carry forward really is going to be tested as the bond dollars are gone let's just be honest you see it going down to 15 I agree it probably won't go down that far that's if we spend everything in capital which we typically don't but it definitely is going to be lower than probably the 2930 million that we've been carrying again because we had other funds available so as things get tighter these balances will become more critical to be able to make decisions in a timely manner with less disruption and more care for staff. That's the intent. Thank you. Um I have another question on um our and I I assume
064I don't remember the uh verbiage but I it's like the where we spend the money, right? So in the budget I have each fund but then across the top um you'll see 6200 for example for employee benefits. So the six that number um can you tell us what the uh purchased services the 6300 6400 6500 um what those? Well those are basically you pay a lot of um outside vendors to come in and do work for us and providing purchase service. There's multiple different types of purchase services. We have SLPs, occupational therapists, psychologists, some of those that come in that are not employees, but they come in and do the work. Does this also pay for professional learning sometimes or It very well could. Yes. Anyone we bring in to provide technical services that aren't
065our employees. That's where those codes are. Uh those are that's what's coded to the that function. Okay. What's that called? It purchase service. No, no, no. The the 6200. It's it's an object code. Thank you. I was like, and the 6200 is the benefits. Yeah. Like I read it and I couldn't remember. Mr. Alexander, is is ESI a purchase service? Yes, ESI would be a purchase service, too, because we're actually paying a third party to employ those people. So, that's a big chunk of that as well. Thank you for bringing that up. Okay. Um, and then I think that, oh, actually, I have one other uh question. um for our deseg money desegregation what is the criteria that um establishes the need for desegregation money and it's different than title I assume and then what
066can that money be used for? Uh, Madame President, member Benson, yes. Uh, desegregation is based on the fact that there was a court order at one point in the district to address um, basically students that uh, had English as a second language. Um, it was a fund that was created. Basically the federal government said you need to do this and then we were gi given boards were given the local authority to tax locally to provide the funds to meet the needs of the court order. Um so there's only so many districts in the state that actually have access to these funds. These court orders went back several years. Um Ken, do you remember when I 1980 or something? 1980 I think. Yeah. So, um, there's actually been some back and forth about this at the
067state level. The the amounts that we're allowed to budget for were capped several years ago. So, uh, Mesa has always been very conservative in the use of these dollars and there's only 8 million in in our budget for that. I will tell you there are other districts that are up to 50 to 60 million in this budget. So uh putting that in perspective as the largest district only using 8 million is very small amount. Um we can't go higher than that. The other question that often comes up is whether uh if the court order has been satisfied can a district continue to to utilize these funds and the answer has been yes because the monies are necessary to further continue the outcomes that led to the solving of the problem. And so the courts have
068decided that it's okay for us to continue to spend these dollars as long as it's addressing the needs of students with English as a second language. So that's how it's kind of the history of desegregation and it's been around a long time and and uh again the district uses a very very small amount of its budget for that. So is that a federal fund that we get? It is not. It is state. It is a state. It is not even it's a local tax. It is a Mesa tax. Okay. So, it is specific to anybody inside the Mesa School District is helping pay for this. This is very much, like I said, a it's a federal decree to do this, but it is locally taxed to create the dollars to meet the needs and address
069that for the students. That's how this all was created back in the 80s. So, it's been that way for a long time. Okay. Okay. So, with our ELLL population increasing, is there a sufficient amount in our DIG? Well, again, we cannot meet the needs of those probably not. I I think that's a great question, but we are capped by the state. We cannot increase the amount uh for DEG. Um that was done the amount that we collect or the amount that we spend. The amount we budget for ultimately turns into the amount that's collected. So, we create, as we just stated, you create a budget and then taxes are established around that. So by having desegregation in our budget at 8 million that is levied towards uh the local taxpayer. Okay. So I Oh, I
070feel old. Sorry. I just want to get clarity in my mind in regards to this. So you you I think I thought you said um smaller districts have higher amounts in their budget like 52 million. Is that in Arizona or is that other places? No, that's that they're the two largest districts with DEAG budgets are Phoenix Union and Tucson Unified. Do they have more ELLL kids than we do? No, they just upped their budget before it got capped. So, it got basic I'm just going to be very transparent. It was capped because of Tucson Unified. The tax the business taxpayers who were paying that tax down there got very frustrated. Went to the legislature said enough's enough. This keeps going up. They had raised the desegregation budget year after year after year after year and
071the legislature responded by saying no more increases. They couldn't really take it away because it is necessary for these court decrees but they wouldn't allow it to increase. So that was back in 2009 apparently. So that was a long time ago. It was we won't discuss that. Okay. I think that's all I had. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you for for that presentation and your discussion. Uh, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five yays, you have approved the proposal fiscal year 202526 budget. Moving next to our letter B. Do I have a motion to approve a district membership with Arizona School Board Association? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you. Any discussion? I So I have a question for superintendency. I understand
072that with ASBA that there is professional training that you're interested in. Is there something in the training that's actually going to impact the proficiency scores and the goals for the district? because the last uh training sessions that have been offered, I don't see a direct correlation between what's offered and then what we're actually trying to do in the district. So, I've been to several ASBA trainings over the last 20 years. Uh some of which are instrumental to the compliance side of things. They run a a really outstanding legal conference. Uh they also have a general conference in December at I've actually presented at some asba conferences on participatory budgeting which I think you may be able to loosely link to student outcomes but not necessarily a tight link to student outcomes. So my experience is
073that ASBA is a little bit more complianceoriented and a little bit more governing board policy oriented than directly linked to the outcomes that you're referencing and your board goals that you're referencing. But I do want if any of my colleagues have been to an ASBA conference and had experience with the student outcomes that member Walden's referencing, I'll open up the floor to them. Dr. easeless or no I've been to a number of conferences as well and um in looking at the um law conference that is going to take place in September um there will be there will be governance things like um the mandatory reporting law that we're we're talking about with our with one of our policies but also um will be topics like navigating curriculum adoption and um uh the school board's role
074in special education ation um staffing shortages and special education. So there there are uh a number of topics on um and how we can um improve student outcomes, but um we are a governance body as well. And as a result, um um uh conference topics such as navigating open meeting law, um national uh nationwide injunctions and what they mean and how they um can impact um uh school districts. And I know that our own legal council, Miss King, has participated. I've been in a number of her sessions. And and frankly we are we are a governance body and we have to operate within the law, federal law, state law and and um knowing um what that law is means that we're more effective in our governance and we will be able to um impact and
075improve student outcomes. Um it gives it gives board members also an opportunity to talk with other districts. And one of the cool things about ASPA membership is that it's a district membership. It's just not for board members. It's for the superintendent. It's for administrators. It's any certified or classified person in Mesa could go to any of the conferences. As a matter of fact, I went to the conference in December where a number of our NAP, our Native American um educators were there because there were there um there was um a number of presentations on Native American um curriculums and instruction and addressing the needs of that subgroup of of kids. Um, so it's really it's a district membership and it's it's a organization that trains and engages and provides connections to foster student success. Um,
076so thank you Dr. Strom for your feedback on that. I know we do have membership in the trust that does our policies and uh on the legal side they have a policy summit that I attended. it seems excessive to have two memberships uh for that kind of training and I know we have Casey King is our in-house counsel that provides the legal parameters to the board on issues we we've had this uh last last time I voted no on it before I haven't seen any value of the membership uh going into my third year on the board we've been a member the district's been a member every year and I know some people might have gone to some conferences. It doesn't seem to really make its way to the dis. I feel like that the
077trust is going to be sufficient rather than having dual memberships. It's it's not a lot of money. I know it's it's only $14,000, but I think I think every dollar matters. So, that's that's my comment on it. I don't have any more questions. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Yeah, as a fairly new board member, this was one of the first things I did was attend a new board member training in December and I didn't really know what to expect. I knew that the district had a time period where it was not part of it and and I think these are valid concerns about redundancy and making sure that we are really fiscally responsible with the money that we spend. Um, so I went in not really with a a strong feeling of
078what to expect. And I have for myself as a new board member really appreciated the like documents that we've received and the training that's really specific to Arizona. Um, from a legal perspective, it's been really helpful to know open meeting laws. I refer to this book a lot about what it means to be a board member and how we manage policies and procedures, how different districts might manage that. And I've appreciated attending those things in person and making relationships with other boards outside of Mesa because we as a board can't really talk to each other about the things that we're voting on. We because of open meeting laws, we can't have a discussion outside of these meetings. So, I've appreciated being able to reach out to other Arizona boards and board members and say, "How
079are you tackling this? How are you looking at these issues?" And so, for me, having that place where we can physically gather with other Arizona boards has been beneficial. I'll just add too, we do have the consortium. There's there are other resources. is I don't want to make it seem like that I don't support board members going to training, but there are other resources besides this that uh wouldn't cost the district money to and uh the consortium meets a few times a year where we meet with other board members and from other districts and can talk about some of the the issues too that we're facing. So, but I I appreciate that and your insight about about going to it. Thank you, Miss Benson. to you. Well, and I'd like to add I if we
080um are not members, you still can attend training. Um so, but it might cost a little teeny bit more per training if you wanted to attend it. Uh and I assume that you could still like through the consortium we can reach out to that's predominantly East Valley, uh which they're um that we meet with sporadically. There are other areas that just as uh member Walden said, there are other places that we can get additional training. The Arizona Coalition uh is less it's not $14,000 a year, I don't believe. So, uh I I think that again I appreciate member Chaffy's input on uh what she gained from the open meeting law, but I I kind of felt like it was redundant from what we got from Mrs. King when we signed up. So, I think we
081already have a plan to have uh training in the mandatory reporting update that we're going to have to uh be sure that we know as uh board members. So, I think I think again in a declining enrollment, we want to be as fiscally responsible as possible and we're going to be voting on two other trainings later. So, so that's my input. Thanks. Thank you. I appreciate everyone's um input and feedback. I I will say when I joined the board I didn't have any um involvement with ASBA and and now in the last year or so I've seen a major um improvement in our communication and I've been able to receive more information and training and guidance and I've been appreciative of that um to make sure that we are governing wisely and I do want
082to make sure that we are spending our dollars as as fiscally responsible as we can um and making sure that we are um mindful of that And if if we if this does carry through or doesn't carry through that we kind of keep track of like who goes to trainings or what trainings would we had wanted to attend if we were a part of it. Um if we do attend kind of maybe just keep track a little more so we are aware of the dollars that we spend or would be spending. Um just so we can be mindful as we make these decisions going forward. I do understand that it is quite a bit more expensive if we are not a part of ASBA to attend training. So it it probably wouldn't be um the
083wisest, you know, it'd be a lot more for us to go to them. Um but again, being mindful of that and keeping a little bit more track of district leadership and everyone that's attending these meetings so we can see that is this, you know, is this something we could benefit from. So that's just my Well, can I ask a quick question then? Do we have any kind of a data on uh how many trainings that superintendency or district leadership or certified or classified attend other than board members? Do we have any knowledge of what that number or that number might be? Do we have the data in systems where we can go discover that? Yes. Uh do we have it off the top of our head? The answer to that no. I will tell you
084uh this year we did develop travel restrictions in the district and travel guidelines through our business office. So we are getting to work on uh understanding exactly where people are going, when they're going and why they're going to certain places. Uh and we have expectations for when they return on what they're supposed to bring back for our improvement of the Mesa public school system. So there was a step one this year with travel guidelines published by the business department. If I could, I'd like to piggyback on your calman and and member Benson. Um, one of the things that we used to do um on the board is whenever the board voted to send a board member to a conference, the board member reported to to the rest of the board. We could do that in
085a written format or or um in in a board meeting. Um and and I'd like to see that return. and also we vote on um our sending each other to conferences. So that's part of public record. Um we we have a lot of responsibilities as board members. Um policy is certainly one and I think having another set of eyes and maybe a different lens on the policies that we're drafting um would be good. Um, having connections with other districts is also a a great way to make sure that our policies are meeting the needs of our community. Um, I I'm going to suggest that because we have um a relatively new board and we have a very new superintendent that the ASBA is um going to be crucial in the evaluation of the superintendent. Um
086the evaluation tool that we have right now was facilitated by ASBA. It is our current superintendent evaluation tool. Um ASBA's Julie Bacon facilitated a very robust discussion based on many different evaluation tools and um I think we need to meet as soon as school starts if not sooner um to agree on an evaluation tool for Dr. strong and ASBA can provide the expertise to help us. Um finances um they are coming up with a school finance boot camp that will be involved um um in January I believe. Um but they help us compare our benefits and salaries with other districts. Um they keep us up to date on current issues. And I'd like to piggyback also on what board member uh Chaffy said. I know that the new board member training I got, I continually
087go back to that manual and and I'm I'm constantly referring back to language and reorienting myself and making sure I'm doing the job of a board member. They also have manuals on how to be a president and and it was very very helpful. Um but new member training monthly webinars on timely issues. They have a a very interesting um program that I'm interested in. Um the four C's of civil discourse. It's in conjunction with Ohio State. I think it would be a really good program to build upon our democracy innovations project. Um, I I really believe that we ought to engage as a board and demonstrate together our commitment to improving ourselves so that we can impact student outcomes. Um, membership in the nonpartisan ASBA I really believe is a investment in the district. Um
088it's an investment in the board, the superintendent, administrators, staff. Um and we get a substantial discount by attending conferences. Um the price of a non-member is three times the price of a member. Um and Mesa has a voice at the table, whether it's at the law conference, the delegate assembly where the legislative priorities are established, or the annual conference. And as public educators, I really believe that there's strength in numbers. 94% of the districts in Arizona belong to the ASBA. And I hope that you will vote to make sure that MPS continues to work and learn with other districts in ASBA to support our district success, but most importantly, improve student outcomes. Thank you. Any other discussion? All right, seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of three yays,
089you have approved a sorry, my mic was not on. I'm sorry. With a vote of three yays, you have approved a district membership with the Arizona School Board Association. Moving now to letter C. Do I have a motion to approve addendum to employment agreement between Dr. Matthew Strom and the governing board of Macy Unified School District number four? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Dr. Stum, can you tell us a little bit about this item? Yeah. Board board president President, I'm looking for no individual attention on this item at all. I need everyone to understand that this is real simple to me. It's going to be really difficult to drive high expectations and high outcomes with our staff if they're constantly thinking in the back of their mind that I'm going
090to benefit personally from some sort of, you know, extreme gain and performance outcomes throughout the district. And this is not something that has been modeled by me. This is something other East Valley superintendents have done. Dr. Cowan used to have this practice in his uh uh uh superintendent's contract. And so upon discovering some old contracts and coming from a place where the superintendent did this, I said this is a good marriage of me telling people, listen, if our if I'm going to put pressure on the system for high expectations and high outcomes for kids, you know, it's not for the purposes of Matt Stro's family benefiting from a financial reason. And so doing this and taking this action allows uh the governing board to agree with me that performance-based pay would go to the Mesa
091Educational Foundation uh not to mass drum and then I can have the blunt conversation with people around the district that the outcomes for students need to improve because we need to have high expectations in Mesa public schools for the outcomes for students to improve not because of a personal benefit for me. It's really that simple. Thanks. Thank you Dr. Stum. Any discussion questions? Uh I don't have any questions. I do have and you can already tell the community loves this addendum. The um idea of you uh donating your salary. The one thing that I will um hold on. Oh, hold on. Hold on. Not your salary. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm all into humor, too. If that was humor, I get that. Sorry. Well, they'd probably like that even better. Uh but the sorry your
092your potential pay for performance. Oh, sorry. Okay, now you threw me off. Um in the agreement it says the superintendent may donate the net. So do we want do you want the word may because that actually is we we went back and forth Casey did and I did on this on email. So it ended up with may and that will be an immediate signature on a document that I will be doing this uh with my board president. So this is how Mike's structure was, Dr. Cowan, sorry, structure was. And so this is just a typical format and we'll sign it away right away. So the addendum is needs to say May and then there's a followup that you will be signing individually and I assume you discussed this with your tax your tax guy. Well,
093I yeah, I come from an actal science background. Uh and maybe I need to get out of this habit, but I do my own taxes. So I've discussed this with myself. Yes, I have. Um, as a member of the Mesa Public Schools Foundation board, I applaud your decision and I would wholeheartedly hope that we um approve this action item. Can I add one more thing? I think that this really also sets in the minds of our community because their their concern um has been student achievement and student performance and are we actually uh I mean that's the one thing that we're tasked with is providing quality education to kids. The motive now is clear. It's not for your personal financial gain. how it's for making sure that we're actually improving uh the situation and systems
094for the students that we serve and the families by extension. So I think our community really really really appreciates this um gesture. So I applaud it. Any other discussion questions? I agree with everyone and want to thank you Dr. Stone for this. Um, I think it sets a good good example for all of us and for our for our district. So, with that, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five, you've approved the addendum to employment agreement between Dr. Matthew Stum and the governing board of Mesa Unified School District number four. Moving on. Do I have a motion to approve the superintendent's paid for performance goals? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Dr. Stum, can you tell us a little bit more about this item? The
095pay performance goals have been in development for the last three months, April, May, and June. Uh this is a finalized version after several conversations with individual board members. Uh goal one is linked to our graduation rate goal. Uh we've adjusted this goal to be a 5% increase in graduation rate uh at the school level which should then if all schools achieve it result in a 5% increase at the at the district level uh in graduation rate. Uh we want to be at 90% graduation rate by cohort 2027. And this puts us there uh within two years. Goals uh goals two through four are math or sorry English proficiency goals with a 5% expected increase. Once again, we've set these at the school level. The way it works statistically is in a large sample, your variance
096is smaller. So to ask the district to increase by 5% is a little more difficult. To ask schools to increase by 5% when they're only testing 3 to 400 kids is a lot easier. We have 40,000 tests as a district versus 3 to 400 tests. So we're setting these at the school level for 5% increase across the board. If 80 out of 80 schools achieve this goal, we're naturally going to go up by 5%. And one of those one of the things of setting at the school levels is a little bit higher expectation for our schools. Uh goal 5 through 7 are the same types of goals but in math. Goals 8 through 10 are the same types of goals but in science. Uh and then goal 11 is centered around our college and career
097readiness index. It's directly linked to our college and careermies that are developed at five of our six high schools. And then go 12 and 13 were a board development this year. Uh individual board members expressed interest in increasing proficiency and growth on the AELA exam. Overall though there's a rubric attached this year. You get honored in this rubric for we get honored in this rubric as a district for any increase to proficiency, any increase to graduation rate, but we get maximally honored when we meet the goals if that makes sense to you. So the highest level is to make our 5% goal expectations um uh in in this uh performance uh based pay rubric. Um that is my comments. I'll take any other questions. Thank you Dr. Strom. Any questions, discussion? All right. I appreciate
098the feedback and thoughts and inputs that have gone into this to these goals. We met last week in an executive dis uh in the executive session about this and so I appreciate Dr. Stum um listening and hearing you know our different feedback. So Madam President, yes, sorry I was waiting for other people to ask a question so I wasn't always first. Um Dr. Storm, can you explain the 70% increase? Uh that was a concern last last year with our community. Why we're saying at least 70% of our schools increased by 5% along with uh those stu schools that are already achieving at 95% maintaining that. Can you explain why setting it at 70% makes sense? Yeah, because well that that's been generally where the district has performed with school increases up or down when you
099look across a 10-year trend in the district. Um recently we've not achieved that 70%. So our first goal would be to get back to the 70% of schools achieving at least 5% increase in proficiency and then in future years we'll have to consider whether that 70% needs to become 75% or become 80%. But the general trend across years is that hey about 70% of our schools uh can achieve not in all years but can achieve a 5% increase in proficiency. Okay. And also um the it I love that we added the ELLL goal because uh especially with our ELELLL presentation two two weeks ago. We can't meet our ELA goal if we have our um English language learners not meeting proficiency in English. So, I love that we added or that you added that in
100as part of your goal and and that we're also focusing it at the school level that the school understands it's really it really happens at the school level and honoring that is going to be important for the district to move forward as a whole. So, I appreciate that. Madam President, just one quick thing. I really appreciate that these goals align with our governing board goals. And I just would encourage our governing board members and our community and our teachers and our staff that we all get behind these these goals, this this effort towards high achievement and high expectations. I know that it's a lot to ask and there's a lot of opportunities for people to be engaged and involved in this work. Thank you. Any other discussion? All right, Miss Kirby, will you please take
101our vote? Board member Benson. Board member Benson votes yay. I have a little red hand that says change vote, but I don't. Thank you. With a vote of five yays, you've approved the superintendent's pay for performance goals. That was weird. Moving now do I have a motion to approve the executive coaching and professional development plan? So moved. Do I have a second? Seconded. Thank you. Dr. Shawn, can you tell us more about this one? In the negotiated contract between myself and the governing board back in December of 24, a portion of that contract reads as stated in the public content that during the term of agreement, I have to bring a professional development plan to the governing board for your consideration on an annual basis. We have given three we we we've procured three quotes
102on executive coaching uh from vendors that function throughout the United States. We've provided those three quotes to you in board status. Uh and our recommendation is that if the board's going to proceed with executive coaching for myself, this quote that's attached with the scope of work is the one that's chosen. It's the middle quote. And one of the big reasons for that quote making it through to a recommendation of the governing board is they have the deepest bench available of national superintendents who function in large school districts like Mesa Public Schools. So part of my contract, I have to bring it to you. It's the board privy on whether they vote it through or don't vote it through. Thank you. Any discussion questions on this? Yeah, I have I have some questions. So, I I
103was here when we did your contract and so this was added, but I wasn't something that was brought for discussion. Um, what is the time commitment of of these of this coaching? Because And you said you have to bring something every year. the board doesn't have to approve it per your contract, but I would think like getting started as a new superintendent. Yeah, we we want you to have coaching. You're going to want to have some professional development. There's probably a lot of different ways that you can achieve that. This looks really labor intensive and it seems like maybe that's just the first year, but if you're talking about doing this every year, what percentage of your time do you think would be devoted to this executive coaching? In the scope of work, there's about
10485 hours of documented time. Then you add the out of documented time that you'll contribute to being prepared for these meetings and it may approach 120 to 160 hours, maybe about double the documented time in the scope of work. And so I would say 100 to 160 hours ends up being five to eight% of my work year. Uh if you if you go on a standard 20080, you know, work hour basis, that's not what superintendents work, but if you take it out of 20080 hours, then it's about 5 to 8% of a work year. What is it out of a normal 40-hour work week? Would you just say? Yeah, 5 to 8%. That's that's what I calculated. If you if you if you say a superintendent works 60 to 80 hours a week, you can
105cut that in half. two and a half to 4%. Okay. Um, and so I know you were required to bring this to the board, but you have really important goals that we want you to meet, goals and proficiency in turning the district around. Do you feel like that this training is something that is going to uh be meaningful for you to achieve those goals or is this more on developing leadership style for example? like what's kind of the ideology that you think you'll get out of the coaching program? Um, so developing leadership style, I know who I am. I'm a facilitative leader that functions in a very contrarian manner and by contrarian what I mean is I like to gather as much data as I possibly can prior to making decisions. And and so that's
106who I am. And so if you talk leadership styles, I don't know if there's going to be a lot of influence on the way Matt Stum leads in in this process. Uh, but I do know that every time I've had executive coaching, and there's been quite a few times I've had executive coaching throughout my career, Dr. Wally Delei was a superintendent in Gilbert. He was my first executive coach uh that I ever had. He passed away recently. Uh, Dr. Castile was in another executive coach that I met with kind of regularly throughout the process of my development, 10 years in Chandler Unified. So, every time I've had executive coaching, I've really gained something out of it. Um, but if you're gonna say to me, "Hey, Matt, are you going to change your leadership styles or
107your ideologies because you're getting coached by someone? I'm 48 years old and I know who I am and I know I want high expectations for kids and student outcomes to improve in Mesa public schools, whether we're known nationally or throughout the states have no matter to me. What I'm caring about is whether we improve outcomes for kids in Mesa public schools. And do we feel like that this that having this executive coaching is going to have an impact on our student outcomes and your ability to help drive student outcomes? And I'm asking that because the training's 30 $30,000 and this is this is one year and it could be something where it's like you do this your first year. Maybe the board needs to renegotiate the contract and remove that provision. And I I feel
108like spending 30,000 a year for executive coaching ongoing could be a problem, but doing it the first year while you're getting started, there's there could be some value in that. And I know it's hard to guess, but I guess what I'm looking at is like if we're going to make that investment or superintendent, is this something you want? Is this going to help you? And like honestly asking you, do you think this is really going to help you achieve your goals? because then it's going to be worth that that money because turning proficiency around is is the most important thing right now and so is do you think it's going to help you with that and you know again is this but is this the kind of training that you feel like that you want
109uh in in reaching those goals and so I think the first year yeah we could depending on his answer but this would be something next year going forward I think we want to re-evaluate the need to actually put in the contract you have to have executive coaching. Um, are you able to answer that? Yeah. And I just I want to be clear, the contract does not say I have to have executive coaching. It says I have to bring a plan to you guys. Uh, do I think in my very first year as superintendent I could benefit greatly from executive coaching? The answer that's yes, I do. Do I personally struggle uh having been a former CFO with, you know, the calculation of, you know, $30,000 and what that equates to and the amount of FTE
110of teachers that is. I do. I mean, I'm going to be blunt with you. I taught for 13 years and I'm very aware of every decision we make on an FT basis and the fact that could mean one more half a more quarter more teacher in our classrooms affecting kids. So I will tell you in the first year I think it's probably a benefit and uh I consciously make every budget decision underneath the lens of how many teachers did we pull out of classrooms because we're making that budget decision. So okay, thank you all my questions. Thank you. I appreciate those questions. Um, any other questions? Well, um, I had a community member reach out. Uh, she did a little bit of digging into the organization and she was concerned about the, um, potential ideological
111bent of the corporation. And if the corporation has an ideological bent that is opposed is is not in uh meeting with community expectations for what we want for students which is strictly to educate them. Uh I'm a little concerned about investing $30,000 in it. Uh so my question to you is well and and I also want to um it's sad to me that you think leadership is contrarian if you want data. That's a little concerning to me because I like data as well before I make a decision. Um, and I don't find it to be contrarian. However, if that's the way they level label it, I guess. So, if you you and I have had discussions that you have uh mentors, personal mentors around you. I assume those mentors um align with your philosophical desire
112to strictly educate kids. So is the investment really could you get the same uh benefit because I already see really strong leadership qualities in you just and you haven't even taken over well maybe tonight but officially right so can you do you have mentors around you because of the concern that our community has of like just statements on their website that are really kind of show an ideological bent that may not be uh in line with what Mason wants for their students. So, could you get the same thing without half half a teacher's pay? That's a good question. So when whenever I pay for a service in my own, you know, home improvement uh that my wife wants done at the house, it always goes better than asking one of my friends to come over
113and do the service for free. Uh it it just always does. And so I part of my gut on that is I think they'll probably be better service for executive coaching out of a paid service than relying on my my my mentors uh to to give me uh advice. I want to be really clear uh in that you know one of the most difficult tasks in a superintendency role in a district like Mesa Public Schools is that we have such a variety and variance of constituents that we have to serve. And in having that variety and variance in constituents they have to serve. This is less about how Matt Strong believes or what this organization believes it. It's about hey here's some good leadership holistic frameworks that you should function under so that you have
114enough voice and lens from the entire district to make great decisions for the district moving forward. And so no matter whether this executive coaching leans one way or the other, that's not going to matter to my leadership in Mesa Public Schools. There are other things that will that I will get out of executive coaching beyond bringing an ideological bend back to uh Mesa public schools. The other final thing I want to say is the person who founded this company is a Mesa Public Schools graduate. So they understand Mesa Public Schools really well. And sometimes when you're running a national company, you have to ensure that everything you publish can be be uh consumed from a variety of different lenses uh to drive your business. It's no different than curriculum and why curriculum tends to have
115a Texas bend in a lot of places and a California bend in a lot of places because those are your major markets for curriculum. And so you look at books and you go, "Hey, this was developed out of California for these large districts in California, or this was developed out of Texas for these large school districts in Texas." And they write with these certain lenses because they know exactly what market they're trying to to attract uh into their business. I don't know if I answered your question, but that's an authentic answer to uh kind of where uh I think your question was rooted in. Any other questions? Yeah, I I would like to um commend you for taking on the board's recommendation to get some executive coaching. Um and it has been my experience on
116the board that no matter how much experience you have, we have multiple perspectives in this district. We are the largest district. Our community has many different voices and meeting the needs of all of our students and meeting their strengths of all of our students is a challenge because Mesa is a very diverse community. And so to be able to be the superintendent for all peoples is is daunting. and and I'm and I'm um very pleased that that the executive coaching um it was it was more than a suggestion but that that it was part of a contract that that you have taken on a a um a very serious um approach to it and I can only um wish you the best and this is our way of showing support for you as you launch
117this new ship of yours. Thank you, Mr. Yeah, Madame President, I really appreciate board member Walden's clarification and questions about how much of a commitment this is and also the clarification that this was part of the contract to bring recommendations because I wasn't part of the hiring process. Um, and as much as I really value having training for myself as a brand new board member, I do feel very confident that Dr. STM has leadership qualities and strategies in place, I think we're seeing that being laid out um to be successful in achieving student outcomes. And I do want you to feel supported and mentored and have all of the the things that you need in place to be successful. I think I differ a little bit in in board member Walden in feeling that maybe
118I'd like to see us wait a year and see if in a year you want to bring it back to us um and see if if maybe coaching would be ready at that time. I think that there's a lot to accomplish and we have a lot of changes that we're going to talk about today. Um and adding workload outside of those responsibilities. I think I I have some concerns about it. I'd rather see you get some some time under your belt and then maybe see if you have some questions you want to have executive coaching for a year from now. That is an outside the box suggestion. I'm like, wow, no one thought about that. Uh so now I'm I'm not sure how I feel about it because you're right. It's like maybe after after
119the first year, right? But it's like it's a double-edged sword sword where it's like, well, I wish I had coaching during that, you know, maybe maybe then it' be better to do it after you get your feet wet. But yeah, we just don't want to like burden you with too much. So that one over. Yeah, you go ahead. U member Traffy's So we we just voted um to approve ASBA where you can get training. We're going to be voting on the greater I don't remember what it's called, but uh we're we're going to be voting on that. You do need to have a personal life. There has to be a work life balance. Research shows you work more than 50 hours a week and you're less productive. So, keep that in mind. Uh so, I
120I also don't I like the I like the suggestion. Um get your feet wet. Do you think you need executive coaching? I I like that suggestion. It and it is an out ofthe- box thinking kind of it. I hadn't thought of it. Uh but I I like that because we do want to be we don't want to overburden you. This is the largest district. We have two other opportunities that we're going to be vote. One we already voted on that you can get training from the next one as well. So I like that. And we then because this is a relatively new organization as well. uh from what I understand it started in uh postcoid uh so they don't have really a long track record of success that I saw in you know stellar developing
121stellar I don't I didn't see that on their website so uh thank you for that feedback member chaffy well I just have one more thought too is this like maybe it doesn't have to be a year it could be three months it could 6 months you could bring something back to though. Is this a program that has to start like with a new school year or is it something you could say after 6 months maybe you want to bring it back and you can speak to the value of it? I think this could be brought back at any point in time. So uh I don't want to get ahead of the board vote and cast anything on behalf of the board, but it if if the vote goes one way then it starts immediately it
122goes another way. Maybe it's something that President Davis and I can continue to talk about throughout the year. If if we vote on this tonight and depending on how it goes, do you have to start it right away or could you start it and could it start in like three months like six months? Do you know like if Yeah, we could structure that structure it how you wanted. Correct. I just wonder like as we I look at it like as we're have these new principles or like when I think of like growing students or from students and and our teachers and their professional development and learning, we want to model that too as a as a district and for our superintendent and for us as board members also modeling that. And so um just something
123also to think about as we you know what do we want out of our principles and different things as far as leadership and do we want them continuing continuing education also you know providing their leadership skills and so just something else to look at as you know we we start at the top you know set that example at the top and go down and so just another well and that example will be said if you participate in ASBA things or the uh greater Phoenix I don't remember what it was education. Yeah, I mean there's definitely a lot of options I think for training. I I completely agree with you like top down we want to show continuing education outside the box thinking can be really good. Uh the you know new set of eyes all
124those all those expressions we use for you know trying to look at things in a different way. Maybe we should think about this differently. Uh and we could also not vote on this tonight. we could table it and maybe maybe bring it back after a couple months into the school year and then re-evaluate it rather than have to have a split vote or not be on the same page or we want maybe more time to think about it. We could just table it one more meeting or vote to bring it back after a few months. We have that option too if if you're gonna do the latter. It's I think we call it in Mesa postponing. Uh so I think you need a motion to do either of those things table or postpone. Oh. Yeah.
125Marcy have to withdraw. So So there's a motion on the floor. So if we would like to table, we'd have to motion to to pull. So withdraw the motion. Thank you. That word was coming. Um, okay. So, to clarify, I heard that if we choose to not vote on this tonight, we can bring this back up in six months. It's not as though we Yeah, it it's right. So, I don't personally see the need to postpone and I don't think it looks derogatory in any way if we don't have a a unanimous vote on anything. I I think that that shows that um we are representing a variety of different voices and perspectives and viewpoints which is also very important to do again in a large district. Um so seeing seeing I don't personally see
126the need to postpone or table the vote. Call Okay, we'll call for the vote. The scurvy looking with one yay and four nays. Uh we have not approved the executive coaching and professional development plan. Moving on to do I have a motion to approve the memorandum of understanding course mojo? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. And this item was tabled last meeting to allow the district to to compile an FAQ document to address questions. And I know this is now posted on their website. And I just want to thank Dr. Eless and her team um for putting that together. And board members, do you have any discussion? Madame President, I do understand our community concerns regarding the use of AI in our classrooms. There are ethical concerns. There are privacy concerns.
127There are concerns about replacing educators with technology. And I think that these are all valid concerns. I do really appreciate the work of the district and answering those questions. The frequently asked questions document was very helpful. Um I spent a lot of time on the course mojo website. I spent time with my kids talking about it. How do you feel about this? You know, how how does this do you find this engaging? Do you not? Um, I think that it's really important to clarify that this technology uses the information that is feeding this AI is from our approved curriculum. So, it is not generating text. It's not generating questions. The what is feeding the AI is curriculum that we have already approved like a textbook. It would be like pulling the language from a textbook.
128Um, and I think that much like stated in public comment, there are exciting opportunities about AI. Um, that small classroom model. Today I was working with my son on a workbook and he was so frustrated with this text. Like, how do I understand what a primary source document is? I'm also that parent. And um, I was sitting there working with him one-on-one. This is what a primary source document is. Let's talk about it. Let's go back and forth. And I could see how Course Mojo could do that. that it would allow to ask those questions of a student and reinforce that text in an ELA setting based in curriculum that we have already approved. And I I do highly recommend our our community to be engaged in our curriculum approval process. You know, I'm passionate
129about that than making sure that we know what our curriculum is. Um even with my excitement about AI, I do want to be cautious. I don't think we should be in the in the business of jumping in on every experimental technology. Emerging research suggests that students do learn better on paper than on technology and I and I want to be cautious as that. However, I am willing to try course mojo in this limited capacity. It's on two of our small campuses. Um, as a board, I think we should expect to receive feedback on the success of this partnership. I would love to see it in practice on those campuses. I'd love to go in and see how it works. Um, I love the idea that we can help our teachers, not replace them. That we
130can have that small groupoup learning and and support them. I don't want to be replacing our teachers. I'm very cautious about it. And I want to receive feedback from both students and educators on their experience. And then I want to see student outcomes. Did this really move the needle on student outcomes? And then I can think we can have some some good conversations at the end of this trial. Thank you. Any other discussion? Yeah. the the concern of the um community is around data sharing and uh and the how are questions generated and yes I I understand this is in a limited limited capacity with HMH period. The concern is that if we dabble with AI a little here and that we move to adding AI in different places. I I know when I was
131uh employed here, there was a real push for using AI to generate lesson plans, which I will admit to you, I I was opposed to. I I think that we rely too much on technology and our students are I I want to see thinking develop. If you have control over the neutrality of what happens with the things that are motiv or that are um generated through AI, then that's different. If we're teaching if if through like I I mentioned last time, if we're teaching students how to think through AI, that's fine. providing foundational knowledge in order for them to have foundational uh a foundation an acade academic foundation upon which they can develop those thinking skills. Uh how to be fair-minded, how to think deeply, how to uh how to think with a wide range
132of perspectives, how to think logically. I'm I'm a proponent for developing those intellectual standards and thinking skills within all of our students across Mesa. The concern within our community, a wide range of them, is they don't know that this is going to maintain neutrality within, and you even mentioned it earlier, Dr. Storm, uh, publishers produce um, curriculum for the California market, which is substantially different than the Texas market, I would wager guess, and substantially different than the for than the Florida model. So what what one of our community members I believe asked for was a tour just like we did uh several of us went to um Mountain View and toured different things uh different aspects of Mountain View a because this is the summer we don't have to rush to is do we is
133there a rush to uh establish establishing theou before the school? So yes, um thisou is really just providing us with 1300 free licenses. So um just to that point, this would be a pilot so that we could launch it small and we could get lots of feedback. We could have tours, we could have people really taking a look at it as opposed to um July 1 purchasing this tool for every school across the board. So this theou is really just allowing um this company to provide us with free licenses. So my question the resource is already approved. This theou is to um seek approval for the 1300 free licenses. So I I know that this supplemental was already approved. Um and actually I think that's because we are given a list of um multiple uh
134supplementals to approve without a uh this is what the supplement does. This is what the supplement is. This is how it presents information or or um like the why or the what for. So when we're given a list as a board, we don't have any of that background information for any of that. So I I'd love to see that going forward, which is not part of this discussion. My question is is if we were to table this again for a two-eek period, could parents, interested parents, come in and do a little mock this summer or is that not possible right now? It's not possible. We have not put a purchase order on the system to purchase this tool. So we currently don't have course mojo. Correct. It's not being used anywhere right now. So if
135we were to approve this and uh that allowed the 1300 free so there's no cost uh for uh for the district with thisou that's correct for this first year that would be correct and I did read we are we are planning on ga g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g gathering specific data as to whether or not it actually improves student achievement. We'll gather data on the use of the tool, the engagement with it, um how it interacts with the text, um and if it's improving those kids scores. Correct. So, could be correlational. With those 1300 free licenses, would parents be able to come and do a tour at that point? Yes, they could work with the site administrator and the teacher
136to do so. And they would be able to come in and say, "Hey, I I just want to because that's the big concern. They they it is in a limited capacity, but we all know that once we get a little a little toe wet into into uh something and I think we have a volunteer to to tour it. Is that what I'm seeing? I'm saying it's too late when you already do it that way. You want to test it before it's even implemented at all. That's what we're saying. We have to follow procurement laws. And I'm sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. We can't have comments. I'm sorry. And I totally lost my train of thought. From our our parliamentarian. I think you can ask someone to come up though and talk, can't you? Or is it
137only because we do we've done that for presentations with district employees. It have does it have to be an employee? Do you know our parliamentarian know Mr. Thompson? [Laughter] I was wondering is the board allowed to ask any if we want to ask so many questions uh as part of our discussion are is the board allowed to ask somebody to come up and speak because I know we've done it for district employees. So, from a parliamentarian uh background, is is there a a limit on allowing people to answer board questions? I it's my understanding that any question has to go through the chair and the chair would recognize your question and the chair can ask someone to approach. So it it it the meeting is controlled by the chair and and and including a member
138of the audience. Oh, I see. Yes. Come through the chair. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Yes, that is correct. And I feel like I stumped the parliamentarian night. Um again, guys, I'll default to uh as long as you're not violating open meeting law, um you you know, the board president has the right to conduct the meeting. and our reference is to Robert's rules, but we have discretion within that. So, I think if you have an orderly manner by which you want to have that conversation, there's not as long as it's an agenda item, that's the open and meeting law that I would defer to our council on as to whether we're following the subject matter that's appropriate. But procedurally, I don't see an issue. Correct. Thank you. Thank you. And with that,
139Miss King, this is just on theou for the license agreement. So it's not that's that's all this is for, right? It's there's nothing on the agenda to talk about the pros and cons of using AI in public education. This is just approval of thisou that is for a limited purpose which is spelled out very succinctly in exhibit A. Thank you. Any other questions, discussion? Um, yeah, I I have some some comments too and I think I I'll work a question in there. I do want to thank uh uh Dr. Eless for the frequently asked questions document that we had asked for and I want to thank the board for tableabling this item at the last meeting and and giving a chance for that document to uh be presented and there's there's good information on here.
140I I I like that parents can opt out. I think that's always important to provide that. I still feel like though that there's a lot of information we we don't know and it once once we do a pilot on something like I I support doing pilots because that's really a great way to to gather information but at the same time then once you've created a population where people are used to getting something it's really hard to then to then take it away. Um, and I I that's kind of a a concern that I have have with this. Uh, I I'm struggling because it's like, yeah, there's going to be free licenses and maybe this will work, but we we don't know if it'll work. So, I'm not really sure on this that it's really the
141the the right thing that we should be be doing right now. Is there another way that we could maybe do a pilot without having to uh bring it on to like 1300 students? you know, maybe a smaller population or a targeted population. Uh, is do you know like with this these 1300 free licenses, is that just something that like was there a purpose in it being 1300 or was that just the maximum that course mojo allowed? That was the maximum that they had available to us. Um, we certainly won't have 1300 students between Roads and Smith utilizing. Um that was just the maximum that we could go up and we selected those two schools. Okay. Um do you know about how many students we're looking at? Um not off the top of my head. I
142don't know if any of my colleagues know off the top of their head. Are you using it at seventh and eighth grade? Seventh and eighth grade with teachers who would who would want to with teachers would want to. So the maximum is going to be right around if every teacher want to use it. There's about 1300 kids on those two campuses combined. But, you know, I don't I'm not sure that every teacher is going to want to having taught and gonna want to hop onto a pilot and for in the first year. Yeah, that's true. Well, and and I know we already approved board member Benson already addressed like we we approved the supplemental curriculum, but I'll just echo her comments that it's hard to catch all the details in supplemental curriculum. We don't get
143a lot of time to review it and we don't have all the resources to review it. So, in not supporting it, like I understand there's some contradictory nature there because we approve the supplemental, but now we're saying we're not sure about this AI component. And I think just for everybody to kind of understand the page I'm on, and maybe maybe board member Benson feels the same way, is this I think this is more of a a proving supplemental without fully understanding the ramifications of that supplemental. And so now that there's another piece to it, that's where there's there's, you know, the conflict. I think if we could have understood more about the hardcore mifflin supplemental beforehand, we probably wouldn't be here today. So, I just want to kind of throw that in there. I think
144we need to find a way that when we have supplemental material that we can vet it more thoroughly or understand what may be asked down the road of of that curriculum. Um, so those those are all my comments. Thank you. any other Yeah. I And I can I add please? So I I understand we would have access to 1300 uh free licenses this year, but we all know that nothing is actually really free when you boil everything down. I'm concerned with not being able to have um before we actually utilize with this with any students or uh have any teachers that use it without knowing how it actually interacts and so does Course Mojo have no like do they not have instructional hey this is how this tool works and this is what it would
145what it would do. Yes. Um, member Benson on the website there is a demo there that you can access and see how it's utilized. Um, and it it the questions um are aligned directly to our HMH lessons and so teachers interact with it. Um, it's human criteria set. It's not AI generating random questions. It's based on criteria around um student responses whether they meet the learning objectives of that particular lesson from HMH. So, could you off the top of your head give an example? Is it a a question from a story that um the student answered incorrectly via vocabulary or not? Uh not not maybe it's a theme question, I don't know. Right. And it it routes them to one of um I think it's one of three response categories like meets, somewhat meets, or
146doesn't meet. and then it would prompt them with the next question um to get them towards that learning objective whatever that specific objective is for that task from HMH. And is there no other way to do that? So I know when I was in the gened classroom, we had remediation uh activities that we were able to generate and use. We had enrichment activities that we were a that weren't um generated by a computer. And as a classroom teacher, I could discern um through formative assessments where my students were. And that that I I will tell you that is one of my concerns when when if we're pushing um as an educational body and it's not just Mesa, it's across the it's across the um country relying on technology to do our formative assessments for us.
147Then that takes away the art of teaching and it takes away the skill of teaching. And I am actually concerned about that. Yeah. teachers actually interact with this. So they're monitoring the prompts, they're monitoring the students responses. They may be working with another group at at the same time perhaps and then that way they can actually intervene much more quickly. So, it's still teacherled, teacher um interactive in terms of the criteria that set the learning objectives, the tasks that are chosen based on our approved resources, but they're actually not doing their own formative assessment as the students are interacting with the material, are they? Or they could be doing both. Yeah, they could be monitoring. They could be the kid child can be interacting with H.M.H. the tools prompting when the teacher might not be
148right there, but then the teacher is also still going and interacting with those kids. It's not putting it. It's different than what I think you're thinking where kids are just on a computer in a small group for however many minutes a day. This is actually interacting with the teacher and the teacher is selecting those tasks from the HMH materials. It's an add-on tool to that um text. Miss, you're good. Any other questions? Any other questions? I think um you know, if this does go forward, I think just keeping an eye on things and making sure our guardrails are set and that we are, you know, making sure that it is being a benefit to our students and keeping, you know, track of what's going on. So, I appreciate all the work that's gone on and
149the questions that have been answered. So, thank you. Um seeing no other discussion, Miss Kirby, we please take our vote. With a vote of three A's and two Nazs, um we have approved the memorandum of understanding course mojo. Do I have a motion? Sorry. Do I have a motion to approve the intergo intergovernmental agreement with Greater Phoenix Education Management Council? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Dr. Strong, can you tell us about this item? Yeah, President Davis, there's a two-prong approach we're going to try to move forward with here in Mesa Public Schools. One is to stay connected federally. We already have that approach. That's called a large school consortium. the large school construction Mesa has belonged to for uh I think well over a decade it meets with Charlotte Meckllinburgg and you
150know uh these large uh Virginia Beach public schools these large public school institutions federally uh on a quarterly basis and there's actually monthly calls as well. So there's your federal connection at the state level uh our connections are not as strong and so what we'd like to do is become a member of Greater Phoenix Education Management Council. It's a a fee of $11,000 for the year. Um, it includes a superintendent council. It includes an educational services council. It includes uh business services council. So, there'll be uh opportunities for the business office to interact with fellow colleagues throughout uh the state uh throughout the greater Phoenix area. And there'll be uh uh opportunities for education side to interact with colleagues throughout the greater Phoenix area. Um you can go to the website see all the districts
151that belong. This was started back, I believe, if I remember right, in the 1970s and has continued uh forth since then. Um, and I I will tell you this is one opportunity for us to go ahead and get some of that training for me. There's uh quite a few long-term superintendents from a variety of different communities. uh and the current uh acting uh director of this greater Phoenix uh education management council is from Wikcinberg, a small rural district uh uh out in the north west area of of of of Phoenix. So uh one final note, we scrolled through all the superintendent's budget from prior years and we found uh a portion of money that we will not be spending. So, this is a budget offset and not a budget ad. And in fact, when you
152take the portion of budget that we're eliminating versus the two next items, um the the budget is actually a budget ad back to the budget. We've cut more expenses than we've added in revenues through the elimination of the of the ERS services. Thank you, Dr. Stum. Any questions, discussion? I just that was my comment. I really appreciated that information uh for the board prior to the meeting and been able to see and understand the offset that Dr. Stum talked about that we are still while there's money being spent here, it's we're still looking at less less of a budget as we decrease the costs of of certain services. So, um thank you for that. I don't have any questions on this one. Thank you. Any others? All right. Thank you. Um Mrs. Kirby, we're ready
153for a vote. With a vote of five, you've approved the intergovernmental agreement with Greater Phoenix Educational Management Council. Do I have a motion to approve the Arizona Assessment Collaborative Intergovernmental Agreement? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you, Dr. Stum. Back to you again, President Davis. There's not much to add to this one. Most people that belong to Guppy Mac also belong to the Arizona Assessment Council. It's a $1,500 fee to belong to it. They come with item banks and understanding the approach to the state from the state of Arizona on how assessments getting approached from a state standardized assessment level all the way down to an interim and formed assessment level. Uh if it's at the pleasure of the board president, Dr. Glassmire has been participating in some of these meetings
154as uh Guppy Mack and Arizona assessment consortium have allowed us to preview the experience for the last six months to see if it's worth it. So Dr. Glassmire would like to speak a little bit uh for uh 60 seconds here. Okay. Thank you. Um so I have been attending. We meet about once a month and they actually both meet backtoback in the same location which helps reduce my travel um because I like doing it in person because the conversations that actually happen outside of these meetings getting these people together is really valuable as well. Um as we've been moving to streamline state assessments, how we prepare, how we support for all of those as well as all of the variety of policy changes that have been coming down the pike. Um we get notifications from
155Guppy Mac on a regular basis, policy stuff. Um and then in talking to other people, we get this information um coming through and discussing what are some of the big things that we need to be looking at. Um as far as ASAC is concerned, um it's also been able to bring together our entire state assessment group here in Mesa public school. So I've been able to provide additional resources as well as conversations from a broader perspective across people who deal with accountability and state assessment across the entire state um because they have that networks beyond them as well. So the conversations have been greatly appreciated as well as our we've had external meetings. Um so we've actually started talking about how are we training our site testing coordinators. Um what resources do we have to
156have for our teachers? What resources do we have to have our staff and what do we need to make sure in order to support our schools in state assessment as we move forward. So it's been very very beneficial. Thank you Dr. Glmmyer. Any other discussion? All right. Thank you for that. Mirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five yays, you've approved the intergovernmental agree. Oh, I'm sorry. We have approved the Arizona Assessment Collaborative Intergovernment Agreement. All right. Okay. We had originally maybe worked in a break. We're going to just keep going through this. Um and now we are to our discussion items and we will turn um Dr. Gibbs, we're going to hand over the mic to you and you can take it away here. Well, good evening um members of
157the board and superintendency. Tonight I'll be providing some general um overall numbers on behavior statistics from the district. So, okay, just as background, um, our response to behavior incidents, as they're called, are governed by are are governed by these discipline matrix in our student handbooks code of conduct. And this matrix which has been revised this past year um has a um five levels of of response with uh higher um with greater levels of response u proportioned out to those incidents that require um that are more severe. So uh with that background we'll go ahead and take a look at some um some of the trends. Right. First we look at the number of incidents per student. Um this is calculated as the total distinct incidents in which students were identified as offenders out of the
158total number of K12 students enrolled throughout the academic year. And uh here we see that the number of incidents is around 0.4 incidents per student and that's remained fairly consistent over the last three years. Uh next next we look at what we're calling repeat offenders. A repeat offender here is a student who's been an offender in more than two incidents. We do two incidents as a borderline because of um the lighter the lighter situations that may that may happen. There may be a misunderstanding or maybe a um um a learning opportunity that's provided for a student. So we are looking at or more than two offenses for this repeat offender category. Um, and so this is the percent of repeat offenders out of the total number of K12 students enrolled throughout the academic year. Here
159we see that around 6% of students would fit into this category. Once again, fairly consistent over the past three years. Then we look at uh the breakdown of elementary students versus secondary. And here we see this number as well has stayed fairly consistent with around 35% of incidents recorded at the elementary level. Um and the documentation has been improving over the years. And so this may be a reason for the slight increase um and documentation of of offenses at the elementary level. Right. Next we see the number of students involved in incidents. Um and on this slide uh we are looking at the uh number of the percent of students who are an offender in at least one incident throughout the academic year. So this is just any incident at all. That number stands at
160around 20%. So 80% of our students on the other hand are steering clear of the kinds of behaviors that would wind up as discipline incidents. So in other words um number the minority of our students were involved in incidents in the past year. Um, and next we look at the top five violations for the past three years. And the vertical blue line indicates the introduction of our new discipline matrix. Um, you'll notice the top category and the two prior years was other school policy violations which has been replaced by this category defiant and disruptive behavior. And the rationale there is that this category other school policy and violations actually included in the the largest and behavior in that first category was defiant or disruptive behavior. This is really kind of a a continuation um across
161these three years. So these kind of clarifications are have been helpful um as we've been implementing the matrix. Next we look at severe violations. Um here we see that the number of students involved in this severe violation category uh has declined each year. Um and note that vaping would fall into that very first category. That's something that um is not broken out separately, but that would be in that first category. Um so we're seeing less of these serious incidents and documenting all the other incidents more consistently. Um these trends have been an encouragement to the leadership team. So moving on to the next slide, the top four disposition. A disposition is the way that we handle the response way we respond to uh a discipline um incident. So um so along with the decline in
162the percentage of serious cases we've also seen a 3% decrease in the number of dispositions that would be out of school suspension. So um the lower incidence of out of school suspension allows these students to remain um in the school where we can we can work with them. Um when they're out of school and they have learning loss that often creates another cycle of behavior behavioral problems too. So we want to try to keep the kids in a place where we can where we can serve them and help keep them moving forward while also removing them from the classroom so they're not a distraction. So um this does help reduce the learning loss when you see this. So uh with our new behavior matrix uh kind of keeping with our district's MTSS framework the goal
163is to intervene before it gets severe. And this last slide talks about the early interventions. So, we've been working hard as a district to um to intervene early and to look for um uh opportunities to help kids before the behaviors um get worse. And you can see that these early interventions, behavior contracts, student conferences, mediation, consiliation, meeting with school counselors, those numbers have have risen while the percentage of severe violations has gone down, which is the dynamic that you really want to see. So, um, thank you for your attention and I'm happy to support the board with any follow-up questions you might have. Thank you, Dr. Gibbs. Board, any questions regarding this? These are uh specifically behaviors that are referred uh to the office. Correct. These are I think is is that what they're called?
164the yeah these are these are actually cases that have been completed filled out in synergy for behavior violation these are the student the ones that we're looking at here are cases where there was a there was a stated offender in the in the history for that particular in so it's not inclass thing so when we had our our presentation on uh by our parent council discipline was still a huge concern and issue So, is it are we are we seeing that because this is what's reported higher higher level things before they ever get to uh pardon me. It's higher level offenses that make their way into synergy. So, it's not taking into account disruptive behaviors in regular classrooms. Correct. Unless it's habitual. Correct. I think I think that's the right answer to your question considering
165that the only thing we can measure is the data we actually have. So if it if the teacher doesn't refer to the office or doesn't put something in a synergy, we're never going to be able to tell you what the data looks like for that. So is it is it the case um and I will be honest with you when the discipline matrix uh came in I what I taught I seldom ever had discipline issues. So, I actually didn't really pay attention to it. Um, but my understanding is you have to have two incidents in the same category before anything can be reported. Is that correct? Mrs. King and Arinda Man really run our discipline matrix process. That was something that came up earlier. So, I understand where that was at. I think they've guided
166the team through the process to making some slight adjustments. Mrs. King, that is very behavior dependent. There are, as Mr. Dr. Gibbs explan Dr. Gibbs sorry explained there are four or five um action levels. So um like a level five uh something involving weapons, drugs, serious bodily injury would not require multiple violations. But level ones that are more um behaviors that can be often managed in the classroom that would it would there would be an expectation that there would be some some classroombased interventions and that only after multiple attempts to correct the behavior in the classroom would an office referral be made to a point where the um the violation would be reported. in synergy as an incident. Okay. So, are we working to is Mrs. Man working to get it so that we don't
167have because I I I heard from the presentation from our parent council that discipline is still an issue and a frustration. So, the I I appreciate I mean what I heard was um the kids are pretty smart. So if I do this thing twi like let's say I back talk to a teacher twice but I kick a student once I'm not actually going to get referred. So do you see what I'm saying? So and kicking might be a level two. I I honestly don't my kids were not in school when the discipline matrix came through and again I I didn't have issues in my classroom. So, uh, is that the case that they have to have two of the exact same issues in level ones and level twos before they can actually move up to
168level three, four? I mean, I I understand the fives. I understand the fives totally. Like the ones that are clearcut, there's a lot of discretion built in. Um, especially in the lower level violations. Um, if it's multiple instances or instances of, you know, tapping your partner and being a little bit disruptive, it's not a clearcut. You do that twice, then you get an office referral. There's there I I think for students to it's a pretty um savvy document. I'm not sure that um most students would be gaming the system using the discipline matrix. I'm just telling you what I heard. So, and and it was from staff on campuses. So, member Benson, the issue you're bringing up has been brought up before at the secondary level in particular. Uh and it has been something that's
169been brought back to the discipline committee and they're constantly reviewing the matrix to improve it. And so we will get and the the incident that I can recall was a Red Mountain incident and the principal at Red Mountain was frustrated with the with the discipline matrix and how it was interacting and he sat on the committee. So he definitely brought that back to the committee and said hey let's make changes. All I'm trying to reiterate is there's a process for the iterative development of the discipline matrix and I would encourage you as you're interacting with principles and or family members to inform us of concerns that you hear so we can drive that back to the committee and iteratively develop a better and better document every year. Well, I think it's got to get better
170at the classroom level, right? So that the little things that are disruptive to learning that don't make their way into synergy um are problematic and we should have the same set of expectations across the district for every one of our campuses that no you're here to learn and let's focus because lost learning time is uh a huge driver of a lack of achievement. So and behavior is a huge factor in loss of learning. What? One other thing I can I ask, President Davis, can I ask a question to Mr. Gibbs? Mr. Gibbs, the thing that shocks me in discipline data every time we review it is this idea that there are a ton of students who have zero discipline incidents in the district. Can you remind me of the percentage of kids in the district
171this year that had zero approximately zero discipline incidents? There were 80 there were 80% of our students that had zero incidents. Yeah. And I think the public needs to hear that a lot. The vast majority of our kids have no behavior incidents in a year. They are well- behaved students coming managing themselves and their surroundings really well. This is the paro rule at the finest if you want to look that up statistically where 20% of our kids are causing uh 80% of of of our discipline situations. So, uh, you know, I just we don't emphasize that in public education enough that the vast majority of our kids are well- behaved human beings and we want to thank the families for understanding that it takes a village to surround these kids to improve behaviors. Well, and
172those are the ones that are frustrated with the 20%, right? That that they're here to learn and they they are here to, you know, better themselves. So, Madame President, I'm just curious, where do we find the discipline matrix on the website? It's right on the cover page of the district's website um under MPS student handbook. It's page 50 of the handbook. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Oh, is attendance policy violation is that um those kids that are missing more than 10 10% of days or is it tardies? How is that defined? Uh I'd be happy to have someone else jump in here who knows the matrix better, but discipline I mean attendance attendance policies are one form of a violation. Yeah, that's tardies ditching elopement. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Thank
173you, Dr. Gibbs. Appreciate you taking the time tonight to share that with us. Um, we will now move to um Dr. Glassmire on presentations on semester 2 grades and um credits, I believe. Right. You got both those. All right. We'll turn it over to you. Okay. So, we're going to take you through our grades. This is semester 2 grades and we focused our presentations on 9th and 10th grade. And so, just to bring you back to the reason why we're showing you this is because we want to show you trends. We were coming out of COVID. So, we we have three years of trends. And obviously, if they are passing classes, then they are more likely to be on track to be graduating. And one of our governing board goals is graduation. So, while we're
174not looking at 11th graders or 12th graders, we're looking at making those long-term changes. So, that's why we've been bringing you grades. So, in looking at 9th and 10th graders, we start with English for 9th graders. So, one of the things that I want to point out, remember, whenever we do these, it's every single quarter. And I know it's the same graph every single quarter. I'm so sorry. Um, but um remember, we're not looking for a single percentage difference. you know when we see something different. So the big things to highlight pretty much across the board just to give you a overview is our Fs are going down. The percentage of our students who are in Fs is going down. So that means we are having interventions probably taking place in class. We have schools
175really focusing on making sure those students are passing those classes. The other thing is it means also that we have fewer students possibly doing credit recovery afterwards which actually saves our district costs because obviously sending a student through the class once is the objective. So those are the big overarching let's be clear there. Um what I do like about this one is we're seeing some consistency in the C's for freshman English. And while we don't want students at C's, they're not at D's. So we're not moving them from Fs to D's. We've got a chunk that really increased there in the C's over those past 3 years. So, just pointing that one out as well. Moving into algebra 1, one of the things that I want to point out on this one, um, math is
176our barrier as it is for many schools across the country. Algebra 1 is that barrier. You will see that the percentage of Fs is higher in this subject for our nth graders more than anything else. And I know Dr. STM has spoken about starting to look at that design of elementary schools and opportunities for advancing of math as you go forth. When you end up getting exposure to those math skill sets before you get into algebra 1 and 9th grade, while it's a struggle and a challenge, it does put you on the track to be able to pass algebra 1 in that 9th grade level. So, as we look at avenues for how to make this less of a barrier for our students, this currently is outside a little bit um in comparison to our
177percentage of Fs, but as we look at moving and making forward changes, this is one that we can certainly be looking at. Biology, we've seen a huge decrease in those Fs. We've also seen a nice little consistent tick up in those A's which I was a prior science teacher so I absolutely love that. Um world history we also saw a drop off. It's sort of maintained in that F. Now remember our goal is also not well well our ideal goal is 0% FS in the reality of things. We're probably not going to get there. Um but we do want we didn't want it up where it was. So we are moving we have been moving in the right direction. And we see are are seeing a three-year trend of moving in that correct direction. Um,
178and we do see that A for world history staying up around that 33%. Moving into your sophomores or your 10th grades, um, English, we're seeing a gradual trend down in our Fs, so we're happy to see that. We're also seeing a little tick upwards in that C. So, again, we're not they're not necessarily going into D category, but we're actually possibly making some forward progress. Now remember these are complete. We're not looking at student by student and programs here. So those are things that we're just looking at patterns and trends going on here. Geometry huge drop in our Fs. Three years ago we were at 22%. Um so that's like one in five students. Um so moving down to 13% we are obviously making some track there which is um commendable. We also see a
179big jump in our A's. We saw this also for our semester one geometry as well. So it could be that we're enough years past COVID. Remember math is a sort of a linear thing. It keeps on spiraling. Um so math is harder to teach at home. Um so when we had COVID we're now moving partially past that. Um so national scores our ELA didn't get nearly as impacted in NWA as comp and NAPE scores as compared to math. So that may not be it. Um but we are happy to see these trends. And then we have our physical science for our 10th graders. So we have a consistent sort of down 11% um for our physical science. We see a little bit of bumping around in that A percentage, but overall we're not seeing anything
180concerning or wrong directions of what we're looking for. Social studies as well, we saw a nice big drop off in those Fs and a nice little bump up in our B's as well as our C's. So once again, it's not transferring over to our D's, that percentage of students. Um, so we're obviously making some gains somewhere. So overall positive findings across. That is the end of our grades. Any questions on that one? Board members, any questions? Yeah. What are the geometry teachers doing? I mean, no, really I I I'm I'm honest. Uh I want I want to know what's going on with geometry that we've seen such a tremendous um impact. Um what are we doing? Right. Um I think over the we'd have to actually look at every single teacher and look at what's
181happening in their classrooms. But I think part of it is um we have a consistent resource that teachers are using across campuses. We've had an intentional focus on instructional design and um our coaches have been working with our teachers and our uh secondary content specialists for math and really working on that um content knowledge as well. So, a variety of things, but we'd have to really look at each different classroom and and take a look at where those strengths are and and analyze those. And we intend to do that and we continue to do that through our continuous improvement. No, I mean this is this is great. just just that is great great information. Um uh because it's the things that the board has invested in. We've invested in better resources. We've invested in professional
182development and and and it not only is pedigogy, but it's also knowing the content at high school. So, um I and if that has been intentional, which Dr. Rees, yeah, that's what you're telling me. This is this is good stuff. Um, and it's um I I've got a big smiley face here. Um, this is very promising. Um, and and clearly this is the this is the type of work that we need to be doing with our kids, but it's the way that the board can support that work. And and yay, geometry. But I got to give a shout out to my history teachers, too. They're they're doing a job as well teaching those primary sources. Mrs. Jackie, well, Dr. Glassmire, I'm glad that you pointed out that math is linear because one of the issues
183I think that we face when we get into junior high and high school is that there isn't that solid academic foundation of math from grade school like without that solid math foundation because it is more it's an objective discipline. it is not subjective. Um, ELA is by far more subjective. So really focusing in and I hope we're really focusing in on our elementary math teachers as well. Making sure that we're teaching math in such a way that kids are retaining it and they're believing they can do math because that in my experience uh with students and with adults even is if you don't have a belief that you can do math then that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I I'm hoping that we're really focusing also on the elementary level, not just for math, but
184for ELA, all of it. We we can't really do anything in high school if we don't have solid foundation from elementary and then build on that in junior high. So thank you. Any other Yeah, Madam President, uh I I agree with board member Benson's analysis that we need to have that solid tier one instruction. I really appreciate Dr. STM's efforts in that and I'm cautiously optimistic about these results. Dr. Stum, do you feel that this data aligns with our results in state testing and ACT scores? Um, well, you asked the most difficult question, which is ACT scores. Uh, we teach to state standards. The ACT is not necessarily aligned to state standards. And so there's a disconnect between the ACT assessment and the state standards uh that are taught in a classroom. Do do we
185think that one of the things we'll be dealing downstream with couple years from now, four years from now, these improvements get made, the idea that okay, so you've had improvements in grades. What about in the guaranteed fact or the guaranteed measurement of testing? Why aren't we seeing improvements there? I think that probably will be the next level conversation. Like you've seen grades that are getting better and so shouldn't you naturally see outcomes on standardized assessments get better as well? And that's what we constantly talk about uh in our research and evaluation meetings is you know this is this is good data and how do we help that good data become great data and the translation of what's getting happening with grades translates into kids showing up and certifying their knowledge via assessment and we can
186get into the whole assessment listen I was director of research and assessment in another place for a long time and we can get the whole assessment conversation right Now regardless of that you've heard the national stories and the national stories are centered around GPA are up standardized test scores are down and you know then there's uh conversation around why that occurs and so we just constantly have to keep a thumb on okay grades are improving a little bit so how do we make sure that the grades that are improving also result in the certification of tests that say the kids are knowledgeable in that area once again you led with a difficult question because in the ACT it's a little more nuanced conversation because what's tested on the ACT isn't necessarily what's taught in algebra
1871 and geometry and that's a state level problem. Uh I think the state made the right decision years ago when they went to statewide ACT testing. It was done for the purposes of helping kids understand where they could metriculate to college and be successful. So I'm not even not going to state in that comment. But we're left in that in that dialogue even though I think that's the right conversation at the state level for college metriculation. we're left with the fallout, which is the test doesn't align to the standards that we teach. Does that make sense? So, yeah, I appreciate that and I think as a parent that's helpful to know. Sometimes you're like, "Oh, if they're doing nth and tth grade, they're ready for the ACT." And to know you also need to do
188ACT prep with your kid is very helpful information. Um, so yeah, I appreciate that and thank you so much, Dr. Lasser, for your presentation. Most definitely. Can I ask Dr. STM a question? So is do you think that that's a state issue that our what we teach does not align with the ACT scores or is that a national issue? So is it and and does it go back to the implementation of common core? What do you think the root cause is? Uh the testing agencies you got to remember how the SAT was developed and how the ACT was developed all the way back to Thorndikeke and the ASVAB test back in the 1920s. The testing a agencies that develop these tests aren't designing tests to test the standards. They're designing tests for the predictive qualities
189of whether the kid can go off and be successful at the next level. That's their highest level uh of thing that they want to achieve. The scholastic aptitude test is telling the colleges this kid's ready to perform at the college level. The ACT out of Iowa City, same same thing. ACT is built to predict whether a kid in their first year of college can achieve with 80% probability at least uh sorry I think it's 75% 75% probability at least a B in their freshman year English class from the English section uh a B in their freshman year math class college algebra from their math section right a B in their freshman year science class biology from their science section and so that's what the test is designed for to predict the validity of whether they
190can go off to college and have success And so to to suggest it's a common core issue, I don't think it's a common core issue. Uh I think it's that's how these tests are designed and the state made a conscious choice to to help students understand. There's a lot of students, this is hawky research. If if uh you know Caroline, a lot of students are in areas uh where they need to be shown, hey, you just you just got a 31 on your ACT. You're college ready. because a lot of students don't understand that they're ready to go that they the data that they collect in this 4hour period on test says you have a really high probability of being successful at college and so when you look at the demographic United States from LA
191Unified all the way to all the way up to New York City public schools it matters in a lot of these areas that kids get told you're ready and right because they may have been getting C's the whole time in their classes but the test says no you have an aptitude here you can go off to college and be successful so I don't know if we'll ever fix that problem and I once Again, I don't know that the state of Arizona made a mistake going to ACT for all because I think there's kids that need to be told and shown like, yeah, you can have success at the next level academically. But we're what we're left with is the bind of we have to teach the standards because that's what's required out of Arizona Department
192of Education. Those are standards we have to teach and we need to infuse enough ACT preparation at the high school level so our kids are prepared. And so then you're left in the time bind. Where do you put your time? Do you put it towards developing standards or prepping for the test? And that's the constant dilemma in high school education in Arizona right now. Well, it seems to me like we need to change high school education if that's if that's what we're Well, I think I think that's I think that's part of the effort here in Mesa Public Schools is to continue to redesign high school education. Well, but we need to make it so that because I totally agree with you that if kids believe they can go to college like I I know
193several people just from my own generation that never thought they were collegebound or college material uh that were probably were um but it was a different mindset then. So let me ask Dr. Um, easeless, we're participating in the pilot of the um, a math thing at the state level. The statistical developing the statistical course is that something that would be potentially uh, well, it's teaching state standards would also move us in the direction of preparing kids to be more because our commitment is to make them not just career but college ready as well. Yeah, there will be overlap in skills um that kids would be able to apply, but certainly those are things that our high school teachers are, like Dr. Stro said, are grappling with every day. We have to teach the standards. We
194have to prepare them for the test. So, they're also looking at crosswalking. What are the skills that kids need so that they can apply that knowledge to whether it's the standardized assessment or it's the ACT or or just showing their knowledge in that in that area. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Can I can I add one component to that? Just it'll be real brief, I promise. This is the other dilemma. Statistics and data analysis is embedded in two portions of the ACT exam. The science portion of the exam and the math portion of the exam. If you take statistics typically and even an intro to statistics class typically your senior year, you've already taken the ACT. And and this is this is why you'll hear a lot of people talk about your best scoring ACT kids
195often have exposure to algebra 2 by the time they're freshman in high school. Why? because then they go into honors pre-calc when they're sophomores and they've had exposure to every element of mathematics at that point in time because once you get into pre-calc or honors pre-calc you start getting into a variety of concepts like measurement of center, measurement of spread and all those statistical ideas. And so one thing we need to consider in Mesa public schools is when do kids get exposed to the content? It's really important that the kids get exposed to it their senior year. It does prepare them. it's just never going to show up in the test score if it's in their senior year. I think that sounds like a push for acceleration for our quantitative kids. Just saying. Thank you.
196Any other discussion? Okay. All right. I have one more, right? I do. Thank you. Okay. So this is cumulative credits for semester 2. Um so this one is set up and based off of our um course catalog and the number of credits to be earned in each of 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade in preparation for graduation. Um so we have total credits earned. So this is two sections. There's total credits earned and then there's also it's allocated into those core subject areas. So, we've got two different sections here. They also I also threw in the tentative four-year graduation rate at the end. So, a little bonus add-on. Okay. So, in looking at this, we have all of the graphs are set up with at this point now a dark red, which means they would
197be like the at the end of their nth grade year, they're at the equivalent of like their first semester. the pink or slightly less dark red is basically that they end up they're still a little bit short from what they would be considered for their freshman year. Now, this is based off of six class periods. So, six credits earned in a year. That's what our course catalog is based off of. We have five out of our six high schools next year that will be running on eight credits, not six. And currently this year, we have three of them. So the opportunity for students this year to earn more credits when we're looking at total number of credits, it's going to shift the picture. So the 5.5 is that minimum at the end of their freshman
198year. So you can see that we've actually from last year to this year when we moved on to three schools having the opportunity for eight credits, we moved from 71% of our freshmen approximately to 82.7% of our freshmen now have the minimum or higher number of total credits as 9th graders. So that gives them a buffer whether they be electives, core content areas, it's total number of credits is higher than what they would have normally gotten. Um so that speaks volumes to that we're actually now remember this is credits earned. So they had the opportunity for eight credits but this is saying our kids are gaining those credits. So that's another important point for our 10th graders. It shifts. The color scheme remains the same though. that middle cutoff between the light pink and the
199light green is where they should be on track. So once again, when we look at our total number of students or a percentage of students who are in those green sections, we've increased from 64% last year to 75% this year. And you'll also see that our 13 and a half and greater is a pretty big chunk. That's a huge jump. So this is the opportunity for those students if they're in there. We also have the opportunity before block scheduling that our students could take courses through MDLP as well. So some of our students take those high school level courses in MDLP as well. So or a zero hour or a 7th hour before and after school. So there were just to point out that there were opportunities to gain extra credit outside of the block
200scheduling that we currently have at our three schools. Moving into our 11th graders, we also have a shift here. We went from 62% to 67.8. You'll see a bigger jump though in that dark green section. Um, which means they're definitely ready going in in total number of credits earned based on where they currently at. Um, and so we don't see as much in here percentage- wise as far as a change is concerned. Um, but we do still see that increase. Now, looking at breaking these down by allocated credits. So, this is going to have all four of our grades, 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade aligned with the course catalog. So, this is an ELA, you are required to for AORE, for an AORE diploma, you're required to have four years of
201English. For most of our state universities across the country, you're required for four. So this is mapped in accordance with the course catalog that if you earn one credit minimum your ninth grade year, so you successfully pass your two semesters of English, right? And same thing with sophomore year, same thing with junior year, same thing with senior year. So you'll see an increase across the board that we have a higher percentage of students earning that core allocation credit. So that is an improvement. If we look at math, which is our other subject area where you have to earn four for the AORE diploma, you are seeing an increase across all four of our grade levels as well. You see a bigger jump as you see at the sophomore area um in 10th grade. So overall
202positive trends. We're earning the credits that we need to be earning in order to allocate and graduate on time. science and social studies, we only need to earn three is the state requirement and our district requirement. So, the way I set this up on the graph is ninth grade is it if it's greater than zero. So, if they got a jump start on it, sophomore year is the last year that you can get it basically in doing sophomore, junior, and senior. So, if you don't take it your freshman year and you start your sophomore year, you're stuck with it sophomore, junior, and senior year. Now, that's not how I would do it. I would start my freshman year and then for science, I do all of them. But, um, those we wanted to make sure
203that we were conservative in presenting these allocated credits. So, you'll see that ninth grade, we have a good chunk of our students who have earned credits in science. Sophomore year to have that one completed though, you'll see that drop. Um, so we need to make sure that somewhere in there they're getting it. Now, that could be the transitions, but we need to make sure that we've got that up because ultimately if they have these allocated credits, then we're going to see students graduating at the end of four years. Now, with our schools that have the opportunity, you still have opportunities to take the science credit, right? So, you only have your four core content areas. So, they still have the opportunity to take these science credits. A lower percentage in your sophomore year is not
204of concern yet. And then we have an increase in our juniors and a very slight increase in our seniors. Social studies is set up the same way. So again, if they got anything 9th grade, so we see a smaller percentage of our population takes and gets credit for their freshman year for social studies, but we'll see that increase then in 10th grade. So it's stay it's remaining high. We've seen an increase across content area for social studies across all of our grade levels across those four years. So those are our four content areas. And then here's the little glimpse into this is our tentative one. So up until the cohort of those are all AD publicly available data. 2025 per our board governing board goals. I pulled it on the 5th of June. We are
205currently listed at 84.37. It's lags by a year. They do some cleaning things like that. So that is why that is not permanent. It gets published by the AD at a later later this year. Based on prior year trends, does that go up or down after the AD cleans their data? Slightly down. However, for reference, last year when I came in at the same time and presented our graduate rate for our cohort 2024, we were at 82.25 and it went down to 81.70 with approximately similar changes. We should still be above our 81.70. Therefore, we are increasing our four-year graduation rate as a tentative possibility. not guaranteed, but it looks very very positive right now that we will in all likelihood be increasing that graduation trend. So, and then with the allocated credits, cumulative credits,
206we are looking at something that is very positive as we move into the future for four-year graduation continuing on track. Any questions? Thank you, Dr. Glassmire. Board members, any questions? I was just curious if you know in science why 10th grade dropped. Um we dropped so much. Any idea any? So when there are different course taking strategies across the different high schools. Um so depending upon there's a lot of flexibility in pathways for science. It's not like math where you have algebra 1 and then the next one and then the next one. There's a few more opportunities for science um and how the schools actually incorporate those in in their programs um is specific to the schools. So, we pulled in specific courses, but the allocation of credit is any science class, and that's not
207credit recovery. Um, because you have your students who will go into honors biology or AP biology like right off the bat in that life sciences, but then you also have your students who are going to go more into physical sciences. Um, and we have a variety of courses within our course catalog that fulfill those science requirements. Um the biggest thing is when they go to school, most of your state universities will look for um different strands of science. So you can't take like three physical sciences. Um so chemistry, physics, and then AP physics. If you're one of those students, the college that you're looking at admissions for, they will say, "Hey, wait a minute, hold on a second. You're missing a life science." Um so it is important that you get the different domains in
208there usually if you're pursuing that direction but as far as the state is required you need three lab sciences. Great. Thank you so much. Any other questions? Yeah Dr. Glass Meer had was there any analysis on the difference be between the three schools that piloted um block scheduling versus the three that maintained a traditional six-hour and with the opportunity of doing MDLP and andor a hour and the number of credits that were earned. Well, we did present to you for the semester one. It was broken down by block and non-block. And the block schools had more credits allocated to them because they had the opportunity for more classes. We did I have the data. I didn't look at it. I suspect the same is true, but I'm not going to make any assumptions um because
209the opportunities there such that they have the eight credit option. But as far as I don't know what other analysis beyond the scope of having total number of credits and is is there any concern um at the district at the admitted at the leadership level that um the forier into um standardsbased grading that we did first semester uh and then backed off of for next year. Is there any concern that that might be that might have played an impact in uh grades and or credits earned? Um my gut instinct on that is that most of the time when you implement standardsbased grading, the outcomes for kids are not necessarily improved in terms of traditional letter grades. So with grades going slightly up and credits going up, I don't think there's going to be an impact
210in the standardsbased grade movement. Uh, and I don't think we'll see a drastic jump up next year because we don't have standardsbased grading at the high school level. That'd be my inclination out of the gate. Uh, after having been through the standards based grading movement twice now in two different places. Does that make sense? You're looking at me weird. Well, now you're saying that you your experience with standardsbased grading is that it did not improve grades. Yeah. A letter grade. My my experience is that students in standardsbased gradings environments start to what happens is let's say a kid is uh an A student who's partially proficient on a test. One of the reasons you move to standardsbased grading is so the kid can get a better signal throughout the year of where they're actually at
211compared to the standards. So when you go into a standardsbased moving mo movement, standardsbased grading movement, you encourage, you actually encourage teachers to say no, where are they at in relation to the standard. So when you're saying that, you're really trying to align the fact that if they're partially proficient, you tell them they get a C. If they're partially proficient, you tell them they get a D. And you tell them this is where they're at on the standard. And so generally grades will go down in districts that implement standardsbased grading out of the gate because you're really trying to report here's where you're not not based on behavior, not based on all the other things that traditionally weigh into grades. Usually what happens is teachers go, "Okay, I'm grading this kid on a rubric in
212comparison to the standards they're supposed to be taught and and grades will generally come down and they'll align better with end of year test scores because that's one of that's one of the whole reasons they implement standardsbased grading is, you know, that kid that got an A, but then they show up as minimally proficient year in and year out and parents are confused going like, how's my kid minimally proficient?" And they're getting A's and they have a 4.2 GPA. So that's that's why there's that trend out of the gate with grades getting a little worse and with our grades getting better. I just don't think there's going to be the impact where we see a spike in grades because standard space has been delayed for another year or two. If you disagree, Dr. Esus, please.
213Okay. And I think that our the grades that our students are getting should reflect that they've learned this standard that and not that they brought in a box of Kleenex. So, okay, Madame President, go ahead. Okay, Dr. Strom, uh, with only three of our schools at block schedule, 45% of our juniors have earned 18 and above credits. What does this indicate for our budget when it comes to ADM and enrollment numbers? Uh, it indicates that we need to put some really thoughtful design work in with our teaching and learning team and with our high school principles on requirements and how we manage our allocation of staffing and sections throughout the district. We just had a really good meeting about two weeks ago. Some in the meeting room may not have said it was really good
214because I constantly ask questions and push back, but that's just who I am. So, the the fact of the matter is we ended in a good spot in that meeting and we probably are going to be bringing back to the governing board some solutions centered around these ideas that that a may be an ask of what we require of students. In other words, think, you know, traditionally we've asked them to take four classes in a g in a given year at least. And now we may be saying your freshman, sophomore year and your junior year, we need you to take at least six, seven, eight classes. I I I'm going to leave it up to the committee to kind of make a recommendation, but that's kind of where it leans. and then working with the
215principles to understand the idea that we we we have a lot of underutilized sections. And what that means is if you have five sections, let's say we're at a small high school, we have five sections of algebra 1 and we run each of those sections at 100 at 20 kids. That's a 100 kids that you have enrolled in algebra 1. But each of those sections can actually take 30 kids. So you actually could fit 150 kids in those sections. So when you run them at 20 to1 instead of 30 to1, you actually are costing the budget and staffing through through staffing, you're costing the budget. And so there's some solution sets with underutilized sections and putting into play certain master scheduling requirements at your high schools that to be frank with you, Mesa Public Schools
216has traditionally not done. And that's why we think we're going to need to have a conversation with the governing board so that when you hear it from our principles and hear it from maybe community members saying this section didn't make because it was at 16 kids and it we didn't get it to the 25 kids that it needed to make the section that you'll be able to be well informed of why those decisions are being made. that they're all linked to. I mean, it's driven in the fact that more kids are getting more credits and we're going to have to have a budgetary solve at some point. I really appreciate the the transparency and the honesty. Um, that's that's a hard thing for me to swallow to think that we may be eliminating sections of
217classes that are valuable for kids, but we just don't have 25 kids in them or that class sizes might increase. I was just going to add that out of our our graduation rate that out of the districts in Maricopa County that we've had the most improvements since 2021. So, I wanted to make sure that that was mentioned. Thank you for sharing that, Miss Walden. Miss Vincent, did you have something? No, I just think that's positive information and I love the fact that we're already addressing the potential for um an ADM issue because um I can guarantee you if I were in high school now and I could get all my all my 22 credits by junior year, I'd be out. So encouraging and finding ways to encourage kids to stay their senior year is going
218to be uh crucial. I think one of the partnerships with ASU uh would will be beneficial. Um but I think it's really important that we and I I love the fact that we're looking at it early so that uh we um aren't two years from now going so thank you. I agree. Any other questions discussion? All right. Thank you Dr. Classm. We appreciate you. All right. Next um discussion item is our school opportunities for the 202627 school year. And um I think I'm turning the time over to you, Dr. Stro. President Davis, members of the board, we will uh be concise as we move through this presentation. We want to get in front of you early and often on potential school opportunities. We want to uh shorten the timeline because with registration and enrollment up
219uh we're trying to register and enroll kids in November of the school year. Why do we do that? Because most of our competitors enroll in November. So, we want to be competitive in the space of timing of enrollment and registration. Uh we know that we have to get everything to you by October so we're ready to go for enrollment. And so, uh, I know this is summer months, but we want you to hear that we've heard strong interest, uh, from parents on expanding some of our choice options in certain regions of the district. And it doesn't mean that other choice options in other regions won't be coming as well, but these are some of our first uh, movements uh into expanding our regions of choice. Uh, why now? Uh, we've heard from the board, families
220and communities, they want enhanced communication. So, we're trying to get to you earlier uh, in the process. governing board approval. We need that by October of 25 because registration starts in November 25 for the 26 27 school year. It's going to if we start making decisions earlier, we'll have easier decisions with staffing, budget, marketing, and communication, all those things that come along. And it gives our our departments and and uh our related departments, transportation, operations, all those things plan to plan uh time to plan. So, here's two opportunities for the future. Uh, Mr. Wing and I and, uh, a few others have been preparing a slide deck, by the way, for you. Uh, that tells you maybe the 12 initiatives we're working on right now. It seems like a lot in the first year, but
221these are two of those 12 initiatives. Opportunities for the future. Sheepard College Prep. We've heard a strong desire for a high school that's model modeled with a college preparatory lens. Shepard's currently significantly below capacity. It's approaching 500 students and we think within the next two years they'll be below 500 students and surveys were deployed and high net promoter scores came back. We're laying the groundwork at Shepard right now. The secondary superintendent Dr. Malerwine has meet with principal Benza. We've actually had community members who've come in and met with me regarding this matter and they are interested in being in a part of a parent committee that helps design this school uh to bring to the governing board. Now, why do we why would we bring this to the governing board? You guys need the AD
222requires the state board of education requires you guys need to approve grade configurations. So, right now, Shepard is a 78 campus and this would take Shepard to a 712 campus and we can't do that without, you know, we could run Shepard as a 712. Guess what? If we don't have your approval and the state approval, we don't get paid for the kids that are ninth, 10th, and 11th and 12th grade level. So, there's not a lot of sense of running the school without the uh revenues coming in from the state general fund. So, uh, the idea is it'll serve 7th through 12th grade. Uh, we've explored capacity. We know it can fit at Shepard. Uh, athletics programming we're exploring right now with Mr. Eubanks. And just to let you know, it will not include the
223extensive comprehensive athletic experience. It just can't. And so, there may be targeted student interest, athletic activities. Um, I would like to sit here and tell you what, but we'd rather have that be something that students say, "This is what we're interested in." I will tell you some of the ones that'll be tough to run if students are interested in are things that are expensive, like football, uh, is a very expensive sport and tough to run. Baseball's another very expensive sport and tough to run. And so, we know those. And so, if that comes back as student interest, we're probably going to have to tell the students that, you know, we we may need some other options outside of that. So, uh, it won't be a full comprehensive high school experience. There won't be a full
224slate of CTE programming. You can get a full slate of CTE programming at our comprehensive high school campuses. Students will be able to try to mold in EVIT here, though. There will be opportunities for EVIT and things along those lines. They'll just have to work with Shepherd Administration uh to get those things. Um, we we want to right now start 9th grade and 26 27.Y. expanding any further than that creates budgetary risk. At the ninth grade level, we only have to commit a four or five FTE start, which is a minimal budgetary commitment. At Red Mountain, uh at the STEM at Red Mountain Ranch, I got to get that right. Uh often, please correct me if I ever miss it. uh we we seated them with two FTE out of the gate and uh they
225made in their very first year I think it was approximately 32 students which is 16 to1 which is a little below what we like a little expense sorry to talk about it this way but a little expensive but next year we're funding them at 2ft again and they're growing so eventually you'll live into that 2ft that's the idea here you seed them with some FTE and you see where you're at with enrollment in the first year and then then if they grow you can add on FTE as they grow into it at the ninth and then the idea would be that they grow to 10th grade the next year, 11th grade the next year and their first graduating class would be something around 2030, right? Uh next steps, there's planning timelines, course sequencing. Uh just
226letting you know we we have a schedule where we'll be back to you at pretty much every board meeting or every other board meeting talking about this idea so that you're aware. Uh professional learning, AP training, listening sessions with the community. Um, this one does not require PABDAC, by the way. Uh, let's talk about the Franklin now. Opportunities for the uh, future Franklin High School. Uh, we we've heard a strong uh, interest from the Franklin parents that they're interested in a small high school experience at the 9th through 12th grade level. These these scores in terms of net promoter are actually stronger than even the Shepard College Preparatory uh, Net Promoter scores. Both are net promoter positive. Uh, Franklin happens to be a little bit more net promoter pro positive. uh the area superintendent in
227charge of Franklin's that's uh Mrs. Arinda man has met with all the Franklin principles of Franklin Brem Hall uh uh uh uh junior high as well and Mr. Abrams has communicated out uh along with communication of the Franklin parent organization explored capacity at Brim Hall and nearby elementary schools. Here's what we know. We know that Brim Hall cannot fit uh K12. It just doesn't doesn't work. Um the co the cohorts uh at Brim Hall are anywhere from 120 to 160 kids big. So you multiply that by 13 grade levels kindergarten through 12th grade. You need a campus that fits like whatever that is 13 time 150 uh 1500 plus 450 1950. So that you need a campus of about 2,000 kids. That's not what Franklin is built for. So we're going to have to explore
228other elementary schools in the region to see where there's capacity to run the elementary portion of the Franklin. The good news is uh and I I hate to say this is good news, but it is a little bit good news. The good news is there are elementary schools in that region that are declining in enrollment. And so this may be a prime opportunity to repurpose schools uh in that region. And that's why it does involve PAPD because plan your your appointed planning and boundary committee where you guys appoint your members and hopefully you've done that already with Cameo. If you haven't, please circle back with her. uh you know we'll we'll decide kind of the boundary options and make recommendations. There's a process we have to go out to the community, make sure they're informed,
229right? And then they PabDck eventually makes a recommendation to the board on the boundary changes that are going to occur in that region uh so we can get this Franklin High School stood up. We've explored capacity. We just talked about that arts and athletics program. This is similar. We'll never be able to run the comprehensive high school athletic and arts program. So, they're going to have to pick and choose the arts and athletics they want to get after uh at Franklin High in the Franklin High School experience. Um, that's pretty common because at the Franklin elementary school level, they choose what they're doing during the day. So, this is not atypical for the Franklin experience. Um, and then uh we'll start hopefully 9th grade. This one has some possibilities to maybe start 10th grade because
230there was strong interest from parents to actually they wanted us to stand it up this year in 2526 and we just didn't have enough time to get it stood up. What's PABDAC? PADDAC has your uh uh 11 non-employee members and the chief of staff uh who sit together and go through demographic data, conduct public hearings, offer recommendations on boundary changes and uh always a goal is to affect as few elementary schools and junior highs and high schools in the boundary revision process as possible, as few of areas as possible. and the PADDAC committee looks through several solution sets to provide new boundaries as we redesign and repurpose schools throughout the district. I will tell you that this was done once at Serin in Palmroy recently and now we're uh stepping into the waters again. And
231just to be frank with you, this will likely be a lived experience in Mesa Public Schools for the next decade as we continue to understand where our population and demographics are at and how to best utilize our square footage and our buildings so we can optimally offer everything that parents want in terms of choice within the school district. What does PABDAC do? They vote to move forward or not with proposed attendance boundary changes. They hold public meetings uh at schools. Uh so and then they report back to the whole of the uh PABDAC committee and then they eventually they bring uh recommendations to the governing board and they present to you guys and communicate what the boundary changes will be for the next year. What PABEC does not do, they do not vote on educational
232programming. They won't determine what math classes are getting run at Franklin. they won't determine what sp special education programs are happening there. Uh so that you know they are never in charge of educational programming in the district. They're strictly looking at numbers and the demography of how to change boundaries and whether everything fits based on the boundary changes that they're doing. Uh they don't vote on uh changing school names or grade level changes. Uh thing things like that. Uh next touch point July 14th we have a PADDAC meeting. July 22nd, we have a governing board meeting. We'll be back to you talking about these two concepts, Shephardd and Franklin, at those points in time. Any questions? Yes, go ahead. Um, will these possible high schools be these ninth grades and possible 10th grade be participating
233in block schedule and college and careermies? That is not the original intention right now. We want to respect the fact that the Franklin parent organization and the Franklin principal community will help design the educational programming. We all and we want to uh uh respect the fact that principal Benza, her parent community and their feedback loops will drive that process as well. But the intention from the district is that we have been pretty clear that it'll be a traditional school day and it'll be uh uh not include the college and careermies uh in those two options. Dr. Stum. Um, I'm sorry. No, no, no. Let's do that. Um, Dr. Stum, I'm thinking about um like Shephard for example. Um, and certainly isn't without trying that that principal has been able to get the attendance that she
234has. It's a it's a neighborhood that has gotten older and does just have kids. Um but uh and I and I applaud the the innovative way that we're trying to expand our high school experience and opportunities for kids. Um my question is how would the kids get to Shephard um if they're say if they live in the Skyline region or they live in the Dobson region and they want that college prep experience. I guess I guess my question is how are we going to make sure that kids have transportation provided to get that experience so that that experience is available to every kid that wants it. Yeah. I just can be quite frank with you on on this. There is zero possibility that transportation is going to be able to keep pace in in in
235any district. It's not this is not a Mesa public schools transportation issue in any district. If if we're expecting our transportation department to be the transport hub for every school of choice throughout our 200 square miles to get people from point A to point B. We just won't have enough bus drivers uh to get that done. We don't pay high enough rate to attract the drivers away from Amazon and other places in the private industry that can pay significantly high dollar values. What I can promise is there are solution sets that our principles can work with in terms of parent uh uh car pools and things along those lines where we can attempt to try to get as many options for kids as we can. And I what I can say is Sheepard College Prep
236may be the first big toe stepping stone into the waters of a college prep. Uh and that if it goes well, we may be talking about these type of expansive choices in other places in the district, including, you know, places down in the Dobson region all the way over to places up up up in the Westwood region. But we have to make a first experience somewhere. And uh I don't want to sit here and promise that we'll be able to run routes to every area of the district to get kids there. Uh we will need to expect parents to transport. And I know that comes with downfalls because in a school choice environment, what we know is has and it's been well researched. What we know is school choice isn't real for everyone. And the
237reason school choice isn't real for everyone is because transportation's the roadblock for for for a lot of lot of parents and families particularly parents and families who live in poverty. So uh we are very aware of those things. I will tell you the way we outline this there will be a loop back as the principles develop with the transportation department to try to find as many solutions as we possibly can. But I also don't want to sit here and present a reality that, you know, we're going to be able to get any kid anywhere when it's just not a reality of public school transportation systems. Madam President, that made me think, we currently bus all Franklin students. Well, we have it available to all Franklin students. Correct. We do. Will we be providing that for
2389th and tth graders? So, I really appreciate you uh uh asking that question because one thing I should have said in response to member Hutchinson is Shepard already has routes that exist and certainly, right, if you can get your kids to those stops where the routes already exist. We can guarantee that's going to happen. Uh the only thing we got to monitor then is whether the buses fill up. Same thing with the Franklin's, right? Is the routes already exist and we're already running them. And so the question is going to be how full are they going to get as we expand and then do we need to add additional routes? That's where the difficulty will become. But the original intention is hey the routes are already running. We already have the drivers with this many
239stops. Adding the ninth graders onto the routes not that big of a deal until the bus becomes full, right? And so we just have to monitor that on how many kids are actually riding. Here's the other dynamic in transportation that's kind of kind of crazy. uh having built a lot of comprehensive schools and some prior employment experiences, you used to build queuing lanes that were like a,000 ft long because most people took advantage of district transportation. Ever since the pandemic, the architects are starting to adjust their queuing lanes because parents are more and more often uh choosing to transport their kids either through their own vehicles or car pools on their own. In fact, our wrership in Mesa public schools, I think, if I remember right, is in the 16 to 20,000 student range out
240of 55,000 students. And and we'll monitor that metric next year. I will tell you that 30 years ago that ridership would have been 30,000 students. It would have been 60% 70% of your population riding buses. And so that's a whole another dynamic. More and more parents are choosing to transport their own kids to school. And that's why the architects are like, "No, we need queuing lanes that are 2,000 ft long that can fit 40 cars, not 20 cars, because more and more parents are showing up." And then the city puts pressure on you to get those cars off the thoroughares because they don't want you backing up traffic. So all those dynamics are at play. there's multiple multiple variables coming into place. But I appreciate you ask the question because routes that are already exist,
241we have no intention of eliminating those routes. It is about do they become full and do we need to add buses on those routes? Madam President, and this can be an opportunity to expand our community partnerships to encourage or or provide or look for ways to get students to a college prep that might be in a skyline area and they personally can't get there. So, I I think there's I think there's ways that we uh can utilize our talented staff here uh and community partnerships to perhaps alleviate that. I personally love the idea that we are expanding our um choice model. I think we lose a lot of students to a college prep model. Uh there are several in the area uh where I live that I think we lose a lot of our students
242once they hit sixth grade because they can go to a college prep model. This also provides uh for acceleration for our students that are either um highly proficient languagewise or um quantitatively that starting in seventh grade they can actually take higher level courses that they would not be able to in a traditional model. So I personally like that. I I I know that we offer MA10 at sixth grade. Uh however, most of those are done online and I don't think they're highly successful. they need that one-on-one face to face for math in part in in particular. So, I love the Shephard model and I think honoring what Franklin wants, Franklin parents want Franklin um schools all the way to 12th grade. So, I love that we're trying to honor that as well. Any other questions,
243discussion? Okay, we'll move on to our next our last item. Um for our final discussion item, the governing board will have a discussion on procedure 5-305 um student code of conduct restrictions on use of wireless communication devices. Um while the while the board does not vote on procedures, we can give direction to superintendency. Um and so we're going to try to keep this discussion at a minimum. Um keep it going. I know we've had the opportunity to send um Mrs. King our proposed. I want to apologize that I have not gotten anything over to you. Um I've been doing a lot of research trying to come up with some ideas. So I would love to hear from other board members what they have on this. Um and I know we have a few pieces of
244documents on our on the diet that was printed out for us. But start Thank you, Madam President. She's looking at me because I did send a lot of suggestions. Um, I appreciate superintendency allowing us to have this conversation about procedure. We've had a lot of conversations about whether we as a board want to take over voting on procedures and I think that's still something we want to keep open. Some suggestions that I am proposing um align with the feedback that we received from the activate teams and the parent advisory that they want clear consistent policies because when we have clear consistent policies it makes it easier for everyone to follow. our students know what's expected of them, our teachers know what's expected, our admin know what's expected. So, some proposed changes that I have um
245include changing the restrictions from K through 6 to K through 8 so that we have a consistent policy from elementary school through 8th grade where our students essentially have their phones off and away in their backpacks from bell to bell. I think that this is a way that we can lead out as a district in having a strong policy. I think it's things that our our teachers and our parents are asking for that our students can can focus and and do the assignments that they need to and teachers can worry less about fighting that battle every class period. Our current policy is well written. I appreciate Miss King for all of her work on this. Um and I think she did a good job in trying to preserve the autonomy of teachers and school sites.
246I think as a board we can provide stronger direction and say we really want to have a consistent policy so there's no confusion. We all know that sometimes if there's a confusing policy there's no policy at all. And then I've updated the restrictions for 9th through 12th grade students permitting them to essentially have their phones during passing periods and lunchtime which is a change from our K through 8. Um, and then adding a a little bit about and maybe this needs this probably needs to go. No, actually I like it in the spot. Clarifying that wireless devices are not allowed in locker rooms and restrooms. I think that that's an additional layer of protection we should provide our students. Um, and then I changed a couple of things about that failing to follow this policy
247may be subject to will be subject to discipline and I'd like to see that be consistent with our disciplinary matrix. Again, I think it's really easy as we go into this new school year to set this precedent to lead out in the state and say, "This is what we want for our students. We want them to have successful student outcomes. We want our teachers to have successful learning environments." I see all the time this shift that has happened in education where if you have not been in a classroom in the last 5 to 10 years, you do not realize just how dire the situation is. um those students just getting them off their cell phone when they come into your classroom is really difficult. And if they have the expectation that they're they're not going
248to be playing on their phone or texting their friends while sitting in class, it's so much easier to get their attention. So if we can make that expectation that it's away for K through 8, we're not going to see it. But if you need to contact your parent before and after, we get that. or for those 9th through 12th students, they can check their text messages in between, but when they enter the classroom, it is expected that their cell phones are out of sight. I think that it will provide a lot of clarity and allow our teachers to lose less instructional time. And I would love the support of superintendency and our admin in knowing that if they walk through a classroom that that students going to get in trouble and that that teacher will
249also get communicated to that the cell phone should not be out. I had a question on the procedure where it says wireless communication device includes personal devices and devices that are provided by the school. Are we referring to their l So it's on the first page of the procedure. Is that encompassing cell phones and their laptops allin one? That is intended to include any device, a laptop, a smart uh watch, a smartphone. Um that is a trust definition. Is are you finding that con confusing of devices provided by the school as you read it out loud? I am too. Well, I just think that if we can say, you know, cell phones are away in your backpacks from beginning, you know, I'm thinking 9 through 12, right? Um that they're in your backpack during class.
250They can have their laptop for classroom, you know, but you can't use your cell phone. And if you forget your laptop, your, you know, paper and pencil it is for the day. You know what I mean? I think I think we have to have like a a clear protocol for our teachers and for everyone so they understand and parents right so that I know if my child forgets their laptop they're not going to be able to get their work done that day or you know whatever that may be I think here we have provided laptops let's make sure the our students are using them and then because I do hear that often like well they have these laptops but they're not ever using them and so if if that's the case and I do do
251think it's easier to monitor what's on a screen on your laptop versus on your handheld. And so yeah, hearing you say that and looking at this definition, I can go through tighten this up to make sure that everybody understands that we're not talking about your district issued device that has to be put away. It's personal wireless communication devices that are expected to be I I will go through and with a fine tooth comb make sure that is clear. Thank you. Thank you. So, um, Madame President, I would actually be a little bit more hardcore than member Chaffy. Um, I mean, I don't personally see the, uh, the need for when we've now provided onetoone devices. I I know, uh, and I've mentioned this before when we talked about this, um, portion, the whole reason kids
252could have their cell phones was that not everybody had access to technology. Well, we've eliminated that because we're providing one-to-one communication and from our activate students. Uh some of the biggest issue and problem are in those passing periods and at lunchtime. They weren't necess. Uh however some of the um really negative experiences that students had in regard to technology and the misuse of it was that during passing periods and during um lunch. I I mean I don't personally I can't think of anything that is so dire that a student has to check every 50 minutes or every 90 minutes what text message they or what email they got. In fact, most of them don't even check their email. got like 50,000 of them. So, I know other districts that eliminate cell phones period at the
253elementary level. Like, they're not allowed. They're not allowed on campus at all. They're in a backpack. They're never brought out. Um, and I guess I look at we know now so much more about the danger and damage of technology use, the brain function, the brain development of students uh that we are an educational environment. I I I'd like it tightened up even more. And we heard that from the um our public speaker that they would actually love a no cell phone policy bell to bell. I maybe not at high school. I think we'd get a lot of resistance at high school with that. However, at an elementary level, I mean, I know when my youngest daughter wanted a cell phone at second grade, I said, "What on earth are you talking about?" like they're never
254without a person that is without they're never without an adult. So, I don't see the emergency uh issue for elementary school kids if they need it for medical purposes because I do know students that have they monitor their diabetes and stuff that I totally get that. But I'd like it even and and again if we can set a consistent um a consistent across the board because I think what was really clear with our junior high activate was that we don't have consistent implementation regarding cell phones and personal devices because I I think the the uh watches are going to be an issue. Yeah. I don't know how you I don't know how you uh how we overcome that. Um, but at the elementary level in particular, I'd like it tightened up potentially even greater. Uh,
255that's just my input. And I think I think looking forward, uh, that sets our students up for not even anticipating the need to have personal technology as they go forward. Does that make sense? So, we're we're not letting them have technology, personal technology on campus, K K6, K8, then maybe they kind of get out of that by the time they're in high school. So, my personal preference would be even tighter to match with what research is showing. So, let me clarify what you're saying. You're saying cell phones away, bellto, K through 8 with a little more leniency, 9 through 12. I agree. Yeah. I honestly don't see a need for personal technology at the elementary level. I just I just don't think there's they're never without adults. I just agreed. I think that would be
256a great policy. My kids, by the way, think this is a very annoying policy. They're they're regretting their their mom is on the school board. But I one thing I see working with students at ASU is that they come out of high school, they come into college, and I cannot tell you the number of students that I've talked to that say I I did not realize how stuck on my phone I was. And they are deciding to delete social media. They're going to like dumb phones. They're making this decision and they're saying, "I wish someone had stepped in sooner and said, you you don't need this so much." And I think that this is a really great opportunity for us to say we'll be the grown-ups in the room and we'll we'll help do that
257and we'll stand beside teachers and parents and admin to make that happen. Well, and I think all research is showing that, right? I mean, the increase in anxiety, depression, all of that is correlated with the smartphone and social media. I have a question about uh on section C. Um parents who seek to communicate with their student on the students wireless communication device during the school, they may contact the school's front office. Is that a one-time contact or is that every time you want to contact your student or your child? Not your student, I'm sorry. Uh, every time you want to contact your child, is it like a one-time thing where a parent says, "I reserve the right to contact my child during the school day." Do we know? I I don't Oh, go ahead. No,
258go ahead. I don't think that was the intention. I think the intention was if if child can use their personal wireless device if they have an emergency. I my understanding is the intent was if a parent in an emergency needed to contact their child, they can contact the front office of the school. That's how I took it. Like it back in the olden days when I went to school and there was an emergency and my parents had they reached me in class and if they need to reach me or check me out, then they would call the front office, the front office would then call the classroom. That's how I take that. Well, and can I speak into this because I think since since co um I will tell you that parents have gotten into
259the habit of just texting their kids anytime they want throughout the school day. And so this is going to be a a retrain. I mean it it really should just be for emergency purposes. It shouldn't be just, hey, how's your day going, honey? Yeah. Which is kind of what I see what you're asking. a year asking do they have every time they want to speak to their child they have to call the front office or they can say as a as a general rule I want to be able to contact my child anytime I want on their phones and I I think it's the former that it would be anytime you the parent that's how they would reach their child is by contacting the front office. I just I I don't know that you you
260can have a procedure where you can tell a parent that they're not allowed to text their child during the school day. I mean, they could. It's just their child wouldn't have access to their phone. So then they would check it between class period. I think his idea is I could text my kid, hey, I I'm not I'm going to be late to pick you up, but if there was like an emergency and I need to get a hold of my child right away, then I would then contact the office, which is exactly I didn't like your phraseology of the olden days. However, that is exactly how it was done and that really was how it was done precoid, right? I mean, par parents did not have the expectation of being able to, you know, reach
261Susie whenever they wanted to throughout the day. They they really didn't. Pre President Davis, Miss King, I read this earlier like two, three times, once with cameo, and I read it the way Miss Walden's reading reading it, which is you contact the office once and say, I want to be able to be able to uh interact with my student during the day on the cell phone. And then they got to honor, they have to honor the fact that I've told them my student is okay to interact on their cell phone. And I don't think that's your intention. So, we just need to be we need to go back and get the procedure dialed into no. Uh the way this is written is every time the parent wants to contact the child in emergency, they have
262to go to the front office uh or through the front office to contact their child. I just think we need to dial in that language a little bit. Yeah. And and what what our board president said makes sense. I mean, obviously the parent can text or call their student. they just won't see it until they they get access to their phone, which is just like how it would be at work. I mean, if your child has a job, you probably aren't going to be calling them while they're there in the middle. I mean, and our student students do work and some of them they're going to have internships and and a lot of them have jobs and they may get messages that say, "Hey, so and so can't show up. Can you work tonight?" Or,
263you know, so it's like they're gonna they're going to have communication they need access to. were just saying you can't do it during class time and I think the 9th through 12th one does it it says they can check it during in between class correct and lunch and lunch um what about the new course we're piloting that's the social media uh graphic design and that social media course don't they won't they be using or looking at social media sites for that course they clarify in that course that they will not be able to do that during clarify that they'll have to do it after and not using a device during okay I just I couldn't remember because we it was yeah there was a lot of discussion on that course yeah and I think the
264idea would be that they would use their laptops for any it but they will not be on social media there will be other aspects of it yeah because it's about like graphic design advertising photography yeah um okay and then board member Vson, you brought up the the watches. What What did you What What did we say about the watches? They can or can't have them cuz they're Well, no. I think that's going to be an issue that we're I don't I don't know necessarily that I I I hadn't even thought about watches uh when I was thinking about cell phones, but that is going to be something that we're going to I I mean, and maybe it's just a retraining of a retraining of parents. Your child really doesn't need to be on social media
265or, you know, I don't know. Yeah. I I mean the way the policy and procedure are written to define personal wireless devices that would mean students would have to remove their smart watches and also put them in their backpack. I think that would be the expectation minus if they have medical or right or other alert on their phone. Correct. Because they might have an alert on their watch if their blood sugar drops or Yeah. Yeah. That's totally different, right? And that's built in here that they can get that and you actually can get a watch that doesn't have um access to you can get a dumb watch too. They actually still have those and I I I think it's important when I first saw it says the use of wireless devices not permitted in restrooms.
266I'm like well you can't really monitor that. like you can't go in a monitor, but at the same time with the cameras explicitly calling out you can't have these, you know, privacy is going to be a big issue. So, I I do think that's good. I hopefully nobody reads it like me where they think someone's going to follow them and make sure they don't have it. There may be a better way to write that, Miss King. Well, I I did want to point out that in our student code of conduct and um I think it's in the student code of conduct and in our misuse of technology and in the discipline matrix that using um a phone for the purpose of taking photos or video that is strictly prohibited in a restroom or locker room.
267Maybe just reiterate that here so that it's worded better. I think. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's at the time uninforceable, but later on there's going to be big repercussions. So, I had brought up when we had this policy last time, there are there's two incidents where students recorded something in the classroom that I thought was justifiable and I thought that would be covered. It says, you know, in an emergency, but it says that in an emergency, you still need teacher permission, though. So if you if your teacher's doing something that makes you uncomfortable, they're not going to give you permission to film them. So how does that does that work work itself into the procedure? I was thinking about this as I was writing it because it's a it's a good point and I was thinking
268about the olden days. I was thinking about what are the what are the ways that students can still raise concerns if if something like this exists. And I think that in in both of these situations, students could have also just made a verbal report and there were other students in the classroom who witnessed it and we could still have that conversation about, you know, if there if you see something that's inappropriate, you don't necessarily have to record it. You can report it without a phone. Um, but I do realize in this day and age often we're we're used to recording things. So, I I wondered how you felt about that part of it and if there was a way we could we could find find a way to keep our students being able to still
269report things that made them feel uncomfortable. Um, that's why I wondered if that would fall under an emergency situation where it's not it's not typical, right? Like we we you know, we're in Dr. part of this on we're trying to raise our our standards and keep teachers focused on the uh the course what did we call that the the course competencies right keeping them focused on teaching the state standards and course competencies and so like it's not something that's going to be an issue it's really a one-off thing but I I in both those instances I I felt like they were justified and that's where I thought maybe it would just fall under like an emergency type situ situation cuz I think a lot of I mean just cuz you're uncomfortable. I'm just I'm trying
270to be discreet like I don't want to go off topic about what happened in some other coursework but feeling that I think if they didn't record that I don't know they would have been listened to either you know what I mean like it was almost like it it it's you know we're trying to like not you're not going to school to create viral moments or anything like that but would they have been listened to if they didn't record it? I'm not I'm not sure. I mean, I can go and see in the legislative history if there's a discussion about what constitutes an emergency. I'm making a presumption that they were talking about a health or safety emergency. Yeah. Could it fall under upon request a school administrator may grant other exceptions in the best interest
271of the student? If there is a case and the student does get disciplined because they had their phone out, but then goes with this is what was happening. Could the administrator then Yeah. then say, "Okay, this is why he had his phone out because of this situation." Yeah. And then does that cover that student during process? That's true. Yeah. Because I I would think any any situation like that, someone's getting a Yeah. discipline issue that they're going to hear the student out of course and hear their sight. And not to extend the discussion. However, if they have their um student device that also has the capability of recording because that has a camera. That's true. Yeah. I mean it it it's really a one-off featur I think it might be able to fall under that.
272I think it would. I I think Yeah, you're right because I think that if you know if there is an issue and and somebody does start recording or they get a phone out like that is that from a discipline perspective, the teacher, whoever, like principal, they're going to hear their side of the story and that's something that they would have that discretion to find out and and decide what what to do there. So that I I think you're right there. I don't want to change the procedures for something that should be like a unicorn. like it just shouldn't be a one-off shouldn't be happening, you know, but it's that what if the sky falls, you know? Uh I I'm I'm comfortable with with that, I think. Yeah. Soon to be superintendent strong. Do what do
273you need from the governing board when it comes to procedure? Just this conversation, this conversation's uh good as as it's currently aligned. uh Miss K and myself will take this feed and Cameo uh Miss Kirby will take this feedback back and we will redesign the procedure based on this feedback um and then we will put it in status for two statuses in a row and it'll become the new procedure uh accord during those two um weeks that it's posted in status if you have additional concerns or want um some revisions made you can contact any one of or all three of us. The the reason we do that is in your policy manual um you have the right to direct us to ensure that our procedure is not conflicting with your policy. So, we want
274to make sure that we've gotten it right during that period of status, taking into account the feedback we've gotten tonight. And based on what Miss King says, that is exactly a portion of the dilemma right now, just to state this publicly is if any one of you circle back in this two time period statuses with a certain point and we just had a public discussion, this is the time you get to discuss this. and it conflicts with what we heard here then I just want you aware we may throw it on another board meeting so you can discuss it again uh because you know for any single member and I'm not trying to offend any any of you but I just speak in reality none of you as a board member have power or authority
275your power or authority comes from a voting member on a school district governing board right so that's the hard part that we're the hard space we're living in right now is we may have to make a judgment call on oh that's really influencing it a different direction than what we heard tonight and so the best solution set is to just bring it back again and have the discussion as a whole. Yes that yeah I understand that. Um, and then, you know, we've, as a board, we've gotten some emails from people about the cell phones, and I think the public doesn't understand that we already have a policy, like before this legislation went to effect, we already had a policy that said the phones could not be out during class time. And I think there's just
276been some probably either like miscommunication that that policy was out there or just inconsistency at some of our school sites which we heard from our students and I think one of the emails we got was about that too. They felt like there's been inconsistency. So just wanted to make sure like the public knows anybody watching that we didn't need the legislature to tell us schools were phones were a problem in our schools. We we were already trying to address it. Right. And hopefully this pres I think what we heard from our our students in the activate process is that it wasn't necessarily the policy that was problematic. It was the implementation and I think having a detailed procedure will help. Okay. With that more consistent implementation. I agree, Mrs. King. And I think it's going
277to be important that uh we we let um building admin know this is our expectation. Right. I absolutely I will be training them myself in and then they have to make their teachers Yes. aware you know that you can't and this is going to be something that is a retraining piece and so they're really going to have to the first several weeks of school really hit it without alteration because you will have we will have students that push the line without a doubt. Well, my hope when I train our administrators, I follow up with a smaller slide deck for them to retrain at their startup meetings. So hopefully with this, I think we've called it a cascading communication. Hopefully we will get the word out. We um will update our student handbook to reflect all
278of the new information to make sure that our families get that the student statement of awareness assurances. I can never remember one's employee, one is student will also highlight our cell phone polic. So we're going to just get the word out so that hopefully everybody's on the same page. And I know that principles are already wondering what what it looks like. So they can prepare their staff so that when they hit the ground running they're ready to go and are ready are prepared so that everyone has the correct information. So so hopefully by startup training we will have something solid in place that so they have it that would be ideal. Any other discussion? Well, thank you for letting us have this discussion and letting us um chime in some of our thoughts and we
279appreciate it. With that, do I have a motion to adjurnn the meeting? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? Rachel Walden votes I. I got I got logged out during the discussion. Oh no. Yeah, I accidentally clicked out from you. With a vote of four yays, the meeting is adjourned at 8:59.