001I got How are you doing? Yeah. Yeah, you can see it in there. So, there we go. Oh jeez. We did it. [Music] She again. I mean, it wasn't great. Thank you. You guys open the container. Try to play Where's we would like to welcome Welcome everyone tonight to our study session. If you'll please stand for a moment of silence. Thank you. You may be seated. I call this meeting to order. At 5:01, we would like to excuse Mrs. Chaffy. She is currently attending her senior's uh last final choir concert. So, she will catch this on the recording and is checking in online. Also, we are excited to have our student advisory here with us and also our parent group. We're first going to hear from our student advisory group and Miss Hamilton and we'll
002kick it off to you. Good afternoon, uh, Madame President, members of the board and superintendency. As you mentioned, our student advisory group is here tonight to present to you some information that was discussed at our February 26th meeting, Maybe turning it on really helps. As a brief reminder, the purpose of the student advisory group is to allow students in our district to have a voice in district level decision-making so that they can offer feedback on policies, programs, or initiatives. They can share their authentic experiences and strengthen the communication between themselves and our district leadership. At our February meeting, one of the first things that we did was we asked the students to describe their experience in three words. And you can see this word cloud which captured some of the things that they had shared
003with us. While I'm not going to go through every single word on this cloud, I do want to point out that the three largest words in the cloud are fun, challenging, and confusing. And I and I think that that's important because it shows the complexity of the secondary experience for students. But I do want to point out that they did say that it is fun. And I think that that's incredibly promising. We then moved into opportunities for students to talk to us about their step-up experience moving from one school to another as they uh left sixth grade and came into the junior high experience and then left 8th grade coming into the high school experience. We asked them to explain to us the supports that they received, the supports that they thought might be beneficial
004if we were to maybe um amend or redesign that step-up experience. and then to think about what sort of planning they do in high school when they're thinking about their postsecary um opportunities and what might be available in terms of support for that planning. Here's an extremely high-level summary of that student feedback. I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time going over this because I do want to turn it over to our three students who are here today so that you can hear directly from them. But I do want to point out that they um some of the things that they talked to us about were navigating those transitions from one school to another can be overwhelming, but positive relationships make a huge difference. And that when they're thinking about um their future
005planning, college, career, and community, having access to um individuals who have experience in the things that they're attempting to pursue is extreme is is really meaningful to them. that early exposure to some of these college career community opportunities can help build confidence and that they are looking for flexible supports for their future readiness. With that in mind, I'm going to turn it over to Sophie who is um coming to us from Kino Junior High and she would like to talk about some of her challenges and solutions. Hello, my name is Sophie Stewart and I'm in seventh grade at Kino Junior High. Being a member of the student advisory group is a great opportunity for me to engage with other students and discuss how we can make a difference in our school. The student advisory group
006has really given me a chance to share my thoughts and feel like I belong somewhere. There are some challenges that newcomers might come across during their first year in Kino junior high in junior high. So I would like to point out some of the challenges I had during my journey as a seventh grader. The first challenge I faced was going from a small school to a bigger school. It can be challenging to go to different classes because you may get lost or confused on where to go. What I did to help myself was have my schedule with me and ask a security guard or police officer where to go. Next on my first day of school, I was not prepared for how much inappropriate behavior would come from other students. As soon as I walked
007into my classroom, I heard lots of profanity. To help myself with this, I went to the counselor for help and also learned to ignore the bad words. Another thing I saw was that there were very different rules in all of my classes. What I did to help myself with this was I paid very close attention to how different teachers use different things. Then I realized something. There's no reason at junior high. Something I did to help myself was learn how to take breaks in a non-disruptive way while in the classroom. Then I realized we don't have that much time to do our work. So, what I did was found a way to prioritize my time wisely. Next, there was a do it on your own time situation. This is when you don't have time to
008finish an assignment in class and then it becomes something you have to do on your own time. I helped myself by getting my by getting help from counselors and working at home or during lunch. The hardest thing I have faced in junior high is staying focused. Most people have a very hard time staying focused in class. There are a bunch of distractions in classrooms, like people talking, the door opening, or even the smallest sound can get you off track. I used a couple of skills that helped me focus. The first thing I did was listen to music when I could. Then I would have a snack or gutt and a fidget in my hands. These are all things that helped me. The next challenge was thinking that someone was saying something hurtful about you. To
009help myself, I talked to my counselor. I got help confronting the person next. It is important to reach out to counselors and other school staff for help and safety. Everyone should feel wanted and safe at their schools. People should be happy for their school choice. I am happy with my school choice and all the help that Kino has given me. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Sophie. Um, hello. I'm Eliza. I'm in eighth grade. I go to a Roge. um for moving from one school to another. Um something that confused me on my first day of seventh grade um was definitely learning the campus um that was kind of tricky. So, but our school put up like maps and so those maps like knowing where you were was okay and like they put like
010the star like you're here. That was nice. Um in elementary school you've been in with those kids if you went to the same elementary school for kindergarten through 6. for like seven years. So, you're comfortable around them. But when you go to a new school, most of your friends, you guys might split. I know I split from my little click from sixth grade. So, it was kind of nerve-wracking to meet new people. Um, some supports we had were the maps. Um, we had like teachers like try to introduce us and stuff. um something when in sixth grade they made us go to roads to get like a tour and there was like the student council there and they were there to help welcome us and there was like it's kind of like a welcoming party
011and so that definitely helped. Um those are just like the basic challenges most people can have. Um I can't tell you everyone's experience because I'm not everyone. These are just the main problems people had told me at my school. and like what was nice. Um, today somebody told me cuz we had the sixth graders come today again and to visit and they said that they were a bit rowdy, the sixth graders like, well, but they did say after they had toured them and they kind of saw how everyone was like chill and everyone got to know each other, um, they were chilling. I guess they were calm. My bad. But that's what like somebody told me today because my friend's like the president. Um yeah, I just say some big things is just making sure
012we have like people there who are nice cuz not everyone's going to be nice. We that's a reality we're facing right now. So just to make sure to find those people who is nice things and also knowing who was nice. So thank you. Thank you Eliza. Hello, I'm Merrick Davis. If I sound sick, I'm sorry. I'm both um sick physically and sick of school. So So yeah. So anyways, I am here to talk about um MDLP, the Mesa Distant Learning Program. um within the movie um within the meeting we talked about we also talked about um like future like opportunities for the future and like what we want for college experience and I thought I want and so I picked out like MDLP since that has helped me a lot with like getting um credits
013and helping me prepare for future opportunities. So um for me I have had a lot of experience with the MDLP and the MDLP is like the main reason how I was able to become a pre I was able to study pre-cal as a freshman which is very rare for people and I and so I just found a lot of benefits from MVP and I really liked and I really like to just talk about it for this meeting. So this is the benefits I've um learned from many period is that it has a lot of flexible times as you can as you could just go at your own pace which helped really benefit me because um it allows me to for example I was able to do geometry all within a semester both semesters all in
014one so it's very nice and another one it has easier access to materials you always could go back and either if you take notes or even in the whole course and module and you can go back review it instead of having to like just um review on your own notes that you've created in class and not able to go back in previous um units that your teacher set up. Another one, it also has increased course variety. I remember um there's this one course in MDLP called um bowling and I'm and it really surprised me that there's they allow um high schoolers to be able to do bowling as a PE credit and so that's what I mean and it could also helps like it also helps gives me a an eighth grade well an eighth
015grader last year to be able to do geometry and algebra 2 very quickly and so it just that just was a very great opportunity and also it helped enhances time management with having people um well students be able to needing to manage the time well and so that they could get the all their assignments turned in get all the test it overall helps benefits the students too. Um here's actually a comment from one of the um students we had in the meeting in which as they say I think that having more room in my schedule for advanced classes would make it easier to prepare for the future. And I really think MWB really does help with this as it helps um get the credits you need so that when you go to school next year
016you could be able to take more advanced classes and be able to graduate earlier such as a junior. and for well what I call my solutions or what we can do. I think one thing is that MDLP and all these other like summer school opportunities are not advertised enough or like marketed out. I I the only reason I was able to do MDB or know about it is because my dad's a teacher and not everyone has a um great opportunity to be able to have someone inside the system. So, um, what I thought is that we could market it out more to students and mainly I just think honors and like AP students since they of course want to get ahead in learning and also or even just like normal students so that they could
017be able to take in um normal classes so that they could get ahead of themselves. also possibly lowering cost because a lot of students have I I talked to a lot of my friends about this subject and a lot of them talked about like um well a couple of them talked about how like expensive it is and like the money cost it wages and I think possibly lowering the cost could make like um some of not some school online schooling a lot more um trying to think of more more appeasing and more viable to do and then also just inform parents about websites such as MDLP and we to help them research it for themselves and see if it's fit for their school for their children and those are the solutions I have and that
018of what I think about MDLP and what we should do for it in um the next following year as a school. Thank you. Thank you Mary. We had several other student advisory group members who wanted to be here tonight, but as we're in the m midst of AP testing, a lot of our high school students are diligently focused on preparing for their upcoming tests. So, if you have any questions for our three students who are here tonight, um we wanted to yield whatever time we have available before the next group needs to come up in case you had any questions for them. Board members, any questions? Go ahead, Madam President. Um, Merrick, since you were um last, I'll start with you. You um are you a Mesa High School student or do you do MDLP
019full-time? Uh, no. I do Mesa High. I was just able to do MDLP to get into advanced classes in Mesa High. Okay. So, are there some other um advantages that you would say? Um, I know you me mentioned, um, so students that might be interested in AP or honors classes, um, or accelerated learning. It sounds to me like you're pretty good at math if you could finish geome all of geometry in a semester rather than a year. Um, uh, would you how would you suggest um perhaps the lowering of cost or uh the advertising piece? That's um interesting to me. like do you have any specific ideas that you would float? Oh, I think one thing is that maybe uh it might it might be a little annoying for teachers, but mainly like having them
020make mention of like maybe near the end of the year they make mention that you could have a chance of doing um MDLP or like online schooling to help skip classes so that you could get to another class earlier. And it was kind of similar to what my mocha teacher said. you could be able to do like all these opportunities that like YouTube and all these things have online in which you could get better at like your instrument. And it could be the same thing for like um MDLP. You could have the have like teachers talk about how you could like take like honors English or like um algebra 2 over the summer so that you could go into next year being farther ahead from your normal class. Are you concerned at all with a
021a student doing MDLP exclusively and any um social ramifications that might come from that? I do a little bit concerned. Yes, because it being part of school does help with benefit social skills and all and just talking to people and with with um enabling them to like work in with other people in a work environment. But I do feel like um having um MDLP as like how I do it like as a side along with schooling it really does help benefit me because it helps get further along and I can be able to still go to school, meet friends and all that. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Hutchinson. Merrick, stay up there, buddy. Um I first of all, I want to thank you. you have been on student advisory group for a number of years now
022and I really want to thank you for your service. Um you provide a very important perspective um having been telling us your perspective at the various levels of education that you've had in Mesa public schools. Um one of the things that I do want to u make mention of is you talk about time and that you were able to um manage your time well and that's very obvious. you're a very disciplined student. Um, what particularly do you see you're going to be able to do because you were able to get geometry done in one semester rather than in two semesters? What what are some of your plans because you have been able to accelerate your path through high school through MDLP? I think some of the my plans that I have is that because I
023was able to take those like high school classes when I was in junior high, that leaves me more room in high school to take college level credits um college level classes so I could get college more credit hours for college and just be able to help get a more step in when I do graduate from school and be able to go to college. So that's my plans. Yeah. Terrific. So you're because you're be able to advance, you're going to now be able to as a what what grade level are you? Sophomore. Uh ninth, actually. Oh, you're ninth grade. Okay. That's what I'm saying. Um Merrick is is an outstanding student. Um so what you'll be able to do is accumulate college credits while you're in high school, therefore advancing your abilities as you go to
024college. Yeah, definitely. And I think that also what like MDLP help benefit. It helps get students more ahead in schooling and be able to help them get into college or just get college credits more quicker so that like more students be able to have the opportunity to like graduate with an associate degree instead of having to go to community college, get all those basic credits done before they could actually get into what they want to do. Excellent, Merrick. Thank you. I think you are the best advertisement we have for MDLP. Thank you. Thank Thank you, M. Yeah. I just had a question and just thank you everyone who's presented so far. Uh I really liked this Kano Junior High slide because I think it balances out uh trying to learn in different environments and so
025you've got your expectations but then also you have to work with others that maybe have different opinions uh different behaviors than you're used to. And the solutions that Sophie presented were really healthy balanced solutions. But I just have a question I kind of wanted to follow up on on our student code of conduct. And obviously I know our junior highs have lots of kids and it's hard to micromanage behaviors, but are are we finding at at Kino that there's a an atmosphere where we're striving to uphold our student code of conduct when it comes to to language and uh working with other students? because I noticed here is and this is I know this is normal junior high stuff you know there's the kids that they do want to make fun of other people and
026happens to everybody but are are we in this environment where we're trying to remind students and help them uphold that code of conduct thank you for the question um so I can tell you that Kino has been working very diligently not only on academics but on the culture of the school specifically um focused on discipline um behaviors the follow through and ensuring that there's parent communication as well as um support for the students in learning appropriate behaviors, but their focus really has been in um ensuring that what's happening on campus is um appropriate and that that followth through has been um instituted and and I can tell you that um some of the uh discipline data has been declining because that has been a positive implementation. Yeah, that's that's really good. Thank you. So that
027was my only question. Thank you. Yeah, I was going to ask. Go ahead, Sophie. I'd like to ask you a question. Um, I noticed that the solutions that you provided, you went to adults, teachers, guidance counselors to help you navigate the transition from your elementary school to junior high. First of all, what elementary school did you go to, Sophie? I went to MacArthur Elementary. MacArthur. Okay. So, and then you're you're you're going to Kino. Um, can I ask you what was it about the adults at Kino, the teachers, the counselors that led you to ask them for help? What was what was it about them as as people, as adults that that you felt you could trust them? The counselors are very helpful. They're all very nice and they help me like I go to
028them often and they help me like be more positive and they've taught me like a lot of stuff that I can do on my own. So they were positive, friendly, nice, um approachable for you. Yeah. Great. Okay. Thank you, Sophie. While you're up there, I'll keep you on the hot seat. Sorry. Um, did you Eliza talked about sixth graders coming up to to her school at Roads today. Did you when you were at Macarthur, did you get to go visit Kino before you went there? No, I don't feel like a lot of people at my school went to Kino. We didn't get to go do that. You didn't? Do you think that would have helped to get you more familiar with the campus? I did go on a tour before I went to Kino. Was
029that helpful? Yeah, it was. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Sophie. Okay, stay there, Sophie. And then I'll I'll move on to you, Eliza. So, um I also uh liked your balance of solutions. The question I have for you is do you find that these solutions are uniquely uh yours or do you see um the solutions that you that you offered like being able to prioritize time? Um understanding that there's sometimes people that just are not going to be nice or or kind and you have to kind of uh develop coping skills yourself to uh combat that. Do you think that's kind of like just you or is that an element of the kino culture that's being developed? Does that make sense? Would you like repeat that? Sorry, long-winded. The solutions that you offered, the things that
030helped you survive I assume you're a seventh grader. Is that correct? So, the things that helped you survive your seventh grade year at Kino, do you think those strategies are used by a lot of other students at Kino or do you find the strategies are kind of just yours? I feel like lots of people at Kino just like keep stuff to theirself and don't really ask for help. Okay. Which might have an impact on culture. because I really like the prioritizing of time, being able to take breaks, uh using a fidget tool if you if you get antsy. Those are all great simple things that students can implement without detracting from the learning environment of other kids. So, all right. Thank you, Sophie. Eliza, real quick, you mentioned that sixth graders were up there today
031at your school. Did you get to go do that when you were in sixth grade? I did that when I was in sixth grade. Yes. Was that helpful? Um, kind of. I guess I wasn't really like I'm going to be so honest. It was early in the morning, so I wasn't awake um when they So, we should plan it for the afternoon. Yeah, I'm not awake most days, but in elementary school, we got up early cuz school started early and I was like, "Okay." And then you got on the bus and you're like, "Okay, I'm tired." Cuz they probably I think we it it's Yeah. Well, it's been a long time. So, but yeah, it went I guess it was helpful getting the map, getting to know people cuz you got to meet like people
032that were going to be there next year. Okay. Thank you. I just am curious if this is a helpful for our students to go up and visit the campuses so they can get familiar with buildings and and what what junior high looks like because it's a lot different than um roads they did one today and I was confused why cuz half of the school is not going to be us and I was like why' you just show them the half that's not going to be there like you're going to confuse them now but I'm like I mean at least they get comfortable with it and they get to see like the seventh graders who are going to be the eighth graders people who they can turn to they get to meet the teacher who they
033can turn to. Um, not really a lot of people go to the teachers though. That's just the big thing. But yeah. Okay. Thank you. We'll make sure we have really good maps at roads next year for those new students coming in. So Eliza, I wanted to ask you real quick. Um, do you think the step up to junior high is we do it in the spring? I believe you you said they just did it now. Um, is that enough time for students to get comfortable with their uh move from elementary? Because you're right, the total the feel of elementary. You've I think you're the one that mentioned I went to school with these kids from kindergarten to sixth grade. So, we kind of all knew each other and now you're moving to a junior high
034that has several different elementary campuses that feed into it. So, do you think that step up day is uh sufficient or would you recommend some other solution as well? Um cost effective of course. Yes. Um the step up was very nice. You kind of like got to get the gist of it. Um you didn't really meet the other schools cuz you're like you're like you know I don't want to go there. Um I Washington I believe you worked there. I knew you. Yeah, I went to Washington. Um I kind of just stayed with the group from Washington. my first like couple weeks and then my teacher's like, "You got to start talking to the kids, Eliza. You can't just be there by yourself or you can't keep working with Bri and them." And I'm like,
035"Let me work with them." But then you get out of your comfort zone. But the step up was nice because I got to see people who I knew from like other places or I got to see people that were they were scared like how kind of like my friends and I were. It was nice, I guess. So, let me ask you, when you do a step up, is it just Washington kids that go to roads that day or that time period or are there multiple campuses that go the same time? Do you know? Well, I don't know. My kids have this year. I know there was multiple cuz they had signs and they're walking around. It's like, Adams, you're with this group, but I believe it was multiple when I went. It's been a couple
036years. So, then do you did they stay with their school group? Yeah, they stayed with their school group. It was more so just like a tour of the school. Mhm. And then like getting the feel of it. They stayed with their group. I actually not 100% sure what they did. Uh my friends in Sto. I'm not I I did choir. Okay. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Um Miss Hamilton and Sophie, Liza, and Merrick. A big round of applause. We appreciate you coming today and we also know how busy this time of year is. So, we appreciate you guys carving out this time and parents bringing these students. We really appreciate you being here tonight. And we are going to move on to our next presentation tonight. It's from our new board appointed committee,
037the parent advisory committee. Um, Dr. Forless, I know we have parents and staff ready to present. So, if you'll tell us a little bit about this committee and get us started. Thank you very much, Madam President, members of the board. Uh it is uh this is a first this is the first time that we have uh implemented our uh parent advisory committee and we I'm going to walk you through just a high level overview of how we got to where we are this evening. So this uh committee is very focused on the parent lens uh related to homework discipline and attendance. So you will see that we have a board policy that outlines uh the duties of the superintendent which on the second page under our procedures on policy 2-201 with the procedure C talks
038about the establishment of a parent advisory committee and then the work really happens in procedure uh 141A which is where the governing board appoints all of these people. So, thank you for identifying uh current parents in Mesa Public Schools as well as staff members to serve. We had two meetings this year. Uh the first one was in November and we had to get to know each other and talk about what the purpose of this committee was and the focus of our work. And then on a between November 5th and April 1st, we sent out quite a bit of data to the members of the committee uh policy policies that were related to either the group that was studying homework, discipline, and then also attendance. And then the discipline and attendance groups also received data. They
039took a look at district level data around discipline and attendance. So, not only did they have policy in front of them, but they also had some actual data to help them um talk through what they think are some great solutions and ideas moving forward. So, we are we're going to start with our group that was focused on attendance and that is Carrie who is the office specialist at Field Elementary School. Not only is she an office specialist, she's also a parent in Mesa public schools. So Carrie, I'm going to walk the clicker to you. And it's best if you point it towards the clock. Okay. And it seems to behave nicely that way. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Yay. Okay. So, as Dr. before list was saying I was part of a subcommittee um
040for attendance and we consisted of staff members as well as parents. Um we looked at the data and we learned that communication is a big issue with attendance. Um parents aren't getting notified when their students are missing classes until later in the day. And at that point, especially at the higher levels, it's too late for them to get their child to class. Um, and then we learned that changes are being made at a district level and those changes are being communicated to school leaders, but the message is not always being communicated to the staff at the level and so we're not then conveying that information directly uh correctly to parents in regards to their child's attendance. Um, we also observed that there is a lack of consistency between the schools and how they handle attendance
041issues. Um, there could be one school that is really strict on tardies and kids are getting um, lunch detention for an excessive amount and then there could be another school that is like, it's tardies. It's okay. It's not a big deal. You're still here. So, one of the questions that um we asked were or was we wanted to know if parent square and parent view were able to notify parents of changes in their students attendance and that way they're not just getting that phone call at the end of the day or whenever the calls roll at their specific child's school if they're missing a specific um period, they would then get a notification saying your child was not in class. And then we the recommendations that we have are um we are wanting elementary schools
042and secondary schools to each be treated as their own groups for attendance purposes. Um and then within that group, the same rules would apply. So all the elementary schools would vote, yes, we're all going to send attendance letters, whereas now only some schools are sending attendance letters. um and then how we would track the tardies and absences as well as what type of consequences are given for those um tardies and absences. So that way there is consistency across the board um whether you're in elementary school, a junior high or a high school. Um, we also wanted to see if there was a way we could add a new code to our student information system um for circumstances like death or uh surgeries or any other um circumstance that takes a child out of class for
043an extended period of time. We do usually get as a staff member, we're normally provided with some sort of documentation and we do excuse those absences. However, it still shows up in the attendance letters and parents get frustrated because they did all the correct steps. They notified the office. They provided us with documentation, but they're still getting a letter saying your child was absent for 10 days or more. And they're frustrated. They're like, "Well, we had something we couldn't control." Um, another thing that um was brought up that schools should be more inclusive and welcoming. So the students are actually sad if they're missing a day of school. We want the kids to want to be at school and not miss. So if it's a parent reason that they can't get to school, maybe they'll
044hound their parent. Hey, you know, there's other ways you can get me to school. We can carpool, see if I could get on the bus. Um, and then as I said before, we want all schools to send those tardy letters in addition to the attendance letters because being even 15 minutes late to a class is just as important as missing or as hard as missing an entire class period because you're missing the direction um for the day. And then in regards to the absence letters, we're hoping that they can be updated and the wording be changed. As it is right now, um parents have expressed that it's kind of threatening and it's confusing. They don't understand it and then they call the office staff and they yell at the office staff. Um so those are
045our recommendations and thank you. Thank you so much. any Should we go through each of them and then if there's a question if we have time at the end? I think that'd be a great idea. Okay. Thank you, Carrie. Of course. I'll leave the clicker right here. All righty. And then we had Mr. Rapier and uh Dr. Skinner are both here from our discipline subcommittee and Dr. Skinner is going to walk us through uh some of their what they noticed, what their questions are, and some of their recommendations. Thank you. And Dr. Skinner is a parent at Herosa Vista Stapely and Mountain View. Um thank you. So we had um a really good discussion with our group um parents, staff, administrators and what we found in the surveys that went out um to the group
046and then also some of the district data is the relatively new discipline matrix is working well at the higher level. So once it gets to assistant principles, principles, um to create a lot more consistency in how it's applied, how things are handled with explanations for parents that are this is why we're doing it this way in that discipline matrix. Um it's a little confusing to find and dig into because it is very thorough to handle lots of potential things that can happen. Um, and so for parents who are wondering to try to find it on their own, a little more difficult than if the principal says, well, this here, you know, then it's clear, but find it on their own is a little difficult. But most of the feedback we got was what's are the
047level one issues, which is like classroom teacher managed um of complaints about, hey, this guy always does this in class and so my student can't learn or when does it, you know, that they need to handle this better? those kind of things um is what a lot of the feedback was on maybe there could be some improvement on. So some of the things we asked is is there a better way to kind of give an abbreviated summary, something that's more concise so it can be a little more understandable for parents to reference and then if they need the nitty-gritty they could go in before um the specifics of the matrix for the classroom behaviors. Um obviously if you the more prescriptive you are then it's kind of heavy-handed across a huge district. So um that
048was one of the questions looking at that also um how is that handled from school to school classroom to classroom in terms of when multiple level one infractions then rise to a level two but that's not how's that applied across different schools and different classrooms. Um and then what's the best way to create some consistency like we have at the level two and above to create consistency for the level one behaviors. Um so the recommendations we came up with was uh to maybe create an abbreviated abbreviated discipline matrix that um has some overview information possible consequences but then if parents need to know more they can get into more. Um, also because a lot of the teacher managed behavior really just comes from either experience as a teacher or just knowhow in terms of redirecting
049students or knowing when it's time to pull them out of the classroom and invol. you know that it varies a lot just based on teachers abilities and training that some of the professional learning can be provided or encouraged by principles so that teachers can better um handle those kind of inherent things that are going to happen in their classroom and intervene to hopefully get those kids back on track or intervene to get them out if it it and rise up to level two if that's what's needed. um because it's so variable from classroom to classroom and teacher to teacher and there's lots of types of level one infractions. Um it the reason the discipline matrix didn't include real specifics for that is because some teachers some classrooms you want flexibility there. You don't want to
050force them to do things but you do want some consistency. So, um, our recommendation would be that at each school, the SIAK committee could kind of represent the needs and wants of that community of parents, students, teachers, and come up with something that's a little more uniform for that school without it necessarily being districtwide on how those are handled. Uh, some of that comes with officially to go into the next level two, it's got to be three of the same behavior, but how is that interpreted? when does it reset to like now you're back to zero infractions on that? So, there's some kind of variability, but within each school, the SCAK committee could help draft or or come up with some guidelines for teachers it for us. Thank you, Dr. Skinner. Appreciate that. And our
051third subcommittee uh focused on homework and we have principal Gabby Buckley from Dobson High School who uh was volunte or volunteered to represent that subcommittee. Thank you Gabby. Of course. Love being here. Uh so yeah, I'm here to present on homework and this was not Oh no, I don't do this very often. Um uh this was not um one of the subjects that we had any open-ended information from from parents. So um our little subcommittee just went off of like facts and what we knew about um where we could find information about homework. Um and so we did what we learned uh is that homework is mentioned in three different places in our published MPS documents. one would be policy 5-216 pointb um and then we have uh grading practice and policy it's mostly about
052what scales are what the grades are supposed to translate to and um GPA uh which we live in that world at the high school level a lot and then grading practice um number three is dedicated to homework which is on a different area of information and those would be the best practices um I think those were originally developed in 2017 and then they've been continuously modified. I'm currently on a a committee with um Estrada to work on updating that. And then it's also in the student handbook which also houses the discipline matrix on page 15. It's a very small section. Um but it does highlight for me to know that it says that high school students should expect up to two and a half hours of homework every night. That's a lot. Um so I
053was like, "Wow, that's intense." Um and and we all kind of in that committee had talked about in the subcommittee had talked about how maybe our practices have changed over the years and we haven't updated the information for our parents. So the questions we asked uh you know very very good question to to start out with is what is the purpose of homework and are we answering that question for our um for our parents for our teachers and for our students. Um, we do know that in board policy it states that homework should not be weighted more than 10% of a student's grade. Um, and uh, you know, so we were talking about like what are the reasons we would assign homework or what are the ways that we've known um, how to kind of
054skate around that um, policy. And then what are the outcomes of assigning homework? What are the outcomes that the teachers are asking for? Are we holding the students accountable for a grade? are we providing feedback? Uh lots of different ways that we've been um having conversations around building culture of assessment and you know how getting kids to work on their own um you know working through difficult problems. But is that something that we need to say has to be not at home or is that something that we can do within the confines of our classrooms? Um to help students build that um proficiency to work at longer levels on their own. um because sometimes we don't even know what they're doing at home. You know, it could be assigned to be homework on their own.
055But I I'm a guilty parent of doing um a Thanksgiving turkey for first grade because my student could not make his mind up about what he wanted on the Thanksgiving turkey. So So I did a little bit of that uh because it just had to get done. Um and then uh we also wanted to ask what the what the research what the current research is saying about homework. Um so when we talked about maybe some antiquated practices that we've had in the past like what are we what should we be looking at now? So our recommendations come on clock. Okay. um would be to revise and add to the student handbook, addressing daily homework, emphasizing the purpose of homework, um and maybe addressing the policy that's also in there so that we're um cross referencing
056the different areas in which you can find the information, aligning the policy handbook and the grading practice areas together with links. The nice part about the um student handbook is that you can provide active links in there. and then um linking any research that we decide that we would be current in looking at in conjunction with the board um leadership and working through our SCAKs as well um to put to put some research in the handbook. I know that when when we've provided information to our parents of articles or books or texts that we've been looking at um they they are curious on what it is. They may not go out and actually read the whole thing, but they do they are curious about where we are getting our information from when we're talking about
057um current research and education. And then um to create a guidance document for school leaders to develop schoolwide practices. Um it probably is going to look differently at the elementary level because I think built into their SCIA constitution is a portion where the SCIAK is supposed to come to an agreement on what homework looks like for the site, but that's not how it looks at the high school and I'm unsure of what it looks like at the junior high. And um by Mike's face, I think we're on the same page that it's probably not in there. I love someone that can just have the emotion and just put it out there for me. So that helps out. Thank you. Um and so that is what we had for homework done. Thank you, Miss Buckley. Any
058questions to or anything else, Dr. for this. Are we good for No, I just want to say thank you um to these subcommittees that worked us that we got through this first year and it was really well done and we did have uh during one the second meeting in April we did have a genius bar and so we had uh President Davis represent the governing board. We had uh Amy Deatory represent our attendance task force. We had uh Eric Vonberg the director of teaching and learning represent homework. And then we had Leilani Scott that who and our um general counsel King represent uh the discipline matrix. So there was opportunities and so what what I guess I would like for the board to know is that those that are serving in leadership roles in the
059district have also heard these recommendations and they're um putting some ideas into practice as well as um Mrs. Snyder who is our director of communications. So, some of these things are going to change practice pretty quickly, but love to hear your questions. Thank you, board. Any questions, Miss Waldman? Yeah. So, us and I just want to echo what Superintendent Forless said just in thanking everybody because this is the first year there was this committee and you were all volunte. So, thank you for being here. Um, my question is on the discipline subcommittee because I know dis discipline's been a problem since coming back from the school shutdowns and it's getting better. I know that there's been big improvements made, but we want to make sure we continue to make improvements and have situations where uh
060like teachers are not leaving the conditions of the profession which kind of happened after the shutdowns. Uh, so we uh you had mentioned that a lot of the behaviors are level one. So at a at a classroom and teacher managed and then maybe the SCIAT committee could help make recommendations um about that. Can you elaborate or do you have more information about what kind of sources or supports uh teachers might need for the level one issues? I'll come with you. Yeah, you can vote either one or both. Yes, Mr. Sure has a lot of that practical hands-on obviously dealing with this hopefully not every day but almost every day but from a parent perspective like in terms of the parent um committee the most parents aren't dealing with to level two is like you got
061your kid got sent to the principal right so the most parents aren't dealing with that so that was the perspective of the committee was my kid sees kids misbehave in class and that's what I have questions and concerns about so that is thankfully there's not a lot of parents who are parents of kids who are going up the discipline ladder. But what was brought up is there's a lot of inconsistency. So the the current discipline matrix says if there's three infractions of the same type that becomes level two. So then that goes out of the classroom and you talk to um an assistant principal, principal, whatever the case may be at the school, but that's not uniformly applied because it's a little bit vague. So then when does that reset? Does it reset in the
062semester? And then how do you group those same? You know, there's multiple ways you can disrupt a class. And so, how are they grouped to say, well, now those are you've done 10 different things, but they're all a little bit different. So, we aren't set taking this up to level two. Um, so that would be where SCAK would come in. But I think the in terms of trying to say this is how we're going to define it at at our school is try to a little more consistency across the school. Um but I think in terms of helping teachers out what would be a lot more helpful would be some of the interventions of the professional learning because each teacher kind of sets their own policy right is the way it currently is of like
063I'm sending you to the principal. I don't think the principles I you can talk about this Mr. are saying like oh don't send them back each teacher decides hey that's I've had enough you did this I'm writing it up or whatever. Um so I don't think SCAK would help in terms of preparing teachers or teaching giving teachers tools on how to handle it. It would just more be saying at this school if the kid acts out in these ways then we're going to send them up sooner than before. That way it'll be this English teacher is not the strict disciplinarian and this guy's class is loose and he lets them do whatever they want. It'll be a little more consistent. Yeah, that makes that makes sense. And I don't want to hear from principal repair,
064but just what what you said I mean that makes a lot of sense and it sounds like I mean there needs to be a little bit more guard rails and more clarity in and what those behaviors are to you know to your point if it's if it's different is it a third or is this a new set of problems? Right. Those are good questions. Those are those are questions that I I would have too. So, thank you. And then I think that the the point of having SCAK and I know in my SCAK, I really try to run and and and be very transparent with our data and what that looks like when we're comparing. And for the junior high, we rotate 50% of our student body every year. Um, and so every year your
065makeup of students and behaviors and what we're seeing can shift um and change. And so by having that data conversation with our SCIAK, you get that parent perspective, their student perspective in there and saying this is what our current practices and our current protocol, this is what we're doing. Are we seeing this in our data? Do we need to make some adjustments in that um practice so that we can um then be responsive to the day that we're showing to really make sure that we are um that we're really keeping those guardrails there to help provide a good learning environment for the students and also for the teachers. So the teachers feel supported and I I I always think back to my mentor teacher um who was my eighth grade government teacher when I started
066teaching. Um and this and I would tell her she's now since retired. I've tell her the skills that she taught me when I first stepped into teaching I still use in the office when I'm working with students. And it's really those personal relationship skills. And so really um working with our teachers to develop those um and and and and help them through our instructional coaches because that has to be part of it. Um and really pulling those support systems that we have already on campuses to really help build that capacity within our students or our teachers to be able to help manage behaviors to make sure we're maintaining good learning environments. Yeah, that's that's excellent. And certainly we want the teachers to have those supports. There's obviously going to be kids that act up or
067there's going to be behavioral problems through it's not the teacher's fault. And that's where you want to make sure that they they know they have the resources. They know where where to go and what to do and and consistency is huge and consistency. Any anybody that has kids knows too like right it's all about the the consistency with clear expectations and consequences laid out. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, back up. Um, I I really want to thank all of the staff members and the parents who served on this committee. We have gotten a wealth of information. This is this is something that we've just started and and I'm so glad that this is in our policy. Um, Dr. Skinner. Um, I'm I'm I'm thrilled that we've used the activate process to to um
068to to dive into the details, but what I'm hearing in your answers is is what the staff can do, what teachers can do. I am not hearing how can parents support correct behaviors in the classroom. We had a number of parents who were on this committee. Did did some of the parents share how they support teachers maybe every day with classroom management behavioral issues? Um, so I think probably most the people on this, not that all of our kids are perfect and but a lot of the feedback was other kids are disrupting. And so I think one way that in terms of supporting teachers for for parents is most of the time if it's your kid, if it's my kid that's goofing off like I don't know that and we don't tolerate that at home
069kind of and I think that's part of the the classroom management of teachers is also the communication with parents. So it it has to happen with parents once it goes to level two. Like that's part of the discipline matrix. But the level one, most of the level one stuff doesn't get written up. If you tell the guy to stop doing that, you're not going to go write this up and necessarily talk to the parent every time because that would depending on what age you're at. That might be really cumbersome for teachers. But I think that's definitely a a skill that teachers need to have is is getting support at home so the parents are involved and know hey I heard this happened at school today. Um I'm not sure in terms of kind of how
070the parents can support. I think a lot of times parents don't know about that and it's more work for the teachers to go get them involved. So, at what point has it crossed the threshold where now Tommy's been doing this enough I need to get mom and dad involved to stop? I don't know how often you guys see that they're getting we build that into our process. Um so especially with level one behaviors um we have a pretty a pretty outlined way the expectation we have for our teachers and how addressing behaviors that when um you know a behavior happens and they that kid needs a timeout for a moment um that second time then we're insisting um that they contact home whether it be via email or phone calls. um we still ask them
071to reach out and have that um contact with the parents. Uh it is that that um personal one-on-one communication and um finessing how you communicate the students behavior and that those soft skills and interacting with the parents um that um that we can help those teachers u manage through that. how you write that email, how you have that conversation, but we insist that if they're going to give a detention, then there needs to be a phone call home so that they and it's also to empower the teacher um before we jump in and we take away that that power that they would have to manage that classroom. They need to exert that. They need to be actually um um supported in that. So, we'll support them in that and making that an expectation before it
072moves to the next level and we get to a third infraction that comes to an office referral and we step in. Um, I tell them all the time I the worst phone calls are when I call home and the parents are completely surprised that there was ever a behavior issue and that is a really difficult uh conversation to have. And so we really push back that we need to have those on those level one conversations, behaviors that there is that and maybe and maybe the PD is how you have those difficult conversations. We can role play. That would be fantastic. Yeah. I mean I mean because God forbid Bob Jurgle got a call from Willow Point Elementary cuz there was there was literally heck to pay in my household and and and I think a
073lot of us had that. And I'm going to suggest that maybe the kids who aren't having behavior problems know that at home they're going to get it too. And and so um I think communication, but I think particularly for younger teachers, cuz I know sitting in the lunchroom mentoring younger teachers, they'd come to me and say, "How do I do this?" It was it was a soft skill. How do you call a parent and how do you phrase it so that they're not defensive, so that they're willing to listen and and to be an accomplice in the the the proper behavior in a in a classroom. So, I I think you're on to something. Yeah. And we try to support the teachers in that as well because um sometimes they're nervous because they don't know
074what they're going to get. They work with the kid every day, but when they call home, what's that response going to be back when they reach out? And so we really try to support our teachers that if they do come across a really uncomfortable or a an unfriendly interaction, then we're as administrative, we're backing them up um and supporting them in that as well to filter. Thank you. Thank you, Miss How does PBIS um play into did you guys discuss PBIS at all in the discipline section? Do you remember that conversation? I don't remember the acronym. I'll let you take that. Okay. So, yeah. So, we utilize PBIS and really uh as you utilize PBIS, um it it that's where it comes into the question of okay, when you have these minor infractions um and
075those build up, how do you categorize it? Is it the exact same, you know, speaking out in class and you have to have three speaking out in classes before it becomes an office referral or is it um three uh disruptive behaviors before you becomes an office referral? or is it a combination of they're speaking out, they're being disruptive, they're getting out of their seat, and then that culminates and I think that's where that's where it comes in because those are all level one behaviors that are managed by the teacher, right? Um and so that's where then the SCAK using data having that conversation what where where do we when do we rack up those level one behaviors utilizing um that on the negative behaviors but also PBIS it all depends on the individual the positive
076aspect of it when you're reaching out and re reinforcing positive behaviors uh it really depends on that practice and I don't think there's a consistent practice I some schools are doing it some are not it depends on how big groups are doing it. PBIS is most effective when the whole school is has clear clear expectations uh to minimize those behaviors and and promote those behaviors that we like. So, um I have a question for Mrs. Buckley real quick. Well, actually not a question, just a comment. Are we done with discipline? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So, I I absolutely love the fact that you uh one of your first questions in this in your subcommittee was what is the purpose of homework? Um I know in the I mean sometimes it's just given to be
077given and there really isn't a purpose for it. It really should be uh directed and let's practice this new skill that we're let's get you practice. Uh do you find did you find in your committee that everyone was in agreement on that question? What is the purpose? Yeah. Uh the administrators obviously had had these conversations and it's been a long time since I've asked that question because you know we run a site and we've gone through that before. I don't think that we've been very transparent with our kids and our parents about it. So that gave me like a a starting point on some communication. Um but I did start asking being in other committees and being with other um APs and principles like hey what do you guys what's your expectation for homework like
078we haven't cross like checked ourselves on what we're doing with that. Um, so it opened up some conversations about like what are our current expectations like you know what do you what are you communicating out to staff? Um do your kids have homework you know and um so that's been there's been some really valuable conversations that have come up after from that and I've been saying like hey I'm sitting on this committee right now we're talking about it for um for the pack and so like give me some information. Um, so that really helped out and I don't we all agreed on the subcommittee that that was a valid question to ask because we probably haven't talked about it recently. Yeah, I think it's a great question because I mean, do we need does every
079class need homework? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know. Totally. I know what you mean. I mean, I would love to just sit here and talk about it, but I it's the end of the year and I have a lot of feelings. So, well, and you're probably exhausted. It's the seven weeks of I'm tired. Yeah. So, and I I want to thank everybody that was on these committees as well because it is it it we have to have uh parents that are actively uh sharing with us. Hey, what are the strengths? What are the these are some things that uh maybe we need to fix or we need to alter and change so that the experience of education is actually occurring uh and quality all all across the district. So Thank you
080everyone. I just want to echo what everyone else has said and that is we are grateful for your service on these committees whether staff, parents, all of you. So just we appreciate you serving. We appreciate the feedback. I heard a lot of communication and consistency without with all the three different um committees. So we appreciate that feedback and we will take this back and make sure we uh have some more discussions on it. With that being said, do I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Any discussion? Miss Kirby, please take our vote. Mrs. Benson votes in the affirmative. I closed. Yeah. Yours isn't coming. I voted. Okay, we're good. There we go. Technology is our friend tonight. We with a vote of four, we
081have adjourned this meeting. We will be back at 6:30, but starting at 6:15, I would encourage you all to be in for a treat from Shepherd Show Choir providing some great music. And if anyone is familiar with Shepherd, they are amazing. So, we encourage you to be back in here. Thank you all for attending. Amazing Shepherd Choir and audience, we are going to go ahead and get started. We just want to thank the amazing Shepherd Show Choir directed by Taran Tidwell. And I have to say, my heart was sad last week and I had conflicts and couldn't make your show. So, I'm really glad you could come to our board meeting and I could get a little piece before summer. And I see that some of you are leaving. You are going to be freshman
082next year, so we won't get to see you, but keep doing these amazing performances. So, I call this meeting to order at 6:33. Just a quick reminder, any citizen who wishes to speak on an agenda item must complete the sign-in sheet in the lobby prior to the public comment time on the board agenda. I also want to excuse Mrs. Chappie. She is attending her senior son's choir concert and is getting here as soon as she can. So, we will see her sneak in um sometime during this meeting. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance led by Mr. Justin Weing, Assistant Superintendent, Human Resources. Then, please remain standing for the National Amp and performed by the Shepherd Show Choir. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag With liberty and
083justice for all. [Music] Oh, say can you see by the dawn early but proud we held at the twilight [Applause] [Music] last we were so [Music] And the [Applause] rockets in gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star spangle B [Music] yet for the land of the free and the home of the brave. [Applause] Thank you. You may be seated. Thank you again, Shepherd Choir, and thank you parents for bringing you. We know May is crazy. So, thank you. And thank you, Mrs. Tidwell. Wonderful. We are going to begin our meeting with a video on governing board procedures and then I will read a statement. Welcome to the Mesa Public Schools governing board meeting. We appreciate your interest in the district. The five elected governing board members
084serve 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 comment on an action or discussion item, please complete a request to address the board form before the item is discussed. The form is located in the lobby. Members of the public will be given a maximum of 3 minutes to speak
085once 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 your request in writing to the board at least five working days before that meeting. The superintendent or governing board president will consider your request. Thank you for your attendance and involvement in tonight's meeting. This is an official governing board meeting.
086The 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's president's responsibility to maintain proper order so the board can conduct its business in an orderly and efficient manner. If you are disruptive or interfere with the conduct of this meeting, you will be asked to leave so the board can conduct the business of the district. I do
087see we have lots standing. There are a few seats up front, I believe, or if we need to as we squish in if we can. Sorry. Yeah. Um going now into our calendar. Dr. Dr. Fers, can you please review the board calendar with us? Thank you very much, Madam President. Members of the governing board, I'd like to draw your attention to the very busy days of May. Uh May 16th is the Westwood International Baloria Commencement Ceremony that will be held at Red Mountain Community Church at 5:00 p.m. Always a great celebration. On the 21st of May at 700 p.m. is the East Valley Academy commencement ceremony and that will be held at Dobson. And then May 22nd, the day that many of you have been waiting for is our high school uh commencement ceremonies that
088will be held at each of our comprehensive high schools. On May 27th is our next regularly scheduled governing board meeting. I want to alert you to our summer start time which is 5:00 pm. And this meeting will be held virtual. It'll be focusing on uh the business of the district. And it will be probably a shorter meeting uh knowing that it's been a a busy May and we are coming off of graduation as well as Memorial Day. June 10th is our first summer start or our second summer start time meeting. That will be at 5:00 and it will be in person. And then here's something for all of you to mark your calendars. Starting in August, there will be a change to the governing board meeting days as well as the times. So in August,
089the regular governing board meetings will start at 6:00 p.m. Instead of 6:30 on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month. So instead of meeting on Tuesdays twice a month, it'll be Thursdays twice a month. We will continue to post the board agenda on the Friday before the meeting. This will allow the board and public to have more time to review the materials before we meet um in an open session. So that concludes the calendar. Thank you Dr. Forless and we hope everyone is surviving Mayber. We appreciate you all being here tonight. We know how busy this time of year is. We are going to start tonight um it is now at 6:40. I call for a public hearing on the fiscal year 202425 revised budget persuant to ARS15-905 and we're going to turn the
090time over to Mr. Alexander. we lead us through this presentation. The final uh budget revision for the current fiscal year uh ending June 30th. I know we got some slides somewhere, but um who's got the clicker? Here it is. So, just to recap going back, um, we brought the board for this year to the board, proposed it in June. The board then adopted it in July. We had a mid-year budget revision in December, and now we're at the final stage in May for this final revision. Uh, overview on this revision is mostly changes to average daily membership. We get funded based upon our student count. So, this revision takes into account changes in that average daily membership since we did our last revision in December. We're also making some adjustments for one-time adjustments we have
091and any other final figures from the end of last year or any year-to- date activity are going into this budget revision as well. Summary, our maintenance and operation budget limit is being increased by $2.7 million for this budget revision about 0.51%. Our district additional assistance capital is also going up um as far as our budget limit by 1.4. Both of these increases were due to one-time allocations by the state. Mr. Thompson will we'll talk about that in a little bit. Also wanted to bring your attention that our federal funds budget went up by 2.3 million from when we adopted the budget in July. However, that is still 64.5 million less than what our budget was last year for federal funds primarily due to the SR and COVID uh money is expiring. I mentioned average daily
092membership, our student counts. That's why we're funded. Um these this slide here shows the adjustments from when we were here in December to where we're at now in May. So you can see K8 we're showing a drop of 117 students 912 14 students um a total across all at 131. We did show an increase to our group B sped counts of 299. Most of that increase was based on free and reduced uh price lunch counts. When we did the revision in December, Department of Education had much lower numbers than what we actually had, but we use the numbers that AD had. So now they came out with revised numbers which are higher than what we had when we first adopted the budget. So that's the primary increase for why we have more group B sped
093um average daily membership and a little bit increase in the preschool sped. Mr. Thompson, thank you. So this is a little tricky. I'm going to do my best to to walk us through it. Last year when the legislative uh legislature approved the the budget and the funding for K12 education um they reduced the ongoing funding for our capital what's known as district additional assistance and they reduced the uh additional weighted funding we get for students in poverty which is known as the free and reduced price lunch uh wait. In doing that, they provided this year one-time funding to restore that reduction back to the amount that was supposed to be received formulaically before the reduction. So, they kind of made us whole this year. And that's the one-time funding that uh Mr. Alexander is referring
094to. We didn't really know what that amount was till late in the year. we were waiting for AD to calculate and communicate it. We got that just uh a few weeks before this revision. What's important to understand and the reason I'm taking the time this evening to explain this is this cut to K12 education is go ongoing for the next two years. The legislature does a three-year budget cycle. Now, they're still in session and the budget hasn't been completed for this year. So, things could change, but the baseline funding for 2526 and 2627 does not include any one-time funding, does not include the restoration of these uh funding formulas. And so, for next year, the total reduction to the district is about 3.4 million. And that would be ongoing not only for this year but
095also into next year. So now you're talking about 6.8 million over a two-year period. Of course that can change. Again, legislative process is not done. The budget is not complete, but the budgets that they have in front of them that they're contemplating right now do not include restoring this funding at this time. So, we wanted to make sure that everyone understood why there's such an increase in our funding this late in the year when we really hadn't been thinking we were going to be looking at any increases. We've been talking about decline in students. We've been talking about constricting budgets. That's all still a reality. And this funding is really just a one-time opportunity for this year. Okay, Mr. Alexander. The next three slides just give an overview of our M, our district additional assistance
096and classroom site fund. So here's where you can see what Mr. Thompson's referring to. So the top line shows our budget uh for M from December ADM changes. We got $700,000 for that. The free reduced price lunch one time. There's $2 million. That's where the 3.4 comes from. A big chunk of it. And then there were other minor adjustments uh also fur there to come up with our budget limit increase of $2.6 million $7 million. Again, that's to increase our budget limit. Doesn't have anything to do with what we actually spend right now, but just our limit for the budget for DAA for the capital. You can see onetime funding $1.4 million. So that's the other piece of the 3.42 million on the M side, 1.4 on the DAA capital side. very small amount for
097a prior year adjustment. And the last slide here just brings together the M the capital outlay DA and the classroom site fund. Very small uh classroom site fund adjustment. We picked up that adjustment when we did the uh total uh revision in December. So again 2.7 million on M 1.4 roughly on capital outlay DAA and a small amount in classroom site fund. I know there's an action item coming up later so I will leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Alexander and thank you Mr. Thompson. Just as a reminder to everyone, this is a public hearing and the board and superintendency will not respond to any public comments at this time. Later in the agenda before voting will be time for board discussion and consideration of public comments. We do have a few
098members of the um audience signed up to speak regarding this. I will call both of you up at this time, Sher Walton and Ed Still. Since this is a public hearing, members of the public are able to speak on the revised budget with Oh, I will do that one after this. So, you have three minutes to speak. All right, Madam Speaker, and the board members, I'm Sheri Walton. Um, I believe uh Mesa School District needs to uh make some big changes at their schools to once again become the great school district that they once were. Mesa school district has been losing students which has greatly affected their budget. They have gone from approximately 66,000 students to 57,000 students. That's around $ 108 million loss of income. And you ask why is this causing what's causing
099this gross change? The most dramatic change is when the LGBTQ agenda, CRT agenda, seal agenda, and the DEI agenda entered the Mesa public school classrooms. President Trump has called um oops has requested these practices be removed from the public schools as their effects on learning have created a loss in student achievement. But Mesa public schools have not completely complied with the federal government's request. The classroom learning environment has been greatly affected by the abovementioned propaganda. The above programs are based on lies and have detrimental effects on the lives of Mesa students. There's no scientific evidence for those above mentioned programs, but there are gender dysphoria and mental disorders associated with the LGBTQ population. Mesa charter and private schools have been growing in leaps and bounds. Their test scores are proof that their teaching practices and
100methods do in do do not include the above programs. That's why parents are choosing to leave Mesa Public Schools. I encourage Mesa to return to a traditional education for all their students so Mesa Public Schools can once again be a place where parents want to send their children. Members of the board, superintendency, my name is Ed Steel and I couldn't have said it better myself. Um, you're losing students and there are a number of reasons and I hope you guys are taking that serious. Um, Mesa used to be a great place to raise your kids, raise your family, and educate your children. I know because I lived here in the 80s doing that and the '9s. We're not that anymore. And it's a shame. We have a lot of smart people. We have a lot
101of talented people. Let's put them to work and let them do their job. Give them what they need and get out of their way. Um, as far as the budget, you know, I you guys know I look at this as best I can from a business standpoint. uh we're declining enrollment. And so when I look um at the instruction, headcount and expenses uh particularly the headcount uh we're going down in instruction 215 full-time equivalent, but at the same time we're going up in student support staff. Same thing happening down with special ed. um we should see an explanation for that. Why why when we have declining enrollment, reduced numbers of teachers, why are we increasing our support staff? Unless maybe there's a reclassification and and some other people are included in that number. But, you
102know, when you go from 256 to 298 support staff for for special ed, you know, that's over a 10% increase in headcount. You know, it would be good if during the discussion you guys could address that. Um, let us know what's going on. You know, we're constantly looking at this um we call it, for lack of a better word, admin bloat, right? and we want to make sure that we're not doing that. If if these positions are needed, that's great. But when I see headcount going down for teachers and laying off teachers, but we're increasing these other support services, I got to question the the reasoning behind that. So, thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other that would like to speak regarding the budget? Yes sir. You [Music] can. Good evening board. Ray
103dear um Mesa High School parent. Uh my son's going to graduate next week and so we're we're all excited. Um, as far as a budget, I like to present to the board for your consideration. Um, from time to time I get concerns from parents regarding um, recruitment outside city of Mesa, outside of our our area for sporting. And it's been brought to my attention that we have many um non-resident city of Mesa who don't pay taxes, local taxes here. They're in our schools for most likely for football and basketball. I'm a one of the number one fan for basketball. I love basketball and I support Mesa High School. Uh we almost got it this year. Um, but I'm all for sports, but if it's going to compromise city of Mesa residents of bringing non-residents to
104our campuses, um, that's fine if they go through the proper process, but if it's compromising student um, uh, ratio in the classroom. I was a Mesa public school teachers for teacher for years and I remember having 40 45 students or so in the middle school classroom. It's really hard on our teachers and on the learning process, you know. So, if we're going to bring outside uh residents to Mesa Public Schools, make sure it doesn't compromise our students and make sure that we'll have lower classroom ratio. And something to consider when you're doing the budget is to really scrutinize and audit every school of who's coming in because we deserve as taxpayers to have our money come and stay here. Thank you board. Thank you. Thank you to those that have commented tonight. I now adjourn
105the public hearing and reconvene the regular meeting. This is a procedural item and does not require a vote. So we will continue on. Dr. Dr. Foris, will you please share your superintendent update with us? Go around. I get the clicker. Well, it's always a good time to be able to celebrate the great things that are happening in Mesa Public Schools. and I'm going to uh share my superintendent update and then we have a lot quite a few recognitions this evening as well. So, we've got a a packed house in Mesa Public Schools. We are committed to our promise to know our students by name, serve them by strength and need so that they graduate ready for college career and community. And this year we are focusing on um putting this work together to achieve our
106promise. We know that we have to have a strong foundation in our governing board's um adopted goal to increase proficiency and growth in English language arts and mathematics, increase graduation rate in our college and career readiness index points as well as service learning. And we've got five strategic goals um that hold this um stairstep study focused on our portrait of a graduate to deliver upon that promise. We have three areas of focus this year uh focusing on academic and instructional development, community and safety as well as um efficiencies throughout our district. So I want to shift into some celebrations. This is teacher appreciation week. Uh throughout teacher appreciation week, we celebrated across the district. Last week was teacher appreciation week. We celebrate it all week long recognizing the lasting impact our educators make every day.
107We are truly grateful for all they do to support student success. And if you look closely, boy, it takes a village um to make sure that we are delivering upon that promise. On May 7th, we celebrated uh school nurses day. We honored the incredible impact of nurses like Wendy Girth who ser serve students at Irving and Porter with care, comfort, and compassion every single day. Last week, we had the opportunity to celebrate our retirees. At the 2025 district retirement reception, we celebrated the incredible contributions of our retirees. We welcome guests of honor with a red carpet, catered refreshments, entertainment by the Mountain View High School Jazz Ensemble, and beautiful s floral centerpieces from Westwood High School's uh Future Farmers of America program. This year's event was particularly meaningful, as you know, that I had the
108honor of joining the ranks of our retirees. It was a touching reminder of the impact that long-erving employees have made in the lives of families and students. I wish all of our retirees so much success as they begin the next chapter of their lives. Each spring, graduating seniors uh return to their former elementary schools in cap and gown for what is known as grad walks. Those are happening throughout our schools right now. An uplifting tradition that celebrates their journey and inspires the next generation. Cheered on by students, staff, and community members. It's a moment of pride, reflection, and encouragement for all. We heard from our student advisory group today about stepping up. Well, this is really stepping back down to elementary school, which is so awesome. Congratulations to this year's student service award recipients. This
109event celebrates the accomplishments and academic success of our special education students. It also honors general education students, teachers, and support staff who go above and beyond in their service and support of our exceptional student community. And a big congratulations to all of the students recognized at our 2025 career and technical education student recognition night. This event recognizes over 2200 students who have completed a career technical education program. We're proud to celebrate their achievements as they prepare for college, career, and community. And more celebrations. Congratulations to the Mesa Public Schools class of 2025 AVID seniors. This year's AVID Legacy Night at Sloan Park celebrated 205 seniors who earned 1,474 college acceptances and $34.2 million in scholarships. College, get ready. Here they come. And they're ready. Now, I want uh for us to turn our attention to
110McKenna from Fremont Junior High School, who has found her success in Mesa Public Schools. Truly a remarkable young lady. I can't wait for you to meet her. [Music] Hi, I'm McKenna Stillwell. I'm a seventh grader here at Fremont Junior High. I was born profoundly deaf. My mom found out a couple months after I was born. I have like this like thing inside my head, like a magnet, and it connects to my herinade. And so it like my brain like process what it hears. My mom put me after I got my herinades, my mom put me straight into speech therapy. My mom says that I grown a lot cuz normally deaf people like they have a hard time speaking and I can like speak. I learned sign like 2 years ago and I always love sign
111and I picked it up really fast. I always love teaching kids ASL my language and so I talked to a couple people here at Fremont and they helped me set up um a ASL club and so now I'm a president of ASL club and we have 20 kids. We normally like practice like what we learned last week and then we normally like play games or I teach them like a new lesson every day. They say it's really fun. They say it's like more social. So, I'm trying to work on that to like get it not as social to like get it as learning with my friends. Like I can like talk to them more and like I'm more open to them. It like connected us more and like become more like friends. [Music] um junior
112high students in Mesa public schools making a difference not only for herself but for others and a true tribute of what our promise looks like in action. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Forless and what a wonderful story. Um we are we have lots of faces in the audience tonight. I think that we have lots of recognitions tonight um including Mountain View as a spotlight school. So I'm going to turn the time back to Dr. before list for recognition section and then if the board members will follow me in front of the dis. Celebrating successes is one of the ways that we ignite a culture of learning and well-being in Mesa public schools. We are committed to recognizing students, teachers, staff, and administrators for their achievements. We have a lot to celebrate this evening, so we're
113going to get started. So, I'm so you're perfectly placed here. I love this, Kino. Um, so will Kino junior high principal KO Dilbeck please come up and join me at the podium. We have a little spot right here for you. Can I do that? Yes, please. Kino Kino was recently recognized as an AVID demonstration school. AVID stands for advancement via individual determination. It is a college and career readiness program that equips students with essential skills, provides teachers with ongoing training, and supports schools in building a culture focused on academic achievement. As a national demonstration school, Kino will continue to serve as a model for others because this is the second time that they've been recognized as a demonstration school. First time was in 2020 and it was hard to celebrate them at that time. So,
114this is a double celebration. So, please join me in celebrating and congratulating Kino Junior High as an AVID demonstration school for the second time. And will you, our Kino team, please stand so we can recognize you. And we're going to have you come through and do some handshakes with our governing board and get a commemorative photo. Of course. Go grab it. Oh, we need swag. We need a banner. We have props. Props, swag, and a banner. We got it all wrapped in one. Come on up. Yes, of course. Congratulations to all of you. Oh. Congratulations. [Applause] Thank you. All right. Now, we're going to we're going to keep a theme going of junior high for just a moment. Patrick Purcell, come on up. Where's Patrick? I saw you earlier. There you are. Cut. You're going
115to have a special spot right here. Patrick Purcell is a physical education teacher at Poston Junior High. And here he is right at the podium. You can smile right at our governing board members. Here he here we go. He has coached a variety of basketball and baseball teams. His influence as a coach, teacher, and mentor reaches out into the community and beyond. When Poston received their ESSER grant for physical education, Patrick wanted to use these limited funds to leave a lasting impact on the school and the community. So, he proposed and helped design the 18hole course on the Poston campus. So, tonight we honor Patrick's legacy with a dedication of the Poston Disc Golf Course named in his honor for his creation. So, we're I would love for you to shake hands with our governing
116board and the rest of us are going to congratulate you. [Applause] All righty. Now it's time to celebrate some exceptional student athletes from the Division 1 State Track Meet. So, first up, may I have Kai Espinosa Golinsky from Westwood High School come on up to the podium to join me. Thank you. [Applause] Kai, let me tell you about Kai. Kai is the 2025 AIA Division 1 state boys 800 meter champion and he finished runner up in the 600 1600 meter run. If he looks familiar, it's because last year he won the 3200 meter. So Kai, we're super proud of you. We would love for our governing board to congratulate you and we're going to bring you into the limelight as well. Thank you. I will join you. Yes. [Applause] And we're still going. Now, can
117Daniel Jud from Mountain View High School please join me at the podium? You're going to see, you're some of you who are listening keenly are going to hear something that happened between these two young men. Um, Daniel is the 2025 AIA Division 1 state boys 1600 meter champion, beating his competitor by.16 of a second to the title. This is when decimals matter. Daniel, please gather with the board for a photo and a handshake. And you're not going to be able to go very far because you're coming right back around. [Applause] You can't go very far. You've got some friends that are to come join you. Daniel was also part of the winning 4x800 relay team. So, we would love for his teammates Rustin Palmer, Ryan Lis, and Tyler Davis. Come join your buddy Daniel right
118up here. All right, let me brag about these young men for just a minute. Not only did they win the state title, they won by a margin of 8 seconds for the fastest time in Mountain View track and field history and the sixth fastest time in Arizona track history. So, you are shaking some very fancy pances right up here. Come right around. We'll meet you in the middle. [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] So, if you were here to celebrate the Westwood and Mountain View uh track stars, will you please stand to be recognized? And I think some of you are already standing. All right, we're going to switch gears from athletics to academics. And here we go. Can I have Mia Sweeter please join me at the podium? [Applause] All right, Mia, you ready for Rita brag
119on you a little bit? Here we go. Mia is the state academic decathlon champion. And Mia won gold medals at regionals, state, and nationals. In the academic decathlon, she was one of only three students nationwide to win the prepared speech competition at nationals. Additionally, she helped Mountain View play 16th in the nation, earning seven individual medals in the most competitive division. Mia, it's time to get the handshakes. We're so proud of you. I understand that Mia's fan club is here, part of the a um academic decathlon team. So, if you're here to cheer on Mia, will you please stand to be recognized? And they're standing. I think they're already standing. Next up, can I have Ava Wright and Brody Snider please join me at the podium? [Applause] Congratulations. Ava and Brody won the DECA state
120championship in marketing management. Let me tell you what DECA stands for. the Distributive Education Clubs of America that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. Ava and Brody presented on marketing for a senior citizen home, an area that Ava had real world experience through Mountain View's internship program. Ava and Brody, please gather for the board right up here because you know that they're going to want to shake your hand. Thank you so much. Oh, [Applause] Now, we're going to recognize another Mountain View duo who recently won a state championship. So, can I have Alexander Neber and Christian Vasquez please join me at the podium? [Applause] Okay. And your question. I'm working on my phonics. Neighbor. Alexander. Neighbor. I got it. Neighbor is what it said. Neighbor. We got this.
121Alexander recently won first and uh Christian who couldn't be here this evening. recently won first place in the Arizona Council on Economic Education statewide spring stock market competition, beating 3,000 students statewide. They managed a virtual $100,000 portfolio using real financial strategies over a 12-week simulation by applying real world financial strategies such as diversification, compounding interest, my husband says that's the eighth wonder of the world and stock analysis. They deepened their understanding of key economic concepts and demonstrated exceptional financial literacy and academic skills. Alexander, who's here with us tonight, and Christian um are to be celebrated. So, Alexander, you're going to need to shake hands really hard for Christian. All right. You're gonna represent him. [Applause] Good night. So, our recognitions are not over yet. We're getting close. So, uh we are going to continue focusing
122on Mountain View with our as our spotlight schools. Our spotlight recognitions program is designed to provide our community with an inside look at the exceptional individuals within Mesa Public Schools. At every meeting, we celebrate remarkable students and staff members who positively impact our schools, inviting everyone to find out what's inside and honor their contributions. The school spotlights feature a video uh showcasing each school, which will also be available on their website, recognition of a distinguished student, a certified staff member, and a classified staff member. So, this evening's spotlight school is Mountain View High School. Well, Dr. Mike Oliver, principal at Mountain View High School. Please join me at the podium while we get to watch a video about your school. There's no place really like Mountain View. If you want to focus on a certain
123career, do something like specific, there's probably something for you. I think there's a lot of opportunities to educate yourself here and a lot of different pathways you can take to do that. Fasting is a class that you take freshman year and it's like four credits but it's three classes. It's like helping you prepare for like the future especially like public speaking like that's a skill that you need. So like learning real world real skills in that fast teams it's super helpful and it really prepares us for like the future. I love change makers. It's a class you take your sophomore year and you learn about civics historical change makers different methods of making change and then it's kind of all brought together by this end of the year capstone project. We the people is a
124competition based group that we have here at Mountain View. Basically, we have to write a bunch of essays and talk about the constitution. Model UN's about diplomacy, research, public speaking. Um, you are assigned a country and you have to represent them. Um, we go to a few different conferences every year and compete. You can join all kinds of clubs here. We have a lot of extracurriculars. We have like a tradition of excellence. Campus of Champions obviously, which is really cool to see. [Music] If I was to talk to a new student coming into Mountain View, I would definitely tell them about the unique culture we have here at Mountain View. There's so many different people on this campus and they do so many different things. I think this is just a great place to grow
125and learn and that there's always people around for you to talk to if you need help and the teachers are just really nice and I think the administrative and like all the staff are just really open to helping. Take advantage of the counseling team. Everyone has a counselor and if you want something changed or if you think a different class or different way of learning will help you thrive then I think you should definitely not be afraid to ask for it cuz the entire team at Mountain View has been really supportive. have fun and enjoy this school life because it's such a fun ride to be here and really enjoy the high school life and have take all the chances you can get to be with everybody and like participate in activities, participate in class,
126in clubs and sports. Just like really embrace the high school life because this is the first time and the only time you'll get to be at high school. All right, Dr. Oliver, will you please introduce us to um some special people from Mountain View? I will. Thank you, Dr. Foris. We do have some incredible Toros. Uh we've featured several already. We have a few more to go. Would the amazing Arandi Kabuzano Alvarez, come down, Arandi, we are so proud of you. Arandi is a dynamic and dedicated student leader at Mountain View High School whose impact can be seen across a wide range and I mean a really wide range of academic and extracurricular activities. As the two-year returning president of the International Multicultural Association, she has demonstrated exceptional leadership in promoting inclusivity and cultural awareness.
127Arande also serves as the unit leader for we the people, public relations officer for DECA and vice president of the model UN team, which we found out won a state championship not long ago. Positions that showcase her communication skills, civic knowledge, and global perspective. In addition to her leadership roles, she is an active member of numerous clubs. Buckle up, this is going to take a while. including the art and mural club, the Jewish student club, the native heritage club, black student union, lit mag, and speech and debate. Her past involvement includes serving as president of the creative writing club, vice president of the tea time club, and president of the DND club along with membership in the environmental club, Asian student association, and scholars bowl. And we don't know how this is possible, but of
128the 57 clubs at Mountain View, Randi has participated in 77 of them. With over 100 hours of community service through her club work, Arandi exemplifies commitment and passion in all she does. Her positivity, her motivation, and tireless work ethic are truly inspiring. Randi, we love you. Congratulations. You are one amazing Toro. [Applause] Now, we've already talked about model UN and change makers. It just so happens, what does it take to create meaningful change in the world? Well, let me tell you, it takes passionately dedicated educators and teachers like Landon Rather and Katherine Thrill. Come on down. [Applause] These visionary Toro teachers piloted the district's first changemakers course. Now the core of our academy curriculum, empowering students to think critically, communicate effectively and drive community change. In this class, students study the qualities that define a
129changemaker mindset. the role the role of effective communication and mobilizing action and the importance of critical thinking in making progress. Through close reading and research, students identify opportunities for change in their communities, tying their areas of interest to broader global objectives outlined in the United Nations sustainable development goals. Now, beyond their work with changemakers, Landon and Katherine also lead other exceptional award-winning student groups. Landon serves as the yearbook adviser, guiding a talented staff that produces not only beautifully designed and brilliantly written publications each year, but last year's book earned both the prestigious Gold Crown and Pacemaker Award, placing it among the top 16 books in the entire United States of America. Katherine Katherine, a James Madison fellow, leads our state champion model um UN team, Mountain View's team, bringing global awareness and diplomacy into the
130classroom. This year, the team earned best large delegation at ASU's model UN conference and traveled to Greece to represent Mountain View on an international stage. Landon and Katherine, we love you and we are so very proud of you. Two amazing teachers. And finally, Corey Miller. Come on down. Let me tell you about the amazing Corey Miller. Corey Miller. She loves matcha latte. It's green. I got it at Starbucks the other day. First time I've ever been to Starbucks. but it's because she brings a deep love for students and decades of experience in education to her role as lead attendance clerk at Mountain View High School. Let me tell you a little bit about her. A proud Toro herself, Corey graduated from Mountain View in 1986 and went on to spend 27 years, get this, as
131an English teacher at Stapley Junior High School. Her dedication to Ma Mesa public schools runs so deep. Not only is she an alum, but all three of her daughters are Mountain View graduates as well. Corey chose to work at Mountain View after she retired as a teacher because of her strong connection to the community and her passion for supporting students. She loves seeing students every day, cheering them on, watching them cross the stage at graduation. Her warmth and care are a daily presence in the front office, and she is proud to continue giving back to the school that means so much to her. and Corey, you mean that much to us. We love you. Let's give it up for these amazing Tauros. Thank you, Arandi, Katherine, Landon, and Corey. [Applause] So if you are from
132Mountain View. You are here to support them or any of our students that we have celebrated this evening. Will you please rise so we can congratulate you? Congratulations uh Toros and all that were celebrated this evening. We would like to thank you for uh enjoying this recognition this evening. We're going to continue on with our business meeting. So, if you would like to celebrate elsewhere, we understand. Uh you will not hurt our feelings from Kino all the way to Mountain View. How about that? Mr. Thank you all those that came to celebrate. If you'll just give us just a half a second as we log back into our computers. We are now at the time on the agenda designated for public comment. We have two um speakers signed up. You will each have three minute
133three minutes to speak and I'll just lead us through this. Um Ed Steel and then Heather Austin. You can both come to the podium. You each have three minutes. And if you'll just um state your name, your relationship, and which agenda item you are speaking on. Members of the board, superintendency, my name is Ed Steele, community member here at Mesa Public School District. I'm speaking on action item 10C. um this Arizona State University universal learning courses. Um I think this is a great opportunity for a lot of students to participate in. Um I looked through it. There are many many great courses that students can take. I'm excited about it. Um and I also encourage you to please vote in a uh affirmative and let's pass this so these students can take advantage of that.
134That being said, I do have some comments about portions of this program. Um, I don't know if there are district members that are involved in the selection of some of these classes, but if not, I would highly encourage you to do that. Um, I I think you guys have the greatest knowledge as to what's needed rather than just have ASU say, "Here's your courses." Um, I I hope that's being done. Um, with that, I would also like you to I' I'd like to encourage you to be a little more selective on some of these courses. I looked at a couple of them and I was really, you know, these are social activist training courses as far as I'm concerned. Introduction to social transformation. Uh the course examines social, political and cultural constructs, differences, the relationships
135and intersections between race, gender, sexuality, and disability. If you can point to a career path that that's viable for students to spend money and pursue at Arizona State University when they leave here, you should do that in in their counseling. But I can't for the life of me figure out what that would be. Another one, Resilient American Futures, an academic road trip. Learners are going to We're going to study Interstate 10. It provides a living observatory for understanding present, the present, and envisioning more sustainable and inclusive futures. I don't know how a strip of concrete does that, but okay. Uh learners are going to investigate how lives, communities, and ecosystems are impacted by climate change, social inequity, and other forces. Again, this is this is not what students should be going to college to learn
136in my opinion. You know, we see a lot of this DEI stuff. We need to eliminate it. Um, again, a lot of great things here. I don't want to bash it, but I I would just encourage you to please please be more selective in the courses that you're going to offer the students. Thank you. Madame Chairperson, members of the board, I'm speaking on item 10F, specifically regarding curriculum. In emails that I sent on April 22nd regarding curriculum, Dr. Andy Foris researched and reached out to the owner and the co-founder of the firm in which I work and sent this email. Mrs. Sylvester and Mr. Ferraro. I've received lengthy, inaccurate, and inflammatory emails from one of your staff members using the Ferrar group email address regarding school district matters. While I have met with the employee
137as a parent of students in our district, I am wondering if the email messages are representative of your public relations firm as they are coming from your firm's email address. Sincerely, Dr. Foris, Andy Foris, doctorate, superintendent of schools, Mesa Public Schools. So my concern is I'm just a parent. If Dr. Foris felt the need to look at my bosses and try to get me in trouble at work because I disagree with some things and have spoken at a couple of board meetings, what type of unethical or intimidation tactics is she doing to your staff members and to your teachers? I encourage you as a board to look at the emails that Dr. Foris has been sending. And I'm I'm concerned about the superintendency members that remain. Are they victims of the same intimidation tactics? Are
138they perpetuating the same unethical practices? Dr. Forless, if you have any questions about the email that I sent, if you believe they're inaccurate, the information was from the EVIT board meeting and is from Marlo Lauria, so you can ask them about any inaccuracies that you perceive. Thank you for your service, board. [Applause] [Music] We will now move to the review of agenda. We will 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. Do I have any? Thank you, board. For those that um did give us a adequate time to pull yesterday. So, thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the Sorry, we're moving on to personnel request.
139Do I have a motion to approve the personnel request including the addendum? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? Yes, Madam President. Um on the addendum, um there are a few appointments that I've had parents from Mountain View reach out to me with concern. The um appointment of Jennifer Eckles as an administrator on assignment, uh Heather Horn as the assistant principal. The concern is that with the um challenges that Mountain View has faced this year, they're concerned about leadership that um may not have high school experience, that may not have recent classroom experience. They don't have any personal animus towards either person that's being um put at Mountain View and in their leadership. But there is concern that perhaps they don't have high school experience. And with the change and the
140um excitement that's happened over the last several months, I I just wanted to voice their concerns and make sure that we're we're really ensuring the proper leadership at Mountain View. Thank you. Any other comments? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please do we have anyone that's gonna respond to board member Benson, Dr. For? Uh, Madame President, members of the governing board and, uh, board member Benson, uh, just to share some information that, uh, Heather Horn has had recent classroom experience. I'm sorry. Um, Mrs. Horn has had recent uh classroom experience as she was a teacher and uh also an instructional coach at Hermosa Vista and Jennifer Eckles has extensive experience in secondary education. You know, I do have a question. Um, with with appointments, these are these are temporary temporary um positions, not positions. The
141per a person is temporarily appointed to a position, but at some point they have to apply to keep the position. Is that correct? to begin. Uh, Miss Horn went through an extensive interview process, right? Uh, that includes finalists going to the superintendency level for an interview. Um, and the committee or the panel recommended her for employment. The individual, Miss Eckles, it is a one-year assignment next school year only. Uh but she'll remain eligible to apply for other jobs if she's interested. Mr. Wing, let me clarify one thing on that. Uh that that that position is in lie of an instructional coach position. Yep. Correct. So it's not an added FTE at Mountain View. Correct. That is correct. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Just I didn't have questions, but as the comments went on, I thought of
142more thought of some. So um thank you for that. Thank you. Any others? I can um uh say that in discussion with superintendency um in previous to the to the um meeting today, I have been assured that we have the best candidates. They went through an extensive interview process. They have been selected. Um and I I know Miss Eckles personally and I know of her incredible experience um as an historian and as a district leader. And I'm very excited that she will be at a site level at this point um and that um and Miss Horn um is um very highly regarded and having um met the qualifications and having been um interviewed is is as is a very capable leader and I'm I'm very um assured by uh their selections and I wholeheartedly endorse
143them. Again, I'm simply bringing forth concerns that parents have expressed to me that they want to be assured with um Mrs. Horn in particular. Like I I know Jen um well, a little uh I don't know Mrs. Horn. I do know that she just started in education in 2019. I'm assuming she has other background behind her which uh will possibly bring uh a wider viewpoint and perspective. So I just think it's our job as board members to represent our constituents and bring forth concerns or questions that they have when they have them. So thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? Miss Kirby, I vote in the affirmative. I'm not getting anything on my screen. With a vote of five yays, we have approved the personnel
144request including the addendum. with the tonight with tonight's approval of the personnel items. We have one employee to recognize a memoriam and one incoming principal to recognize Dr. Forless. All you Thank you very much, Madam President, members of the governing board. I'd like to uh share a little bit about um Mr. William Janisik who was a a custodian in our school district and we are recognizing him as inmemoriam. Bill worked for Mesa Public Schools for over eight years in total, most recently as a part-time custodian at Franklin Accelerated Academy at Bremhal. Bill was a very generous and kind man who had a smile and was happy to help anyone. The staff always knew they could depend on Bill if they asked him to do something, and he was always volunteering for odd jobs when he
145saw something needed to be done. He went above and beyond in everything he did, and he will be greatly missed. [Music] And I would also like to ask you to join me in front of the dis so that uh I can introduce you to a newly appointed principal. So, Blanca Morales, please come join me up at the [Applause] podium. It is my pleasure to introduce Blanca as the incoming interim principal at Lindberg Elementary. Blanca is currently serving as coordinator of teaching and learning. Blanca began her career in education in 2011 as a high school biology teacher and has served as an instructional coach and district educational technology integration specialist. Blanca has a bachelor's of arts degree in secondary education, biological sciences from Arizona State University and a master's of educational leadership and policy studies from
146the University of Texas at Arlington. She's currently through both a comprehensive exam sta currently going through both the extensive exam stage of her doctoral process and her proposal defense. She's got lots of time to be a principal. You see this Mesa Public Schools is excited that we anticipate calling her Dr. Morales in the very near future. So, Blanca, congratulations to you and I know that our governing board would like to hear a little from you. Okay. [Applause] Good evening, Madame President, members of the board, superintendency. This feels like a full circle moment for me. So, I wanted to take a second to just share a little bit about my story. My family immigrated to California when I was just 5 years old, and I can still remember the struggles of navigating a new country and
147learning a new language. But I was fortunate enough to have educators around me that supported me with warm demander. And they fueled a fire inside of me to one day be just like them. Years later, I had a similar experience when my family relocated to Mesa, Arizona, where I lived in the Lindberg community. And I also went to Mesa Jr., graduated from Mesa High eventually, once again being supported by amazing, passionate educators that set up the conditions for me to learn, grow, and thrive and continue to fool that fire inside of me. Now, three years ago, I had an opportunity to work for Mesa Public Schools as coordinator of teaching and learning. And when my colleagues would ask me, "How's the transitions going?" I would always just say, "I feel like I'm home." Mesa is
148home. Makes me Mesa feels like home. But nothing feels more like home than serving the community where I grew up in where my nephews the school that my nephews graduated from. And I'm honored to be the next principal at Lindberg, the principal of Lindberg Elementary to work side along the passionate educators and the families there and continue the great work. So all I have to say is go Lobos. [Applause] [Music] different family with you. And I know that Blanca has some family. This is the time for you to come on up and we're going to have you join for a picture. And what you are seeing is the work family joining her right in the spotlight. One, two, three. [Applause] Congratulations, Blanca. We're super proud. Can I take a point of uh just privilege for
149myself because I asked about appointments and I was thinking of the interim jobs. So when I said the appointments of the temporary ones I meant interim so that just want to clarify that that uh because I think my question was I said the wrong word but uh that's what I was thinking of when I said temporary was interim versus appointment. So sorry for that mistake. No problem. Thank you for clarifying. We are now moving on to our consent agenda. All items will be considered as a group and will be approved with one motion. If a board member would like to spotlight or comment on a consent agenda item, please do so after the vote. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda item or consent agenda according to the recommended action for each
150item? So moved. Do I have a second? Seconded. Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? I need my gloves. There we go. That was a huge toy. With a vote of five. Yay. We have approved the consent agenda items according to the recommended action for each item. Now we will Madam President. Oh yes. Um, may I uh I'm hoping that in our budget discussion later, one of the uh things that is in our consent agenda is the availability of being able to move uh money uh in the budget from different subsections to a different subsection without changing the uh budget amount. So, I'm hoping that we can get some clarification on what that is going to what that potentially would look like or an example of when that might be put into place. Okay.
151Anything? Thank you. We will now move into our action items. Do I have a motion to approve naming naming the Westwood High School hallway of the 70s, 80s,9s building the Jane Dutch Pagel Community Learning Hall? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Any discussion? Can I just say as my discussion this is a tender moment for me as uh I look in the audience uh oh wow I didn't expect this but the pagles are dear dear people to me. Um they were actually Mr. Pagel was one of my teachers. Jane St. Jane has been there forever and so literally cuz if I was there it was a long time a but um anyway just so so grateful for their influence in the Westwood community and and all she has done for our
152students at Westwood High School. Any other discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? That was much faster. With a vote of five, we have approved the naming of Westwood High School hallway of the 70s,8s 90s building to the Jane Dutcher Hegel Community Learning Hall. Dr. Gilmore, I know this item was your request. With our approval, will you take a moment to highlight why you made the request and recognize Mr. Mrs. Jane Dudger [Music] Paggel, President Davis, members of the board, superintendency, this is a special night. It's rarely that we get to honor someone of this statue that is a model in education. In 1987, Iowa's gift of education to Arizona was Jane Dutcher Paggel coming to Mesa, Arizona. And she came and she was a special education teacher at Parkway School.
153And I want to ask, how many people know where Parkway School? Oh yeah, a few hands up there. Two years later, legendary principal Jack Joyce took oh my god took the dare of integrating and making part bringing Jane Dutcher Pagel over making our school having our special needs students come to a comprehensive campus and learning on a comprehensive campus because it's important to know that these students are part of our community. They're part of our city. they're part of our school and educating not only the students but the rest of our student body about the beautiful students and the the community members of the Westwood community and that moved on to you know now all of our schools you know we have our special needs students on there and Jane has just been that uh
154you know that warm embodiment that warm you know just showing what the possibilities are for our students getting them ready for careers and community um out there we got Leroy up here just one of our favorite students And I know that. But to know that for 36 out of 38 years in Mesa public schools, Jane has served the Wastewood community, starting unified sports before that was even a thing. She was a cheer coach for 11 years, co- co- uh department chair uh um at Westwood High School in our special education department for years and years. A respit worker at nights and on weekends. And I don't even want to ask how many families she just served on the weekends and and at nights just to make sure that their families are being met every morning.
155If you want a special moment to start off your day, start with Jane and the other applied teachers at the buses and just welcoming the students off and into our community. It's the greatest thing seeing Leroy and all the kids come off and giving hugs, high fives. But um what Jane has taught us all is that our students are special. They taught us more that you know we're bigger, that our our community is just mean something and that Jane has just been that educator, that role model, and we're going to just miss her dearly at Westwood High School. And I know she has said just a uh um a strong message that all students uh uh need a comprehensive education and um I can't thank Jane for that. I know her husband Ross has been
156in uh Mesa public schools for a long time and at Red Mountain um has a son at Red Mountain, a daughter that's a teacher at Mendoza. I know her best friend Jackie is here tonight. I know a lot of the special ed staff are here and you know it's welld deserving. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this uh great honor and it's just a special night for Mesa Public Schools to honor Miss Jane Dutcher Pagel. So come on up. [Music] [Applause] I am not gonna talk. We do want to shake your hand. Come on. Can I get my family? [Applause] Come on everyone. Oh my goodness. Get over it. [Applause] I've got to go back down. Did you make sure you were Wow, that Jack being here and and Chris said I didn't
157even know he was here. Wow. Mommy. Okay, we will continue on with our action items. [Music] Do I have a motion to approve the 202425 revised budget in accordance with ARS15-905E? So moved. Do I have a second? Seconded. Any discussion? Yeah, I So I do have a question and it was um Is my mic on? So it was uh this might be for uh Scott Thompson. the it was brought up in the public comment this student number this uh staff change 256 to 298. Do we have any um comment on that? Was that a is that a staffing change? Do you want the page? Uh that might be helpful. Yeah. Pardon? Yes. Oh, yeah. So, it was on it on the Excel spreadsheet. It's it's page three on the Excel spreadsheet and it's over in
158special education. It's uh item 2000 support services and then under there there it says uh the different items uh students. Let's see it's number six 16 in that second box. Was that a staffing change? Um oh. Oh, there he is. Maybe Ken's got it. Okay, Ken, good question on that. Um, yes, and we're looking at those FTE positions. You know, we've been doing a lot of cleanup in the HR department and some of those things we had contracted services that we're paying people to be on site. So, they weren't hitting our FTE count, but we're starting to pick those up because we do have those positions being filled on campus. So, we wanted to make sure we were picking up all of those things. So that's some of the reasons for those 2100 coded um
159ones being picked up that maybe weren't picked up previously. So it's not a change in staffing, just a way of kept capturing that data. I see. So you you added contract contractors to the the full full-time employees. So we didn't we didn't add any contract we just counted them now where previously we were not counting them and Justin we had some discussions on some. So it's just uh the way we the methodology in which we use to calculate the number of positions that are funding that particular function. Mr. Wing correct for multiple years we use uh contract agencies to staff and we didn't really account for those um that allocation or the FTE and our position control inventory and so we made sure we add a component on that. So, we're budgeting it through the
160position side versus purchase order side. Okay, that makes sense. I I appreciate it. Thank you. And then just I I I was looking at the positions and the staff to student ratio and it it did look really decent uh to me when we get to, you know, when we have these positions versus how many students do we have. It it looked good. But that one did look jarring when you don't understand the the data. When it was brought up in the public comment, I didn't know the answer, so wanted to make sure we we got that out. Thank you. No new funding, no extra expenses, just making sure we have that in our inventory. Yeah. No, I I understand that. And I think we have to continue, you know, with enrollment. I know we're going
161to continue to be really vigilant and looking at staffing, looking well at everything, right? And we've got to be really flexible. I know the state budget's not done yet. So, we don't even know what next year's budget is. And then we still have Prop 123. So I I that makes it's probably I think going to be better to look at it that way. So you're really looking at how many people do we actually have in these positions. So that that makes sense. That's all I had. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah, I had made um when we in our consent agenda approved the ability to move from one uh subsection to another. Could I get an example of when or what that might look like or is that a challenge? Madame President, member Benson, um
162yeah, I would direct you to if you go to uh page one of the budget and you looked at, for example, line 12, uh we have a total budget in there of $2,530. If we were to spend $2,531, we would have an audit exception unless the board gave us permission to overexpend that specific line item. So, as you stated correctly uh in your comments, we will not and never have overexpended the overall budget, but there may be a situation as we finish out the budget. We always say the budget is an estimate. Remember, your AFR is always your most important document because that shows real expense where it's actually at, but that comes in the fall. So, this is our best guess in May as to where we're going to finish out in July. And
163sometimes we could get it wrong. So, we have to just have your permission to be able to overexpend a line item if needed, not to overexpend any overall budget. And so, that small amount there would be a great example of where that might happen because we just spent $10 more on tax or something and it's and it's, you know, we just don't want to end up with an audit finding for that. Okay. Thank you. Does that make sense? Yeah. I just want I mean because I know there's several uh buckets of money that cannot touch one another, right? Um, but this is our overall M budget and within that within the subcategories subcategories that's all we're talking about, right? Okay. Thank you. Um, in our public comment, we had a um Mr. Deer mentioned the
164um enrollment of students from outside um the district boundaries. Um we have a policy policy 5-105 on open enrollment and we have a procedure as well. Um could one of the um members of superintendency explain how um a a student who is enrolled in Mesa public schools in open enrollment how the the um district is um how that student is funded um through state funds. Um do you want to try that one Ken or do you want me to try it? Thank you. So, um, how is how is a student that is open enrolled provided for? And how and how is how does the district um reimbursed for a student who is not in the Mesa district? Well, a lot of different ways. I know. A lot of different ways. A lot of different ways.
165And so, and not and the statement isn't completely off. So I want to say remember we as a traditional public school district receive some of our money from the state whereas charters and vouchers are 100%% state funded. So we do have local funds committed too. Um and a portion of that could in effect be affecting uh by open enrollment. So, um I can't say with complete certainty that you're not seeing some of your local taxpayer dollars, but I think as Dr. Stum has shared, we have kids coming in too and kids going out and uh I'm I'm not going to say I could do that math this evening. So, I don't know if there's anything else to add to that, but you know, there there is a bit of a local commitment to all of
166uh the funding of our school district. And so our taxpayers are invested and um and there could be some impact by that open enrollment. Yeah. Just want to add this guy. The way I like to put a quick example on it is there are school districts out there that get no equalization money from the state because their local property tax dollars generate enough money to where the state doesn't have to kick any any money in. Example of a school district like that's Cape Creek, right? So in a school district like that, when a student comes in a from outside the school district, 100% of that tax burden is on the local taxpayer to cover that. But there are policies in place that clearly delineate that Arizona by law is an open enrollment state and that
167we have to have policies and procedures to accept open enrollment. And as long as we follow those policies and procedures to accept open enrollment, we have to accept them. And so uh we also have by the way open enrollment capacity pages uh and that's required by law as well that tell us when a school gets to capacity and we monitor whether schools get to capacity both at an enrollment level and then also at a programmatic level. So let's say for instance a specialized program specialized educational program on a campus gets full. We can then turn to the open enrollment dashboard and say hey we're closed open enrollment because we have no no more capacity in this educational program. All this is delineated by state law. And uh then there's the example of the other situation
168where districts have so little property tax that the that that the whole general fund, the state fund picks up everything. And in those districts and in those districts, what happens when a kid opens and rolls is the state picks up that open enrollment. And so for the state as a whole, it ends up being pretty much a wash as these kids move in and out of school districts. Isn't that from Oh, I just wanted to add that one of the things we've mentioned before and I think this is a great opportunity is if you think about choice and you think about the evolution of how funding in schools has happened in Arizona, this is a great example of where 100% state funding with a charter funding formula for our traditional district would be not only
169a a boost to our budget, but would address this inequity of of traditional schools having some local base whereas everything else having having state level funding. So it is kind of it is it is a historical uh thing that has grown and and we're still kind of playing in the old system where uh the choice has grown and and the state has funded that at 100%. That's that's a really good comment. I I actually think you should just fund they should just be funded the same and not have to rely on those local taxes. But I just wanted to add that I think, you know, with with the changes uh that, you know, that we're making, especially in our high school level, that I feel like Mesa is giving that message that we welcome everybody
170to come to our district. And I think with the changing demographics, with students that have left, that in order to keep schools open, we still need students. So, I think that having uh in a declining enrollment district, having students from other districts come in will actually have the reverse effect and probably have a positive effect on the district where we have the enrollment numbers to justify keeping our schools open. It's another way to think about it as we go into the future. But I I um anything that we can do to help get that message out too about uh funding and um you know work that the board could do or work we could do with uh lawmakers we know. Let us let us know. Any other discussion? Seeing none, excuse me, Miss Kirby, will
171you please take our vote? With a vote of five years, we've approved the 202425 revised budget in accordance with ARS 15-905E. We are now moving to C. Do I have a motion to approve the Arizona State University universal learner courses agreement? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? I just have a couple of questions. How does this create more learning opportunities for our students? I don't know. This question I'm directing toward Dr. Graceless member Chaffy. Um Madame President, members of the board, these offer um college level access um courses to our students. So students would be um able to provide or would be able to access courses for dual enrollment um some concurrent enrollment and early college credit opportunities for our students. Madam President, can I ask a follow-up question? I
172will and also just as discussion for the board. I really appreciate the access that this provides for our students. I like that students can take this class and pay a small fee, like a $25 fee, and then once they've passed the class, then they can pay a larger fee and actually earn the college credit. And I think that's a really great opportunity for our students. It really sets them up for success. My question was, do they also earn high school credit for these classes? Yes. And so, um, in coordination with some of the comments from our public in terms of what access to which courses they would have, um, we would certainly be just like we do with our dual enrollment courses with MCC, we align those courses to our course catalog, our graduation requirements,
173um, students ECAP and the pathway. So, we would be doing similar things. Um, and so students would be able to earn um, opportunities for dual enrollment as we customize the the catalog for those courses that they would have access to. Do you want to go? Yeah, I've got some some questions. Uh, guess I'm next. I I know we we partner with other schools for dual enrollment, not just ASU. Um, is this is this the same as regular dual enrollment where uh you if you want college credit you have to pay the fee? Is that normally how it works? Yeah. So, for example, with our IGA with MCCD, we partner with Mesa Community College and students do pay tuition um for those dual enrollment courses. And so, um as you may have seen in the board
174memo, this is one um agreement that we are are pursuing with ASU. there is an additional one and that's because um ASU hasn't combined their options yet for um payment into an agreement. So this is the first one where it indicates that students would pay that fee. Um you'll be seeing another one coming along if if um you make the recommendation to I if you approve this recommendation um in which we would also have an opportunity to um have a flat fee of up to $250 for those dual enrollment courses and then we would apply our tiered fee system that we've we've put in place um I think with our junior highs this year and would be expanding that. So, if students were eligible for depending on what their income eligibility is, um what level
175fee they would pay, then we would support those um if they choose to um transcript that for college credit. Um and I have a couple more questions. I I'm not 100% sure exactly what what we're voting on because it seems like like these aren't the courses we're necessarily offering. So, are we just voting on the fee structure to partner with ASU and have this option or are we voting on these? It doesn't seem like we're voting on these courses. Yeah. So, this first agreement would be we wanted to make sure first of all that we have your support before we start doing all the work to align to our course catalog, our graduation requirements, our pathways, etc. So, this would provide us to start that work and start aligning those courses. And then this would
176be that first fee structure where students would have the opportunity if they chose to pay that $25 fee. So for example, um I always use the there's a class project management and many students want to um explore their career interests or their college pathway um success for their post-secary um their ECAP plan, etc. And so they could through this agreement pay that $25 fee. we would get to work over the next few weeks to start aligning those courses and then students would have the opportunity to pay that $25 fee. If they earn a C or better and they feel, hey, I want to you if there's a dual enrollment course, for example, that aligns to our catalog and they want to transcript that, then they could pay that $400 fee. Um, but like I said,
177we'll also be bringing forth another um agreement that would give us Mesa Public Schools that flat fee of $250. And so then that would also provide the opportunity to do that tiered fee system. So this agreement is really starting that partnership so that we can provide access to our students to those courses and we can start customizing them to align um to our course catalog to our district curriculum etc. And so on the ASU page for the ULC courses, you'll see there's a section there for high school specifically in terms of um how districts partner with them for the high school courses and it would be through a portal um similar to what we do with MCC for our DE classes. They only have access to those customized courses that we've aligned. Um I'm I'm
178assuming then this this would be this next this isn't the 2526 school year because isn't enrollment started for that last fall. Correct. Are we looking at 26? Well, yes and no. So for example, students right now can take any courses at any college concurrently and um get credit at those colleges, right? So they could earn early college credit. What we would be doing is taking a look at some of the courses that we may currently not have teachers that are appropriately certified um but would meet our graduation requirements for dual enrollment. So that would be an opportunity that um you know if there was a student that wanted to take a world language class for instance that could earn dual enrollment and we just don't offer it at any of our schools because we don't
179have the staff available that would be an example of where they could earn next year um college credit or dual enrollment those kinds of things. Okay. Um, so a couple of these courses that that are listed in the course catalog, uh, there well, one of them says the time requirement is 18 hours a week, which would be a lot for high school. Uh, I I don't I don't think I ever had a college course that was 18 hours a week, even in graduate school. That's crazy. And then like a couple of the courses, one in particular, but you know, they're uh fall under intersectionality, politics, uh critical theories, things that are uh on the academic theory side, not on the the science side, but it's sort of when you get into this area of academic
180theory that is too uh advanced and I think inappropriate for high school. Uh, and then also, um, after that, I've got some questions about about jobs with that. But just this first, before I get into more questions, let's answer this part. Um, are these the courses that are these going to translate directly to the MESA courses? Like, is Mesa saying, "Yeah, we're going to get into into gender and identity politics in high schools." Can you further explain this? Yeah. So again, we would curate um uh courses that would align to our graduation requirements that align to our college readiness pathways um and would provide access to those courses that would prepare them for that post-secary success. Um we talk about those high wage, the livable wage um opportunities and we would want to make sure
181that we are aligning courses that are going to help our students access that. And so we can certainly bring back um that curated list to you um prior to the start of the school year so that you could see the the um courses that we have started with. Again, we will align to those college and career pathways, perhaps some CTE certifications um and then again those college post-secary um aligned courses that would definitely um be in alignment with our governing board policies and and expectations. So what is this list of of courses and and and maybe it's not that that relevant but in the documents that we received. So I you know we have the the competencies but there's a link uh in this approval that takes you to this this course catalog and there's
182like a dozen or or so courses and some of them look really good and then a couple of them are are controversial. So, are these I still don't I don't fully understand how how we're going to use these courses. Are we teaching what is listed in is this are what's listed here in these courses going to transfer into the high school classroom? So, for example, right now we have um dual enrollment courses. I'm just going to use MCC as an example again where students can earn English 101 credit, right? it has to be higher than the courses that we offer in order for them to apply that university credit. So, if this recommendation is approved this evening, then our team would go to work with our high school teams and we would start customizing and
183aligning those courses that um are higher at or equal to the courses for example that we have in our course catalog that could provide that dual enrollment credit. Um we would also want to ensure that the catalog is aligned to our pathways and our college and career um so for example if students have interest in um uh I'm going to use statistics for example and so if there are courses there that they want to explore like I don't know anything about statistics and I would like to just learn a little bit more but I might be a little bit afraid of um a higher level math course that I might be able to um get dual enrollment credit four. So, it allows the opportunity for the student to really access a college level course and
184see if they're successful. They'd have the support of their teachers and their mentors on campus, um the mentors that are provided with ASU in terms of these courses. And so, it gives them that opportunity to explore. Yeah. And so, I don't quite feel like my questions being answered. Sorry. Do you want to hear again? I don't know. I'm just Can I ask a clarifying question? Dr. Reese is uh for a calc kid, a calculus kid who's on a campus whose teacher can't get Higher Learning Commission certified. Yes. Right. This would be an option for the kids to take calculus with that teacher and then do the work through ASU's program. Right. Correct. So that the kid could have an opportunity to get a dual credit while they're in our high school. Yes. So now let's
185ask that. Let me ask you a question in reverse, which is the couple classes that have been referenced tonight that are in ASU's catalog, do we have any intention of putting them in our catalog? No, we do not. Yeah. Okay. That that was my that was my question. Thank you. Apparently, Dr. Stum speaks board member Walden. So, so so so this is the hard part to that question. any per you know high school student it not associated with Mesa public schools could go out to ASU and take those classes I want you everyone to hear like if our kids go out to ASU outside of our domain and take the course on their own that's we have no control over 100% but we have no intent of bringing those classes that are referenced into our
186course category okay and that's what I was trying to get at because these our standards yeah it doesn't align to our standards I mean this one you know intersectionality is theory and oppression and privilege and like wait what we're not you know we're not teaching this that doesn't align to anything in our course count yeah but I just want to make sure it's not our our intent to add this kind of of subject matter it has you know and I don't want to censor anybody's college experience right there's all sorts of radical courses at every college and it's really you know up to parents I think whoever's paying for it really to decide you know are we going to let our student or does the student want to take these classes that's their prerogative and
187I I I completely agree with you Dr. Strom, like obviously a student can take whatever college course they want. We're not going to stop them. But what are we bringing into our classroom? And that's what's confusing is because there's this that course catalog. I some not these courses don't make sense to to come into our our classroom. There is kind of a a sort of still sort of some confusion out there about themies and the block scheduling that, you know, we're still getting from the community. people are worried we're just creating a pipeline to ASU or we're uh you know creating a way to bring sort of radical theories into the classroom and that's you know part of my questions I want to clarify and make sure that I understand what I'm voting on because
188I I don't don't want to vote for things like that that um that's not our intention and and we're not bringing these courses in. Um, and then my last question, when uh uh you said when you sort of package this and you you you create those courses and that's going to come back to the board, that'll come back for a vote. Is that correct? Um, I'm happy to bring it back as a vote and ensure that you can see all of the the classes that we've curated as as the catalog that then would be part of the portal that our students and parents would see as they're looking at registration. Yeah, I would love that. Yep. Yeah. Thank you. along that just with board member Walden with this agreement because right now I understand that
189if a a student takes a ASU course but it does they cannot get high school credit. Is that correct? That is correct. So now once we have this that would allow them to get the credit if it's one of the classes that we have approved. Approved. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I have a couple questions as well. So, um, mine, uh, you answered the, uh, my question is about the, um, fee. So, the $400 that's listed in this, uh, memorandum is only paid if the student wants college credit. That's correct. So, for example, if they register for one of the approved courses, they pay the $25 fee. If they earn a C or better in that course, then it's up to the student to decide whether they want to transcript it for dual enrollment credit.
190And if they do, then they would pay that fee. Okay. And then you mentioned that going forward, we're going to move it to 250. Well, so there's two options and ASU has not put together the two options in one agreement. So this is the first agreement. The second one will look exactly the same except that the other option would be that we as Mesa Public Schools would pay upfront a certain number of slots for example at a $250 transcripted fee as opposed to the 400. So we are committed to so many slots. For example, if we said, you know, from every high school, maybe there's 20 kids that we know are going to want to transcript for dual enrollment credit, then we would pay that flat fee. And then when students register and they just
191they get the C or better, let's say, and they want to transcript it, then they would pay the fee and we would apply our tiered fee level system. So, for example, a child who's responsible for 100% of any fee schedules that we have, they would pay the $250. So, it gives them a discount of the 250 versus the 400. Okay. So, the student and family are still going to be responsible for the fee because that answers my question as to where's that money coming from. That's correct. So, it's still coming from the family. Yes. Okay. Perfect. And then um the other question I had as I was reading through this is which of our students are going to be eligible to participate? Like can freshmen uh take them and do uh credit for what about
192junior high? Um we are not opening it up to junior high right now. No. Okay. Then I had a um the uh what was my other question? I had another question about um Oh, so it's my understanding that we have difficulty getting dual enrollment uh teachers that are currently staff members. So these courses would actually be taught by an ASU professor online. Is that correct? Perhaps. Yes. Uhhuh. With uh somebody on our campus, but the student could actually do the work at home. They could do the online course anywhere. Yes. And if we had a student or a not pardon me, not a student, a staff member like a calc teacher for example, uh maybe provide a little bit of assistance. However, so this kind of alleviates the issue that we have on some of
193our high school campuses. Absolutely. For providing dual enrollment across all of our six campuses. Am I hearing that correctly? That is correct. Okay. Then one last question because I we I got an email from a student. I don't know if everybody else from the board did uh but they they're heartily asking us to uh vote yes on this. Um but I want to know is it so they've taken a an au calls it a ULC class. They've done that and when they went to their counselor found out that they couldn't get high school credit for it. So can we make it retroactive if it applies to No. Unfortunately not. Bummer for them. That's all of my questions. Any other questions? Do we earn ADM for these students? The answer to that is as long as
194they're enrolled in the correct number of classes for us, the correct number of hours. Yes. Just one followup. Uh I know we had mentioned Mer Mesa Community College and ASU. And then what other schools are we partnering with for dual enrollment that we might see requests come from? So right now we only have an IGA with um Mesa Community College. So MCCD Mesa Community College School District has different districts that are aligned to their various colleges. And for Mesa Public Schools, that's Mesa Community College. Okay. that I think that's what I was thinking of because I was a little surprised at the price tag on this because I remember thinking like even when I was in high school like people did dual enrollment. It must have been through the community college. I did not. So
195you can tell I didn't didn't do it. Did some AP classes but not college credits. So um so this would um then move towards possibly having a similar agreement with ASU. And then are we gonna have that have that opportunity or look for opportunities to partner with other schools? Certainly. We're always looking for other opportunities to expand our our college level um access for our students. Yep. Okay. So, I have one more comment because there's so much concern over block schedule and um uh the impact it's going to potentially have on ADM and our budgeting. I could see this really being able to uh shore up those kids that their senior year they've got 24 credits going into their senior year, but if they could go I mean it's pretty pricey now to go to
196ASU. I don't know how much it is per semester now. Uh however, they could potentially take classes that align with senior curriculum and ASU get they could get their whole freshman year of college at 250 a course. That's a killer deal. Yes. And that's a way to because they'll see an additional agreement coming your way. Well, I mean I I think that's important that I to me this is a movement towards trying to uh resolve that ADM and budget issue that would prompt kids to stay for their senior year because like if it were me, I'd be like peace out. I'm out at the end of my junior year if I could go. Do you know what I mean? And for those collegebound kids in particular, uh, and one of the things that I've heard
197is that the MCC sometimes dual enrollment does not always, it transfers over as more elective type things and universities may not always take that credit. However, if it's an ASU accredited university course, generally speaking, those courses will transfer if they don't even if they don't go to ASU, right? Yes, that's sometimes the case. Not always, but that's why we want to make sure that we curate courses that um are a catalog that would offer those opportunities. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you for everyone's questions and answers. Um I think we're ready for a vote. With a vote of five days, we have approved the Arizona State University universal learner courses agreement. Before we begin this next section um on our action items, we I just want to take a moment to thank the members
198of the CCAP which is called the community curriculum advisory panel. We refer to them often as CCAP. Um, I just really want to thank the members of that committee that they are boardappointed. Um, we appreciate the service. We know there are lots of meetings that they've attended and we do really want them to know how much we appreciate their service on this committee and all they have done. So, with that, um, do I have a motion to approve the MPS case through six physical education curriculum documents? So moved. Do I have a second? Seconded. Any discussion? I just wanted to follow up with what you said and and express my appreciation for our CCAP members because it has been a lot of time and I appreciate that we've had a a great board discussion about
199improving this curriculum process and bringing it to the board. I really appreciate all the work that has been done and I think it would be really nice moving forward to have CCAP occasionally present to us so that so that we can hear from them and and hear their information and their perspectives. Agreed. Thank you. President, I'd also um like to thank the professional educators who designed the courses and those that are our district personnel as well as our school-based personnel. They wrote the curriculum. They are the experts in their field. Um and they have provided us with standard-based um exciting curriculum which is now going to be um much more understood by parents. And I think that's that's and and frankly board members as well. And um I think that's a it's a really important
200um tool to communicate what kids are going to be able to know and do. And and so I really want to thank also the professional educators who designed these courses. I have a couple uh questions. I um in the PE curriculum for K2 just as an editing uh piece the word and is doubled in the teamwork section. So that needs to be cleared up. But I'm a little confused on on the three to five three third grade through fifth grade under the teamwork section. Um there's I can apologize. I think that there's others. Uh I can say I'm sorry. I'm unclear as to why that's in PE curriculum and I wasn't part of the CCAP, but is that part of a standard? I didn't Mrs. Pangrazy, if you'd like to come and Courtney. Thank you.
201Because I I looked at the state standards and I was like, I don't see the connection. Oh, what a cute outfit. Deb Pangrazy is our element, our um PE content special. Sorry, getting late. PE content specialist and Courtney Dietro is um one of our teachers who's uh been instrumental in leading some of the work on the curriculum. A PhD design and I wanted you all to know too that it wasn't just the two of us that put this document together. Oh, sorry. We had five highly effective teachers working with us that were all state teachers of the year as well with many years of experience. So that's all put into this. And when we looked at this, we looked at the Arizona state standards as well as the national standards because we were told by
202our state people that we are going to be going with the national standards. So we tried to put it all together. So much of that comes out of the teamwork section in the national standards. So the teamwork section is more in the national standard than the state. Well, it's if you look at the state standards, it's and I don't know if you have it's really kind of confusing. It's all over the place and so many little oneliners and so we tried to make it all comprehensive so parents and kids could understand what they were learning. Okay. Then in the movement section for so I did try to look at the state standards and I was I I and I didn't have time to dive deeply uh as I'm sure CCAP did. Uh, I just kind
203of glanced. I'm like, what? Why is saying I'm sorry. I mean, I think it's an important It's how they learn to get along when they're and things happen in PE. They bump each other. They accidentally have an implement that they hit each other with. Oh, yeah. You know, it happens. Or they don't want to pick somebody as their partner. We have really wonderful ways of doing that so they're all comfortable. And learning how to say you're sorry is important and all that, especially when you're little. Well, yeah. I I totally agree with that. I just was like, why is that in PE? Um, and then under the mo meaningful movement, I'm also unclear on most of the um I can statements. It didn't seem to me like it actually like I was thinking movement. I'm
204not u bodily aware. So like I'm not the I don't remember how it was described, but as the physically I don't I don't remember now, but I was like I'm not that. Okay. Uh, which is probably why I didn't I I'm not seeing clearly the connection to like I'm thinking movement. I can swing a bat. I can kick a ball. That would be our motor competencies. Swinging a bat. Meaningful movement is more they enjoy it. They know why it's useful and they're going to continue to do it. So, it's more of the whole concept. So, trying to to develop a lifelong like a lifelong and like to be able to identify the benefits of it. So, it's kind of like mushing them to So actually swinging the bat, skipping, sliding, galloping, running, playing basketball, the
205skills are all motor competency. That's the first section. And then the other piece is what keeps kids involved and active for a So I must not have gotten that second part. Yeah, I'm I'm looking at my But but that is probably because your physical educators maybe didn't teach you correctly to make you enjoy what you were doing or I'm just not physically coordinated. But we give choices in our lessons so that every child feels like they belong and can do whatever we're doing. Thank you for the clarification. I just was not seeing it and I and I don't remember the term that's used in this in but it's physically something I don't remember now. Oh, physical lit literacy. That's it. That's it. Physically literate. I'm like, I'm not that. So, I'm not seeing this. Well,
206and that is even sometimes hard to interpret if you are in the profession. There was what one leader who was big into the physical literacy and it took a lot of years for us all of us to understand what he was really talking about. So, we tried to put this in our terms instead. Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, Miss and I would like to invite you all to join us in PE whenever you would like. Okay. Thank you. I think you'd have fun. Well, you and I had a conversation that when I was subbing, this the thing that I the topic I loved subbing for when I subbed in PE was bowling because I actually knew that. I knew the rules. I could teach it to him. And we have the right equipment
207and everybody's involved. There's no line standing. I loved it. When I had to teach some other sport, I was like, but we have ways to help you with all the other sports, too. Thank you so much. All right, will you please take our vote? For the vote of five, we have approved the MPS K6 K through six physical education curriculum documents. Do I have a motion to approve the MPS 7 through8 arts education curriculum documents? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? I have a really quick question just from a most of the um most of the uh it was mostly coral and um um band orchestra and in one of in the one of the sections is um composing. So is that like do are kids expected to actually compose
208a piece of um music and what happens if they um fabulous musicians but the composing piece is just our state standards involve uh creating music in addition to performing, responding and connecting. Those are the four artistic processes that the students are expected to learn. So under the umbrella of composing includes improvisation um creating their own simple rhythms um you know being able to demonstrate those rhythms. So, it's not really an entire full-blown like we're not asking the kids to write a symphony. Um, it's it's something that is at their ability level. Um, but allows them to enjoy creating their own music as opposed to just performing music that already exists. Y, thank you so much for that. Any other questions? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five
209years, we have approved the NPS 7 through8 arts education curriculum documents. Do I have a motion to approve the MPS English 10 AP seminar curriculum document opportunity opportunity to earn English credit? So moved. Do I have a second? Seconded. Any discussion? I just had a question Dr. Isles on how this fits into our sequence of courses and also I was curious which of our schools are offering this now. So we've offered this course for uh many years as elective credit and right now um Dobson and why am I forgetting Dobson and Red Mountain High School are offering um AP seminar. We had one instructor that was really embedding the English language arts standards and the other not so much, but the schools actually reached out to us to see if we could offer English credit.
210And so in in doing so, we needed to ensure that we had a consistent curriculum um across the board. And so we um got our teachers together and under Sasha Litenberger, our our English um English language arts content specialist, secondary content specialist, they've worked to um build that curriculum to ensure that we've embedded all of the English arts standards to meet that criteria in the new format. And so this is what we are bringing to you this evening um to offer it as English credit and it would be available to any campus. but it also would replace our honors course and it would also provide an additional opportunity for sophomores to have another AP course. So, does it offer a weighted credit then? Yes. Any other questions? Yeah, I had a question. I thought they
211had AP English for 10th grade. They used to it was only offered as elective credit. Oh. And so this is um because we revised it to ensure that all the English language arts standards that need to be embedded into that curriculum will be consistent across all of our campuses that offer this course. And so now we can provide the opportunity to um offer English credit in Mesa public schools if you so approve. Okay, I get it. Um so there was an one of our neighboring districts there was some controversy with one of their AP courses. it was seniors so most of the kids were 17 18 but they uh the board the district made the decision to make sure that the books that they were reading were disclosed and like a syllabus at the beginning
212of the year. Are we doing something like that too? Yes. So we are actually moving um to a consistent syllabus that all of our high school instructors will be utilizing in the future and that should provide all of the units of study and expectations for the course etc. I don't know if you want to add um Sasha to that. Okay. Sorry, what did you say? I'm just aligning with Tracy. Oh, okay. Great. All right. Thanks. And uh Dr. Eless, will I heard you say that this course currently was only an elective course at two high schools. Will this now be offered at all six or only if students have an interest and and there's enough enrollment? Yes. Okay, any other questions? I would just like to mention that that many of the skills are foundational
213to success in other courses. Um whether it's critical thinking, research, um academic writing, these are competencies that are going to going to only enhance um say the study of history and and the other social sciences as well. Um, this is I'm I'm thrilled that this this this foundation is going to be established at the sophomore level. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah. Can I make one more comment? I looked at the um AP uh site uh some of the big ideas and one of the uh under their equity goal uh it mentioned I I really think they're describing equal opportunity uh not equity. I think they I think the AP wants uh all kids to have access to being able to take high level. Uh that really starts at the elementary level. So I'm hoping
214that we're really going to be focusing on developing those foundational skills on elementary so that we have plenty of kids in 10th grade that can take an AP English seminar class and be successful. Yes. And that is our grad plus model and our K through 12 college and career readiness framework. Absolutely. We're going to be looking at all of those opportunities. Thank you. All right, Miss Kirby, I think we're ready for a vote. With a vote of five years, we have approved the NPS English 10 AP Seminar curriculum document, an opportunity to earn English credit. Do I have a motion to approve the MPS change makers one and two curriculum documents for SS 11 and SS12? So moved. Do I have a second? Seconded. Any discussion? I had a question about this course. You've heard
215me say a few times that I really like this class. I've really appreciated this being offered on our class on our campuses and I'm glad to see it kind of codified in this way so that we can offer it consistently. This is one of those Academy Core classes that isn't CTE. Is this a course that could be Well, let me re ask this. Do we offer any academy core classes that are that have a weighted GPA associated with them? I don't think for the No, not for the core academy courses. Could we look into the option of maybe change makers offering that option? Because I know that for some of our students that's really important. I had a few parents reach out and say it's one thing they're looking at as they're, you know, preparing
216for college is taking those those weighted courses. Yeah, also I could certainly take that back to our team and explore those opportunities for sure. Okay. Thank you. Um I'm intrigued by the concept of change makers and I haven't had any student personally that's been in it. Um but can I get an answer on the change makers that are studied? Are they change makers throughout just American history? Are they change makers? Is anybody here from changemakers? Yep. Nancy Limblam is our social studies content specialist. Um they are change makers throughout world history, American history throughout the past as well as the current. So do you uh are the students also exposed to um change makers that were negative say like Mao in China and his the red revolution? So most of the change makers that they're
217exposed to are the ones that they're interested in looking at, right? So there's a lot of choice that's embedded in this class. So it's a lot of student driven um um inquiry. Um and so they're mostly guided towards um positive change in the world. Um because that is the goal of the class is to look at posit positive change in the communities that they're living in. Okay. So that that and is that changemaker 2 seemed when I looked at it it it seems to be very very very open like a lot of Yes. Again it's very open for student inquiry and to be able to be left for their agency to be able to choose a path in which they are interested in so that they can research how they can make that change. And
218mostly it is designed to be a community base like the world that they're living in and how they're going to make a positive impact in that world. Okay. And can you um I think that's fabulous. I used to do that with my uh fifth graders in gifted um community problem solving. So I took them through the six steps of problem solving and had them try and figure we never got anything finished because I only had one day a week. Um but the can you also define for me like how are how are students taught media literacy and what a reliable source is? Sure. um media literacy. Um we are um looking at uh courses um and sources that have been vetted by the National Council for um history education and the National Council for Social
219Studies um and looking at those types of sources to be able to use those as a way for students to be able to vet sources and to be able to look at what is a credible source. So they have different standards on looking at credibility of sources. Um and and those are the sources that we're using in that class. So they're provided with criteria to say this is what a credible source uh is. All right. And uh you're directing them towards primary sources and those kinds of things. Is that what I'm hearing? Mhm. All right. Um and I think that's it. Anyone else? Any other questions? So and these are elective courses. This course is Oh, this is the core for the for the the public service academy. Okay. Just want to make sure I
220understood that. I feel like this is uh like as I've learned more about when I first heard change makers, I was like what what is that? It was months, you know, a long time ago when I heard that. I I I feel like there's a lot of really good things in here that maybe down the road we'll probably end up changing the name of it to something else that's less uh less confusing. Um so in guiding the students and you know as part of this this core course and and guiding them to uh to their areas of interest is it going to be more like open discussion like socratic method like what how are we going to help our students like you know find meaningful and relevant work? It's something that looks really um like
221it could be really open-ended. There's a lot of choices. So how are you going to help them narrow that down? So um it absolutely is done through um student- centered-based learning in opportunities like um socratic seminars and and structured academic controversies and the types of of of strategies that we use in a student-based learning um atmosphere. So those are definitely the class um these structures that we're using to actually lead them to these choices. The choices. Okay. Um so is this this one's offered at Mountain View. Is it offered at this? Um, it's at Dobson, Westwood, Mountain View, and No, it's not Skyline. It's Red Mountain. Uh, what's the Can I ask uh what the interest level is? Are we seeing strong um strong support for this area numbers? Yes. Good. I would just say
222that the the students microphone the students when they selected their academy preferences and they were placed inmies this was a class that they're opting into. So um yes that academy is filling it's filling up at all of our sites. And I also wanted to add to the question about the different careers that might be available through this pathway. Nancy just had the teachers together two weeks ago. uh it seems like a long time ago, but it wasn't. Um and they were really starting to dig into the curriculum and understand what they were going to be teaching in that class. And they're talking about embedding a unit at the start that helps them understand the different careers that are in the public space or public service space. So that theme would be integrated throughout the course
223as well so that they would have a good understanding of the types of careers and public service that are available to them. Yeah, there's a there's a lot the uh the non-elected roles, the elect, you know, we're we're on here, but uh even like just in government like it's like a lot of the the un unelected offices that are part of the public sector, they pay really well. So, I think there's there's a lot of opportunities for that. But even I think if a student maybe they don't, you know, they're not interested in the public sector. I think the ability to look and understand different populations and how to work with people to enact positive change is something that's going to be beneficial no matter what area of life you go into. So when I'm
224looking at these core competencies, I don't see in any way that this is going to pigeon hole anybody to a a career or the public sector. It's like there's going to be skills and things that you'd be able to use whether you're a a people leader or an individual contributor, private sector, business, whatever. Um things that are going to be really relevant for success in life. So, absolutely. Thank you. But I assume you embed problem solving into right. Yes, absolutely. Identifying challenges that currently exist. What is the actual root cause or underlying problem? Yes, absolutely. and criteria to select the best solution in order to enact positive. Yes. Change. Any other questions? Thank you all for your help and questions and discussion. Um, seeing no other questions, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote?
225For the vote of five, yes, we have approved the MPS change makers 1 and two curriculum documents for SS11 and SS12. Do I have a motion to approve the social media content creation pilot course? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Any discussion? Yes. So, I have a quick question. Which uh which academy does this uh course align with? I assume it aligns with an academy. Um it is actually an elective course that could be offered to any student in any of themies. Um I do think that there's clearly a strong connection to the digital media arts academy, but it would be offered to students in any of themies. Okay. What ELA standards are are going to be embedded in this? Because I I kind of feel like social media actually is
226kind of counter to real English language standards when so, you know, like if I'm using LOL and Well, there's a lot in our ELA standards that are not just uh classical writing standards. There's also speaking and listening standards. That's true. And so there's a whole lot of different communication standards that would be embedded into this class. So it is a it's going to be is it an elective or is it an English? It's an elective class, but it does embed a lot of ELA standards in it. So it's not it's not an English credit. It's going to be an elective credit. It is an elective credit. Okay. Yes. I feel like the students could probably teach this class already. Um, yeah. One question I had is how is this different from some of the other
227elective courses that we offer, digital photography, yearbook, video journalism that embed these same sort of skills. So, if you've um talked to teenagers lately, you know that being an influencer is often high on their list of desired careers. And there was a time in my life when I would have laughed at that being a viable career. But now I see that maybe I'm the one being laughed at because there's a lot of influencers making a lot of money. And uh so I think that there's a lot of potential there, but it's important for our kids to understand the the medium. And so in this class, it's really specific to how do you identify your niche if you want to be in social media? What are the ethics behind that? How do you generate revenue? And
228um what are some considerations for your own personal safety and your own how is that relating to your own values? So there's a lot of different ways that this course could go, but again, it will be embedding they'll be learning some technical skills. they'll be learning some ELA skills along the way. Um, I said in CCAP when I introduced this class that it's kind of like as a parent when you slip the veggies in the lasagna. Um, we're slipping a lot of standards into this class that I think will be ve very appealing to our teenagers. Yeah, I can see that. You know, this is this is a lot of what I do in my job and it's been great. My husband's office has an intern who does this work for his office and spelling
229never hits harder than when you make a spelling mistake for the entire public to see on your business account. So, I've really enjoyed seeing how that student who is a CTE student has really been able to apply those ELA skills. Um, you brought up a good point though about safety. Are we going to be requiring the students to have a cell phone as part of this course? And how are we going to make sure that we're keeping students safe in this course? Yeah, we're actually not going to let kids get on social media during the class period to do this. So, there's going to be a lot of learning about how this works. Um, but they will not actually be accessing social media during class. They'll be accessing some of the Adobe Suite products so
230that they can generate the videos and things like that. They'll be mocking up the text of the post and doing things like that, but they won't be getting on social media during class time. So, that would be up to them and their parents about do they want to go ahead and post those things and use that information. Um, there are opportunities within the social media space within our within Mace Public Schools. All of our athletics teams, for example, have robust social media accounts. So perhaps they might go intern or do some work for some of those things in a supervised setting. But nope, they're not going to be spending 90 minutes a day on Facebook in class or Instagram. I appreciate that. I think that it's it's a tricky thing because yes, I just dated
231myself because the kids don't use Facebook. So, um I think some things we also need to be aware of is like the state of Arizona has said that like state funded organizations can't have Tik Tok. So, I think we need to be aware of Tik Tok usage on there. And I think that we need to keep having conversations because to be able to process the analytics and look at those numbers, which is a great way for those students to apply their math skills, they do need to have access to an active account. And so, I think we need to keep having conversations. I have some hesitations about this class um for our student safety. And as a parent with kids with devices, it's a lot to monitor and it's enough to like get the homework
232done. So, I'm a little worried about also parents overseeing social media usage. I can see my own kids being like, I absolutely need to have Instagram now because it's homework. It's required. Um so, I just I'm nervous about this class. I understand that there's a lot of desire for it. Um, and I've seen teachers really effectively utilize some of these same concepts in their ELA classes, um, in their social studies classes. This one has me has me a little nervous about the ways that we can still keep kids kids safe and and protect them and offer this course. Yeah, I I understand that. I think that that's why um that safety, internet safety and digital citizenship is such an important part of the class. And ultimately, it's always a parent's call about which elective offerings
233uh kids sign up for. And I also think that knowledge is power because um whether we like it or not, at some point our kids are going to access social media. And I'd rather have my own kids equipped with knowledge and understanding before they do that versus not. So I think that there are some positive aspects to it as well. So one last thing, Mr. Sickles, with the um you mentioned earlier that uh you thought or My generation also would say it. You're making money as a social media influencer. That's just silly. Um, the reality is very few people make a lot of money. So, are we going to be able to provide somebody to come in and actually say, "Yeah, this is, you know, if you can find a niche, if you can find
234a a crowd, however, to to not set this expectation that, oh, you'll be able to make millions of dollars like several of these other people that are media influencers." Does that make sense? So, I I hate the idea of saying, "Hey, you can be a social media influencer." and maybe they can't. Well, does that make sense? The class is not becoming a social media influencer. It's social media content creation. So, I want to make that distinction because there's in a lot of jobs now being astute with social media is a requirement to have the job. So um it there's a distinction there and I think the teachers will help kids understand that's part of looking at the revenue stream you know and the people who do make a lot of money it becomes their life
235and they have to put a lot of of their personal self out there for other people to see. So I think all of those things will be explored in the class. Okay. Great. And you know what I just made the assumption because you said they all want to be social media influencers which is they they do but yes they they do kids do would like to do that you know. So, I hope this helps them learn about it. I I think the class will also help them learn that it's a very small percentage of the population that become social media influencers and you do have to have a different plan. And so, that's some of the diversity of the income streams that diversifying the income streams that they're going to be looking at some of
236those college readiness pathways that they're going to be exploring that you have to have a plan besides just being a social media influencer. So really, how does the social media content creation um apply to your post-secary plan for the the college that you're going to attend or the career that you want down the road, etc.? Yeah, that's good because not that we want to kill anybody's dream. However, reality does actually exist. Yeah. And just just on that that point too though, every everybody has a comm's team now like your your congressperson that used to have a research team, they have a communication team. And so like you can be an influencer for somebody else because a lot of people aren't running their own social media, but um any corporation, anybody that advertises, anybody that does
237business in the public in the public eye is going to have a comm's team that is doing um advertising has to be savvy about social media, trying to get viral ads. So um I think this is the kind of work that will will really help with that. I imagine this course is going to be really popular. Maybe that's just me. I'm like I I'm gonna stop by and sit in at one of the classes. Yeah. Are are Oh, you know, I think Marcy's gonna Mrs. Hutchinson had something next. I'll save my question. I just wanted to comment real fast and piggy back on what um board member Benson was talking about. Yeah, I um I I dropped into the digital I think it's digital media creative arts academy at um Westwood and I was a
238member of a podcast and and uh and this young lady interviewed me for about an hour and we had a really interesting conversation. So I so I said, "So you're going to do this as a as a career?" She says, "No." I went, "What?" She she said, "No, I'm going to be a cosmetologist. I'm going to own my own business." I said, "So how is this going to help you?" She says, "Because I got to be on social media to promote my business." That's and the be and the more effective I am getting my message out, the better my business is going to attract and and I'm looking at the the technical skills which are industry standard tools communicating effectively with purpose audience uh with language conventions um and and the rights and responsibilities that
239this type of opportunity provides you as as an entrepreneur. This this is some this is a skill that anybody is going to have to have. And she's smart enough to know that no matter what she's going to do, and maybe she won't do cosmetology, but if she's going to be an entrepreneur, she's got to be able to communicate and market her skills and this is what's th this is these this is the tool that's going to help her do it. And if she does it well, she's going to attract clients. So I I'm I was very imp impressed with her answer as to why she was involved in digital media. Thank you. Bordon Roman. Oh, I just had one more uh question about uh if this is a course offered to other districts or not
240or is this um going to be specific to Mesa right now? I don't really know the answer to that. I was curious. I could find out. I I meet with our East Valley um consortiums. Yeah. Yeah, we can ask and find out. I'd be I'd be curious. I haven't heard of um this elective at other districts. It, you know, it doesn't mean they're not doing it, but it does seem like something that just given the interest of kids today in in gadgets and tech and social media that there'd be a high interest in this. But, um I really like the uh standards that are being taught to. So certainly it's not uh just what we're talking about. We're going to yeah, you're going to be an influencer and make a bunch of money, but there
241are really good uh concrete things in here that I think will be important for anyone's anyone's development and just uh well said, board member Hutchinson. I think um those are really good example. So thank you all. Um I just want to echo what board member uh Chaffy said about the safety. I appreciate that we're embedding into this class also the safety factor because I do really think that that's something important that our kids our students are learning and they can teach us parents also um because I know I learn lots from my children but um I do think it's very important that we are keeping our kids and our students safe and teaching them the safety on on that um okay I think we are good and uh Miss Kirby we're ready for a vote
242I know. With a vote of five yays, we have approved the social media content creation pilot course. We will now move on to do I have a motion to approve the MPS freshman seminar AC30 curriculum document. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Was this a pilot course? I'm sorry. Say that again. Was this a pilot course? Yes. Um yes and no. So we had this course approved in the course catalog. We were using um already approved curriculum through career exploration this year in CTE. Um but the teachers have been coming together this year to refine that curriculum and the new format and with additional skills that parents and stakeholders have requested as well as students and teachers. Um and I assume this is part of the freshman ummies or the fast
243team the freshman teams the uh so is it a required course? Yes, it is. Well, we recommend and encourage it. anyone can opt out of the course but it is one of our recommended sequences. Okay. So this is taking place so some some campuses have career explorations some have freshman seminar. This is leveling so it's all consistent across all of Thank you. all of the schools. Great point. Any other questions? No. I just had one quick concern that was brought up. Um the resume building at 14 is a little tricky because you don't have a lot of things on your resume. Um and you know Google Docs makes it pretty fast to plug things into it. So one thing that I'm missing a little bit in this class is that pacing guide. I understand having
244the conversation about resume building. I think as we look at this and refine this process for these courses, I'd love as a board to have this and other courses come back and and present to us a little bit about what worked well and maybe Resume building is not a huge part of it, but I can see financial literacy and the partnerships that we might have with outside organizations to build that curriculum could be really positive. Now that you mentioned financial literacy, is it more a personal budgeting situation? So, I'm going to invite Rainey Brown who's um one of our content specialists that's been working with the teachers in the development of this course. Uh hi. So, uh could you repeat your question? Yeah. financial literacy. Is it more looking at here's how you establish a
245budget and what are your priorities? Is it a personal or slash like if you're going to be a small business person that kind of financial literacy versus uh versus uh economic systems for example? Uh yes. So according to AD's uh uh career literacy standards that we followed for this document um they explore personal finance and then like you said like small business finance of how they would be able to um run a small business or have like a side gig or whatever they would like. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? Thank you. Yeah. Seeing none, Miss Kirby, we're ready for a vote. With a vote of five years, we have approved the NPS freshman seminar AC30 curriculum document. Do I have a motion to approve the introduction to visual arts extended pilot course?
246So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Any discussion on this? I just had a question about pilot courses. It says in here that as part of the pilot process, student interest and preliminary outcome data will be monitored to inform potential expansion to additional sites in future years. Will you be bringing that to the board? I absolutely will. I've been working with Dr. Mendes and Dr. Cooper who is uh developing this course and provided his units of study and has gotten feedback from his students and um the team at Skyline. Awesome. I think we'd love to see that for all these pilot courses so we can kind of determine as a board if they're effective and how students are doing in those classes. Well, and uh can I ask clarifying is this already
247being offered currently and uh and it we're asking to pilot it for a second year. That is correct. As I mentioned at the last board meeting, this is one that we identified that Dr. Cooper was playing around with the um standards in terms of the the art standards as well as being able to provide an opportunity for students who could dabble in the multiple medium of uh the various arts rather than um committing for example a whole semester or a whole year to one specific art. So how is block I I this is at skyline isn't it? This is skyline. So how has block because uh skyline was on block. How has that impacted the ability to be able to dabble uh in it? Because as I looked at the weeks, um they would be
248hardressed to get this in and and if they were meeting five days a week. So, how does how does block schedule impact the ability to actually utilize this course? I think it actually enhances it. We uh our students are allowed to take this course. um going every day on a block, they are able to dive into a couple of these mediums of art which won't expose all our kids to art as much as possible. um knowing that like the example the uh drawing unit I'll throw out there a student who takes that on the block is going to dig deep into into it for one two maybe three at most a fourth day and already two weeks into it almost and at that point they know hey do I like this or not and then
249next one comes up then it's painting and then it's you know the dab in jewelry or ceramics so it's really about creating a survey for kids to really experience visual arts on our campus we have award winners we just had some one young at art and so uh it's just something that our community is passionate about, our students are passionate about. We want to make sure we provide an opportunity for them to explore visual arts before committing to um like Dr. said a full year of painting or a full year of drawing or stained glass or whatever may be. This is really a survey course. We want students to be involved in the visual arts uh to see if they want to commit to a further elective on our campus. So, you're seeing a 90-minute
250block of time being more effective in them being able to complete a drawing, let's say, or complete a jewelry piece or Yeah. Abs. Absolutely. And I think uh it'd be similar to I would say when you're a science teacher setting up a lab, you know, by the time you set up painting, get everything get prepped, start painting. You're 20 minutes in and it's time to clean up and you got to wash brushes, clean up, put away in a block, they actually dig into the and they, you know, have conversations around their artwork of what they're doing. And uh it's just been a lot very beneficial for our students and uh our our teacher who's running it, Dr. Cooper's phenomenal. And um you know we're hoping the board would approve an extended pilot so we can
251collect some better uh better data on you know our kids progressing into another elective of visual arts. You know is there uh any retention in this program or are more kids signing up for it coming in? Those kind of things. So the goal is to introduce them let them dabble and then oh I love stained glass. I'm going to take a stained glass uh visual arts course. Yes. I hate stained glass. So, I'm going to draw. I hate it all. I'm going to do PE. Is that the goal? Absolutely. Okay. Um, Madame President, members of the board, this also provides opportunity. So, as Dr. Mendes says, to survey and then if they do appreciate one of those particular mediums, then they can move forward in their sequence of courses and also start perhaps um earning
252that seal of arts that the that the state designation has provided for us. Any other questions? I just wanted to comment. I really like that art history is in here because you don't really get art history in high school. And um you know, some of the things that these courses are exposing our students to. What I'm seeing tonight, it's you know, a lot of this is stuff like the finance one that even like lawmakers are trying to get through to make a requirement. We're teaching things and subject matter that is going to make our students so much more sophisticated when they come out of high school com compared to their peers. Like, you know, they're going to be learning learning topics that a lot of times people don't understand until they're in college. And one
253of the huge benefits about doing it now is that we're not going to waste their time and they're not having to pay for it. You know, one of the reasons the debt is so high is that you you meet so many kids and they spent six or seven years getting a bachelor's degree, which should only be a four-year degree, because they keep changing their major. They're not sure what they want to do, and the cost is so high for that. So, I feel like, you know, here's opportunities to explore so much more. and then you know doing it when you're younger then you also then have the opportunity with the additional electives in the block to actually do some of the work in high school and and either you know find something more that you
254like or that you don't like and then and then come out of high school much more prepared for whatever route you're going to take. So I I think this pilot looks really really good. So I'd like to see it extend. Thank you. I I think we call that competitive advantage and and that's what that's what our kids our kids are going to have. Um what I really liked about this course is that it will inform other educators on possibilities of multidisciplinary projects. When I look at when I look at the the content in here and you know and our art history is often times taught within the context of history. Um, but then to actually be able to have the experience of of painting. Uh, I saw that with the projects that the Westwood kids
255did when they were asked to do something that they'd never done before. Excuse me. And and and they were they were painting, they were doing wood blocking, they were crocheting, they were learning the accordion. I mean, uh, it it was an opportunity to to explore something that they'd never done. and and here to have a course where they'll actually taught those skills and then might then be able to apply it later on in an academy with a multid-disciplinary project I think is very exciting and um kudos to Dr. Cooper for for for creating this. This is I think a wonderful opportunity. Agreed. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you Dr. Mendes. Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five years, we have approved the introduction to visual arts
256extended pilot course. Do I have a motion to approve the MPS supplemental resources? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? I had just asked a question during my one-on-one with Dr. Forus about how we make sure that the supplemental materials we're using have high ESSA scores. And it came to my attention that things, you know, as things do change, things are changing in education and that the what works clearing house, which is what we've used in the past to make sure that the supplemental resources we're using are highly effective, um, is being disbanded. So, there was a conversation that the district's going to have to do a lot of work to make sure that the supplemental materials that we're using are are not just emerging, but are proven. Um, so just something
257that I think as a board we want to encourage the district to do is to keep doing that. I know that they'll do their due diligence in that and I appreciated that information. Um, I often things are so difficult in education and our our employees are working so hard to make those things um make sure that they're ready for our students. So, thank you for that work and we as a board really want to partner with you to to make sure that those materials are effective. Any other discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five years, we have approved the MPS supplemental resources. Do I have a motion to approve payment of warrants for services, materials, and payroll for periods ending April 25th, 2025 through May 9th,
2582025, fiscal year 2024 through 25? moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? Yes, madame president. Um I pulled this from consent agenda as I did the last meeting in order to one of the requests that I have is that when we are given our detailed list of payments that are made that we have a a memo so that we know we as a board know the um not only the who and the how much but the um what was this used for And uh that's not evident here. Uh I I think that's really important that we know the the why and the what for as well as the who and the how much. Um and in that vein, I'm concerned with one item in particular that's an $11,318 payment to the institute,
259I assume, for racial equity and excellence. So, can somebody tell me what that payment is for and what that was? I'd have to do some more research on that. So, that would be the I assume that when payments are submitted to the district for for reimbursement that we're requesting information as to the payment. So that's why I think it would be really important. One of our statutory obligations is to manage the budget and our finances and to use taxpayer money uh in a fiscally responsible manner. We can't really do that when we get a list of money paid out, but we have no idea why it's being paid, what it's for, what the purpose was, what the rationale was for even some of it, as I said last meeting is self-explanatory. So, if I'm paying
260SRP, I know what I'm paying SRP for. Uh, there are other things that are not they're not self-explanatory, like this. I assume it's the Institute for uh I I that's what I assume the abbreviation is. And this would align with I know we didn't have to sign the uh assurance to the because of uh legal uh the legalities of of lawsuits that have been filed. Uh however, this would be one of the issues and one of the things that would fall under a DEI that uh the public is opposed to. So, is it possible to get a memo? I obviously we can't do it for this meeting, but I really would like to see a memo line. We that they h I I'm assuming that I have to if I ask you to reimburse me
261as an employee or another person, we have to have justification for that. Is that correct? Yeah, we'll have to look into that one. I don't I don't recall this line item. So, I'll definitely do some more research. Okay. But my my question is when we for So, I I appreciate that, Dr. Eless, that for this specifically. I'm going to assume it's some kind of PD. Uh, however, I don't know that because I don't have a memo line that tells me why these people are being reimbursed. So, correct. And I don't know if this is a particular school or if this is a district level. I I don't recognize it. So, I'm I'm going to make the assumption right now that it might be a school. So, I'll definitely have to research. Okay. So then my
262question though is as a district when I submit something for reimbursement and payment I I have to give you a rationale for that. Is that not correct? We don't just pay people. There are processes for when we get an invoice for us to go through and make sure that services are provided and quantities of materials are are are appropriate for what we've actually received. There's warehouse processes that are involved. So if we order from Amazon, let's say, and it goes to our warehouse that we check off on the packing slip and say, "Yeah, we actually received these things that we're actually going to pay out for." Similarly, in services provided for professional development, there are processes where administrators uh and or administrative assistants who have ordered that through the PO process and the requisition process
263have to verify that those services were actually provided. Uh and uh so what I can tell you is with respect to the memo, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Alexander have been working on solution sets. We've been reaching out to other districts to figure out what their solution sets are with this type of request. And we're trying to find an optimal solution where where an optimal solution where we can be very efficient. Remember, here's here's the dilemma that Mesa Public Schools is going to be in for the next several years, which is we're going to be dealing with limited budget. We're going to be working very diligently with the school board to make sure that we reduce our administrative costs. We've committed to that. Uh it's something that in my interview process, I was clear that I have
264the skill set to come in and and and and execute on those things. But what we need to be really aware of is every time we get an ask like this for procedural stuff, it creates administrative burden. And so what we need to do is we need to sit back and say, "Hey, what's the most efficient way to get this done?" So Mr. Alexander, Mr. Wing, Mr. Thompson, and myself have a meeting coming up this week. We're exploring the solution sets. I think it's either this week or next week. We're exploring solution sets that we've learned that other districts deploy to get you that information. Um, and the question becomes, how do we do it with more and more limited personnel so that we don't create more administrative burden, we have less administrative burden to
265still get you the information needed. Now, with respect to the single vendor that you referenced out, I I'll defer to Tracy's response in that in a district of this size, Rex and POS get put in in a variety of places, and then the people that have ordered those wrecks and POS uh uh have to sign off on the fact that those services were actually provided. And when they do, it's going to show up on a warrant. And then when we discover that it shows up on a warrant like this one, I have to I'm on their website right now. I'm taking a note and going, "Okay, where did this occur from? Why did it occur? How did it occur?" and we have to go back and do discovery. But what we do know is this.
266A wreck was put in and what we do know is services were provided because there would have been someone verifying that those services would have been provided for that wreck. Does that make sense to you? That's why it shows up on a warrant. So there are checking mechanisms that by our auditors we have to go through a process and if we fail to check packing lists and things along those lines and they'll catch it in you know the auditing process and say hey uh you did not uh have proper protocols in place to make sure you had the actual product received for what was against the wreck. So are there uh again I'm going to perhaps it's an individual site. Are there um are there processes in place to ensure that any of our professional
267development is not um oppo is is like this is one of the issues with DEI, right? Diversity just for diversity sake, equity rather than um equal opportunity. uh racial racial essentialism that is the concern of many of our constituents. So is there not are is there a process in place that makes sure that none of our schools are having trainings that promote this because I'm just going to make the assumption it's a a training of some kind. Yes. So for example um we work with our area superintendents on uh for example they go through the comprehensive needs assessment and all of identify their needs. They have a theory of action. They create a professional learning plan and then they have action steps. And so at the site level it would be the principal who's approving
268those um professional learning stipens or requisitions and partnerships. And if it's a district-led um professional learning, then it would be our team that would be taking a look at all of those that come through and approving those. So there are processes whether it's a sitebased or it's a a district- based. And the only thing I'll add is uh just because the title of an organization is X doesn't mean that they provided professional development that it could mean could may also not mean so you know Arizona school boards association has many trainings right some of which you know may be something that that that that uh we would would align to business some of which may align to law some of which may align to educational uh policy and all I'm trying to say is we
269need to do discovery on why these service you know there's a company name okay what services were procured through that company name what was the professional development delivered we're assuming it's the professional development may not have been and we'll have to go through that discovery process so okay so I hear you saying that you're going to be working on being able to provide the why and the what for that money was spent for. Because again, you know, it's it's uh it's not only stipens that can get iffy as to how money from taxpayers is being spent. It's through um the warrants that we're paying out as well. Right? Our community wants equal opportunity. Uh and I think they they would wholly embrace that, right? Uh but I I again I'm I'm concerned because one of
270our statutory obligations is to manage manage taxpayer money and I just have a really hard time when I don't know why these are being paid out and it I guess I'm not seeing why it would be difficult to just type in electric bill for the month of May. So yeah and I want to jump in. I I mean I'm good I'm good getting a follow-up explanation um like in status or something about what it was. I I feel like like for me I don't like the name of it at all, but then if it was services that have already been rendered then we're kind of like on the hook for paying for it. So I feel like we like we're going to you know still if services are rendered then we'll pay. But with warrants
271in general, I mean, we have these every every board meeting, but like a lot of these, there's stipens on here, but the board has approved the stipen schedule. So, we've got different stipens paid out. There's hundreds of line items on here. So, but we verify like we confirm the schedule. A lot of these are contracts that have already been approved by the board, but aren't warrants. Just that sort of it's like payroll. It's like payroll for your your people and vendors. And so you have to I think the law says we we have to approve it but the larger approval has already happened in a sense that we've approved the contracts or the schedules. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. And and one one thing that uh I want to emphasize with your comment is
272ultimately the the people that will be held to account if money's misappropriated in a warrant situation likely won't be the governing board through this vote. It'll be through our audit process and just doing discovery on the business office side of things on where our errors were. It could result in accountability for someone like a chief financial officer or the assistant superintendent charge of business and could could result in accountability on behalf of the superintendent. Right? So uh I think the the hard part becomes that we need to sometimes trust our systems underneath us uh for doing the auditing they need in the warrant process and then discoveries on why are we spending money with this company can be done outside that process. But what I'm trying to honor is the fact that yeah, a lot
273of these contractual obligations that we're paying these warrants and checks for are stuff that we've already committed to and already gone through their own process, whether that be RFP or whether that be a a consortium expenditure or things along those lines. So the answer to your question is yes, they've been through processes already. And I just want to add too, there's multiple when there's one chunk, it could be from multiple locations across the district. So when we think of one line item, it could be 50 line items because it could have been a something at every school in a different way. Well, again, some of them I think are self-explanatory. I mean, you can even just say uh supplies, materials, you know, you know what I mean? Like there's a an item on here for
274ceramics. I just saw it. Okay. I'm assuming that's art materials, but we do have to have due diligence and make sure that uh we're not committing to paying for things that our community does not want and that we're using money uh appropriately. And I think if we can get more information too about what that line item's for, then we can make that assessment better as well. Like I think I I agree with you like we don't want to pay for things our community doesn't want. But since we don't 100% know what that line item is, I I I think I want to make sure we we get additional information and then we can I think evaluate a better solution when we have more information. Um I want to on on 573 Franklin Junior High spelled
275wrong. So, I'm I wonder if there's a way and something we could follow up with because we don't want to create administrative burden, but is there a way when this data is downloaded, is there an additional row that could be downloaded too from a system like uh you know, how did 600 cells get added to this Excel spreadsheet? Is there something else? Maybe there's just a box you can check that can download that additional data. you know, definitely worth exploring. Um, if if we can do that and have an extra line item to help see what it is. I mean, a lot of these things I recognize is, oh, yeah, these are vendors we've worked with, but obviously no one's going to go over 600 things every payroll, but we know that we've approved we've
276approved the contracts, we've approved the payout schedules. I'm I'm just um I would be troubled to to think that we for 612 entries that we'd have to have the explanation of every single one of these. Um that's that's administrative cost that takes money away from the classroom. So, I think we we maybe we can figure out as as board member Walden said that maybe there's a a mechanism by which we can um code it or something like that. But, um certainly um having been an employee in the district, I know how many how much paperwork I had to fill out to get reimbursement and many times it just wasn't worth it. Um and I and I just didn't do it. And so, um, um, I I just I I I think we need to be
277judicious about the the the accounting, but I I share I share your your concern. Um, and and I think board member Walden has has has provided some really good information. I might also say that there are a number of people in our community that do want this type of education opportunity. So, uh, it's a it's a sticky situation and, um, and I appreciate both of your, um, comments. Thank you. Any other comments? All right. Seeing none, Miss Kirby, will you please take our vote? With a vote of five years, we have approved the payment of warrants for services, materials, and payroll for periods ending April 25th, 2025 through May 9th, 2025, fiscal year 2024 through 25. And really quick, just before we adjourn, I just want to thank everyone that was here to help with
278our discussion and our questions as we went through all of our action items. Um, we really appreciate you being here to help answer questions. So, thank you. Um, and with that, do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? So, moved. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Seeing none, Miss Kirby, please take our vote. With a vote of five yays, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much for being here tonight.