TUSD1- June 9th 2026 Governing Board Meeting

001Uh, one, two, three. >> Loud. You got to speak loud. Use your outdoor voice. >> Testing. One, two, three. >> Oh, that's perfect. >> All right. Do you have any questions? >> No. >> By the way, you're welcome to stay afterward, but >> a lot of people don't. >> Yeah. >> You don't You're not required to stay at all. >> We're sure you sure appreciate that you came. Okay. So, you can sit anywhere. You could even sit up close if you want. >> And when when Dr. Ravi Shaw starts speaking about you, go ahead and make your way up here. Okay. >> Okay. >> Cool. Thank you very much. >> I just have to say, >> oh yeah, >> what do I have to say? >> I pledge algiance to the flag. everyone. I'll be

002here. I'll start saying it loud. Everyone will start saying, >> but nobody's going to read this along with you. >> So, make sure to project. >> And by the way, a after he introduces you, you'll read this and then the pledge. >> Okay, >> cool. >> Thank you. Good coaching. It's actually Yeah, exactly. Thanks for However, if I reach out They didn't I'm not I'm actually here. basically right Everybody I don't know. You want to get I'm description. That's I'm actually This is Are the You don't need Thank you. Yeah. Just like Elementary very first year. Very We This is That's the whole reason I went up there. It's okay. I was telling her, "You got to recognize Just don't mess with the Anyone would do that. Are we are we live? Jean, can I

003get started? Jean, are we good to go? >> Are we good? >> Yes. Okay. Well, good afternoon everyone. I'm gonna get our meeting started here. Uh, today is Tuesday, June 9th. And on this day in 1934, Donald Duck debuted on the Disney cartoon The Wise Little Hen. And today we celebrate the birthdays of some legendary actors, including Michael J. Fox, uh, J. J. Fox, excuse me, Natalie Portman, and Johnny Depp. And if you have a sweet tooth like I do, you'll appreciate it today is both National Strawberry Rhubar Pie Day as well as International Lemon Drizzle Cake Day. And finally, June 9th is also Coral Triangle Day, recognizing the need for ocean conservation and protecting our marine ecosystems. So, please do our part to help protect our oceans. Uh, Miss Bravoa, can we have a

004roll call, please? >> Miss Luna Rose, >> here. >> Mr. Rometo, >> here. >> Miss Shaw, >> here. >> Miss Extra, >> here. >> Dr. Robbie >> here. All right. We are all here this uh beautiful summer or almost summer afternoon. This summer vacation afternoon pencil here. Okay. All right. We're going to go on to our Len acknowledgement statement and our pledge of allegiance. And today we have Laya. Is it Nunes? >> Yes. Awesome. Who is a future soon to be fifth grader at Fruit Tendler Elementary School. Ala will be a fifth grader starting in August. She loves music, dancing, singing, and her favorite sport is driving her older sisters or older siblings crazy. She's very artistic. She is number five in a family of seven and loves all animals. What kinds of art forms

005are your favorite to express yourself? >> Um, I don't know. All of them. >> All of them. That's awesome. Uh, we'll start with our land acknowledgement statement and then our pledge of allegiance. And you can go ahead. >> Okay. On behalf of the governing board of the Tucson Unified School District, I Leila Nunes knowledgement knowledge that the school building and fat >> facilities of the Tucson wait of the Tucson Unified School District reside on the and ancestral homeland of the Tonohono Odum nation and free recognize that the tribe tribal land of Pasayaki tribe. >> Great. Thank you, Laya. I'm helpful sometimes. Uh and if anyone who can please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands.

006One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you for being here tonight, Leila, and have a great rest of your summer vacation. >> Dr. Dr. Trill, do we have any agenda adjustments tonight? >> Dr. Sha, there are no recommended agenda adjustments. >> Should we do our administrative appointments before the um consent items? >> Actually, yeah, let's go and do that because consent is long and we've got some staff that'll be speaking to some of those items. Yeah. >> Okay. So, we'll move item 6.1 and 6.2. Do we need to move uh 6.3? Do we have any um family members for 6.3? We do um we have Deb Summers uh will be available to speak to item 6.3. >> Okay. So let's move 6.1 6.2 and 6.3 to the following call

007to the audience. Governing board any objection? We'll take a un uh consent for that one. All right. So we'll move 6.1 6.2 6.3 to immediately following our call to the audience. Dr. the floor is yours for a student superintendent report. >> Yes. President Shaw, members of the governing board, welcome to uh the first of what will be back-to-back meetings this week and next week uh as the district uh heads into its summer season. Unfortunately and sadly, we begin this evening by honoring the memory of Mesana Laticia Arvisu um better known as Jolly uh a beloved member of the Tucson Unified family and familiar face in the Hollinger community. Anna dedicated more than 30 years of service to the district and to Hollinger, developing lasting relationships, and positively impacting the lives of countless students, families, and

008colleagues. She found joy in life's simple pleasures, decorating for the holidays, listening to oldies music, reading mystery novels, and cheering on her favorite sports teams. Anna will be remembered for her kindness, her resilience, humor, and vibrant spirit. She brought warmth and positivity to all those around her, and she leaves behind a lasting legacy of service, friendship, and commitment to children and young people. Above all, Anna loved her family deeply, and that love continues through the lives of all she touched. She will be profoundly missed and fondly remembered. On behalf of the Tucson Unified School District administration, I offer our uh deepest condolences and our best wishes in this difficult time uh for Anna and all for Anna's family. I'd like all of you to join us in a moment of silence in remembrance of uh

009TUSD family member and Hollinger staff member, Miss Anna Laticia Arisu Jolly. Thank you. We now turn our attention to one of the premier student exchange programs in the state of Arizona. We're talking about the Tucson Korea Ambassador Program. Students from Sawarro High School, Dodge Middle School, and Deetsz K8 are currently in beautiful South Korea as participants in this year's edition of the Tucson Korea Ambassador Program. Shortly after the close of this school year, our student ambassadors embarked on this two-week cultural exchange experience designed to foster global understanding, leadership, and cross-cultural connections. During the visit, students will be immersing themselves in Korean culture, touring historic and cultural sites, and of course, attending school alongside their TCAP partner students. The program provides a unique opportunity for students to broaden their perspectives while serving as ambassadors for the

010Tucson Unified School District and our community. uh as a big champion of this program. I'm also somebody who attended the program about seven years ago. I did serve as a chaperon and can certainly testify to the amazing impact that the experience does have on our students and the intercultural connections that they make with their South Korean counterparts. I have fond memories of visiting the schools and interacting with Korean educators and meeting uh Korean administrators and just really talking about the differences between our two systems. So, I know that this year's edition of our student ambassadors will represent the district well and we're certainly wishing them all the best in their travels and uh awaiting their safe return. Last week, uh, we kicked off the summer season with summer professional development for our administrators. So, while

011students are off enjoying summer break, our administrators are hard at work making preparations for the upcoming school year. And on June 2nd and June 3rd, uh principles and our curriculum service providers, which are, uh, on the ground, um, professional development coaches that we have for teachers and staff, they gathered at the Howenstein Professional Learning Center for summer professional learning sessions. The training included a wide range of topics designed to strengthen instructional leadership, including professional learning, community refreshers, adolescent literacy strategies, and preparation for the district's high school mathematics adoption. These learning opportunities ensure that our lead our school leaders that they're equipped with the tools, knowledge, and collaborative support needed for a successful 2627 school year. And last week, uh, one of the most delightful events I've been able to attend all year was the Boys

012and Girls Club of Greater Tucson Youth of the Year celebration. Uh, I'm on June 2nd, a few members of our leadership team did join me um as we journeyied out to the Homes Tuttle Clubhouse and uh, we attended the Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year celebration. And one of the things that I think we don't do a good enough job messaging to the community is just how strong the partnership is between TUSD and the greater boy the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Tucson and all of their clubouses. I think a lot of people don't know that we provide the meals for all the kids that attend the afterchool programs and the summer programming for the Boys and Girls Club. and we do cover the tuition for every TUSD kid that attends any

013of the clubhouse um and its programs after school. So, the Boys and Girls Club has never uh charged our students tuition and a few years ago we stepped in and we said, "You're doing such amazing work. You should not have to take a financial loss." So, we do cover the cost of all of our students. They serve as a great force multiplier for afterchool care for our students uh beyond what we can offer through our community schools programs. And lastly, through the efforts of our transportation department, we've doubled the amount of uh vans and routes that will be taking students from campuses to the six clubouses located throughout the Tucson Unified attendance boundary. So, it's one of our strongest programs. We're very proud of the work and as always I invite any of our governing

014board members to go tour any of the wonderful clubouses to see the work that they've done. But on that evening, I'm proud to share that 10 of the 12 students recognized as clubhouse uh youth of the year recipients were Tucson Unified students. And we have to recognize that at these clubous there are students from TUSD, from Sunnyside, from AI, from Flowing Wells. And it was almost a clean sweep of TUSD kids winning youth of the year honors. Each clubhouse selects a youth of the year and a runner up. And so out of 12 possible winners, there were 10 that were TUSD. And throughout the evening uh we all got to hear their inspiring voices, stories of perseverance, of leadership and achievement as well as firsthand accounts from from the students about the positive impact that

015the Boys and Girls Club has had on their lives. Uh, TUSD, as I mentioned, we're a strong partner of the Boys and Girls Clubs. And I want to thank uh the interim COO uh CEO Tony Penn, who we know from his work um uh working with us in his previous role with United Way is providing some exceptional leadership there on an interim capacity. But we want to thank him and his team for a wonderful event. Uh also last week I had an opportunity to attend the summer institute for culturally responsive uh education. We refer to that as secretre here internally. Uh but I did have an opportunity to thank all of our wonderful educators for coming out for dedicating themselves to this work. Uh hosted by our own culturally responsive pedigogy and instruction team. The

016institute brings educators together uh from around the region in their commitment to strengthening inclusive and student centered learning environments. Of course, centered on culturally relevant and responsive content for our students. The event provided opportunities for great professional learning, reflection, and collaboration focused on culturally responsive practices that support student achievement. I want to thank director Lorenzo Lopez and his team um and the support of the University of Arizona for offering their facilities for another amazing institute. And lastly uh last week uh we had the kickoff of our district uh reconfiguration con committee our advisory committee on the reconfiguration of TUSD schools. The committee is inclusive of parents, teachers, support staff, school leaders, representatives from community and intergovernmental partner organizations. Um over the coming months, the committee is going to meet regularly to review data and evaluate

017the options uh related to potential district reconfiguration. The committee's work of course will culminate in a recommendation that will be expected to be presented and considered publicly by our school board uh in December. This process represents an important opportunity to engage uh our stakeholders in thoughtful long-term planning that supports student success and district sustainability. And lastly, I do want to thank uh governing board member uh Extramm for joining me yesterday out at the Pasuayaki Tribe annex uh which of course formerly known as Hoocom Middle School. Um the Pasuayaki tribe has done an amazing job renovating the property. It looks absolutely beautiful. We had an opportunity not only to engage in meaningful discussion about some of the challenges, some of the expectations and some of the commitments that we're going to mutually make uh both the

018tribe and TUSD in the name of Fasuaki student achievement, greater access to student support services, greater access to extracurriculars and advanced learning experiences, but we also got an opportunity to tour the property and really learn about all of the great programs s that the Pasuayaki tribe has set up for the community out there. Uh we value this amazing partnership and of course remain committed to continued collaboration to advance uh educational opportunities and success for Pasuayaki youth. Uh and with that, Dr. Shaw, members of the governing board, that concludes my report. >> Great. Thank you, Dr. Trillo. I'll turn over to our board clerk, Miss Luna Rose, for our call to the audience. Okay, thank you. Good evening everybody joining us um on this Tuesday, June 9th. Members of the public may speak during call to

019the audience. The governing board clerk shall be responsible for recognizing speakers and for maintaining order where it may be appropriate. Those who speak in person or want to have their comments read shall email or call the board office and complete a request to address the board form before the meeting. Speakers who have not completed a request form are not permitted to address the board. Speakers must state their full name and topic prior to addressing the board. Speakers are encouraged to be brief with a maximum time of three minutes. While more than one speaker may speak together in the time allowed, speakers are reminded that they are not allowed to speak more than once and they may not transfer or delegate their time to others. If there are documents for the board, please give them to

020the board office staff and they will ensure each board member receives a copy. Those attending the meeting and/or speaking before the board shall observe rules of good conduct. Speakers shall also refrain from inappropriate or defamatory remarks. Defamation includes false statements presented as facts about identifiable persons that could harm the reputation. Please note that making defamatory statements at a public meeting may expose the speaker to personal legal liability. And because TUSD serves students from preschool through high school, speaker should be aware that there may be children present listening. At the end of call of the audience, the governing board president will ask if any board member would like to respond to a criticism, ask staff to review a matter, or ask that a matter be put forth on a future agenda. No more than two members

021may address each topic. And our first speaker this evening is Karen Bernal. Good evening, Superintendent Trujillo, board chair Dr. Shaw, and members of the board. My name is Karen Bernal, and I am a state certified licensed library media specialist at Catalina High School. talking to agenda item 7.2. First, I'm glad to see that we're moving in the direction of replenishing our state certified school librarians in the district. Six is a small start, but at least it's a start. So, thank you for considering funding this. Um, some of my six concerns and questions are as follows. One, will the current library assistants at these schools keep their jobs and be retained to help orient the incoming certified librarians? what the library assistant provides is extremely valuable in the operation and efficacy of the library as a

022whole. Two, will the interview process involve any of the current school librarians? If so, I'm sure any of us would be happy to help or offer our expertise and input. Three, will there be any future discussion about hiring a district level library director that can work with the IT department and serve as a leader and program director for the librarians and library assistants? Four, according to the amended policy INDJ, the district is supposed to provide guidance to students on responsible AI use um as part of the digital citizenship curriculum. So, teaching information and digital literacy, including the ethical use of AI, um is one of our main jobs and I hope the district does plan on involving the librarians in some way in this endeavor. Five, is there any talk of getting any kind of

023budget for books? Libraries still need funds allocated to replenishing outdated, damaged, lost books, keeping the collection current. One of our main missions as school librarians is to get books in the hands of students. And the district's goals are to promote schoolwide reading culture and literacy. We can't do that very well if we don't have an allocation of funds to purchase culturally relevant books that will keep our students interested and engaged. Six, I notice on your timeline for 7.2, to you would be doing a one-year impact report on the implementation of librarians at these sites. And in my 16 plus years as a library media specialist, I know it takes sometimes at least two to three years to really feel like programs are making an impact. Uh and to be able to gain the trust of

024teachers as fellow collaborators. So I hope the evaluators keep that in mind. Um in closing, we want to be able to implement our library programs and provide our services to all schools districtwide. uh not just the current 11 plus these six new positions and we love working with our students and staff and making a difference in their lives um by inspiring them to read more teaching them how to think critically evaluate the constant barrage of information around them and become ethical users of information. So thank you for considering how important these positions are in our schools and we hope that there will be future conversations about how we can make that happen. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is Dr. Judy Morelian. Good evening, Superintendent Trillo, Board President Shaw, and members of the board. My

025name is Judy Merillian. I'm here tonight as a community advocate for the role of certified school librarians in supporting students learning and classroom teachers teaching. As someone who has been advocating for the restoration of full-time state certified school librarians in supporting our students and teachers since 2018, I am heartened that the district is taking this first step thanks to the budget override. Thank you for providing pilot project documents ahead of this meeting. I have questions that I hope the board will ask or others will answer during the presentation of this item 7.2. State certified, excuse me, state certification for library media specialist endorsement in Arizona only requires a valid teaching certificate, one year of full-time classroom teaching, and passing a subject knowledge exam. What additional qualifications will you require for these six positions? graduate level

026coursework in library science, reading teacher endorsement, information technology or children's literature expertise. The evaluation plan outline um focuses on four domains. It is important to note as Karen also said that the librarian's success will depend on the level of support and interaction with school administrators, classroom teacher and and specialist colleagues and parents and families. Is there a professional development plan for project principles, librarians, and teacher leaders? As a former school librarian who served in school libraries for 13 years in partnership with full-time library assistance, I appreciate the fact that the library assistants are part of this plan. Is there an opportunity to provide full-time assistance at Craig and at Ericson? The six selected positions are for the life of the budget, seven years. Is there a plan to add more librarian positions to this initiative

027in the next year or few years or is this the total plan for seven years? It is rather late in the hiring cycle to be posting these positions. What will happen if the funds currently set aside for these six positions are not filled? What about a district level funding for Gale Elementary? What about funding library assistance at high schools? Equitable access for TUSD students should be the long-term goal. This pilot project should lead to students at additional schools having access to fully staffed, vibrant library programs. Thank you. Next is Victoria Bodani. Hi. Um, Victoria Bodani from PBLO High School and I'm here to speak about the culture and climate review that is occurring at PBLO. Um, and its loosey goosey nature. There is no set written policy for how a culture and climate review should

028go and that gives teachers pause. How are we supposed to trust that the process is on the up and up if we don't know what the process is? Mr. Freed has even said that there is no set process which means that process could change from sight to sight, situation to situation. When the tea ars initiated an evaluation survey of our principal at the behest of employee relations, we had a 72% completion rate with staff from all ear areas participating. That includes teachers, custodians, grounds, monitors, counselors, front office, and cafeteria staff. as part of the district's process, you don't even have 25% participation by staff and most of those are probably teachers because a lot of those other individuals do not use their TUSD emails. Um, >> one of the reasons that so few people are

029participating is because staff at PBLO don't trust the process. We have been burned in the past by the district, but also by our principal. People are scared. They fear they are being censored, that their voice doesn't matter and won't be considered. They are afraid to come forward and scared of retaliation. When I asked people to be here tonight to support us, I got a chorus of nos because they want to stay under the radar, don't want to make their time at PBLO worse, don't want their class schedules to change or their program to suffer as a result of just being here, let alone speaking. I have two requests. One, the governing board needs to codify the culture and climate process in writing so that the process becomes a set policy for any future culture and

030climate across the district. And please consider the teachers when making that policy. We are the ones asking for the change and our safety and protection should be considered. The culture and two the culture and climate process at PBLO needs to be completed before the start of the 2026 2027 school year. If this process continues into the fall, PBLO staff will be demoralized and student learning will suffer. Staff are concerned there will be retaliation, intimidation, and the culture and climate will become even worse than it is now. We are asking for a change in leadership. We want a leader who will be reflective, who has a plan, a vision, and integrity that honors the students as holistic beings rather than just as points towards a letter grade, who will value us as professionals, who will listen

031to our expertise, and who will lead with love. Please listen to the PBLO staff, students, and parents who are here and who aren't here today, but have sent you an employee relations emails. We deserve, we want a change in leadership. We deserve this. And more importantly, the students deserve this. Next is Lynn Real or Lyn Real. Good evening, Dr. Trillo, board president, Dr. Shaw, and board members. My name is Lynn Reel, and I am the teacher librarian, library media specialist at Gail Elementary School in this district. That makes me something of a unicorn. I am the only librarian at an elementary school. There is only one other library librarian in the district with a library assistant. And this is my library story. I started working at Gail School 23 years ago as a classroom teacher.

032At that time, we had an amazing teacher librarian, Kathy Fox, who continued the legacy established by Judy Merillian, who has already spoken here tonight. The library was warm and inviting. Lessons were taught and books were checked out. The space fostered collaboration and co-eing. The library was always open because there was a librarian and a library assistant. When libraries were no longer fully funded, the library became a quiet, dark place that was only open two and a half days a week. The teachers at Gail never forgot what they had before and kept that picture at the top of each new principal's mind. They wanted the library experience of old back. Fast forward to COVID and then Esser funding. Esser was the answer to an open library with a teacher librarian at Gale. I was entrusted with

033this position and promised three years of guaranteed funding. The library returned to the library we had when I started teaching there. warm and inviting, always open, lights on, weekly lessons, checkouts anytime, lunchtime activities for those who wanted it. But most importantly, one large curriculum-based project each year with each grade level, which I planned and co-taught with classroom teachers. That funding was taken away after only two years. The only funding available at my school was from Title One since some positions that typically were title one funded were now funded through the district. But there was only enough funding for a part-time position and required me to teach intervention groups. So, I now work only four days a week. Specials rotations take up my entire Tuesday and Thursday, and I teach three intervention groups on both Monday

034and Wednesday. This leaves little time in my schedule to get to bigger curriculum- based projects. Gail School has a tightly filled master schedule that precludes many grade levels from the few available slots in my schedule. This year, I was only able to do Indigenous People of North America with my fourth graders and chicken hatching with the kindergarten that truly has become a whole school event. Mr. Romero was lucky enough to experience the chaotic joy of chicken school on egg candling day. So we have achieved the vision for two years and now have lost parts of it. I am truly excited that TUSD has begun the process of recommitting to libraries with teacher librarians with library assistance. I would like to ask what is the plan for expanding this library initiative across the district? For the

035past five years, the Gail library has tried to reach the expectations that are part of the proposed library plan without financial support from the district. Gail is already fully committed to this vision. Is there a path for equitable access across the district for all students to reap the benefits of a fully staffed and funded library? I am also interested in the plans for the other parts of this project as my library counterparts have spoken about interviewing and hiring budgets for books and updating library library collections and professional development. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is Rose Bratton. My name is Rose Bratton. I am a library associate and cataloger for the educational materials center part of fine arts. I'm one of four remaining central library staff. Uh at a previous board meeting, I shared my

036concerns uh regarding the expectations of library staff in the district, particularly of classified library assistants alone in elementary and middle schools. Um the certified school librarian placement initiative is definitely an answer to a lot of these concerns. I wholly endorse this program. the there there are 73 elementary, middle, and K8 schools in this district with school libraries, and only one of them has a certified librarian. And as you heard, she has her own challenges. This pilot program will bring that up to seven, which is a modest start, but a start I'm really excited for nonetheless. I believe strongly that the high the high rate of state assessed minimally proficient ELA students in this district is in part due to our neglect towards libraries. Reading interventionists do amazing work, but library media specialists can push that

037even further using the resources that already exist at these schools. Tens of thousands of books at all of the schools across our school sites underutilized without having certified librarians. Many of these libraries host books students have sincere interest in. Encouraging the use of a space where reading can be something enjoyed, where it's not just work, will go incredibly far at promoting literacy in our schools. I know the replacement of I know the replacement of library assistants may seem like a cheaper option to some, but that would be disastrous. And I'm glad, as far as I understand, this program avoids that. Many library assistants struggle to find the time for the myriad of duties they handle. Replacing them with a librarian would only make a different person host to these responsibilities along with newfound sorry newfound

038instructional responsibility. When I was a student at Booth, the school had three library staff members. I grew up to see that number drop to one and eventually go just to me. Compared to the two or three library staff at many of Afi school district libraries, this pilot program has been needed for a long time to help us catch back up. The role differentiation between library assistants and media specialists is also a great relief not just to me but to many of the library staff I know have struggled under the current definition. I have one major question though. What about technology? Management of Chromebooks and tablets are still something that need to be accounted for with library staff. I'm extremely enthusiastic for this program. I'm hopeful that it gets the support it needs and begins bringing

039librarians back to elementary and middle school libraries. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next, we have Kirsten Cummings. Good evening, Dr. Trillo, board president Shaw, board members. I'm here to speak about item 7.2. I congratulate all who worked on this proposal. The hiring of new librarians, aka library media specialists, in addition to keeping our dedicated library assistants, is exactly what the budget override was made for. Some might argue it is not enough. I understand that override monies come in over time and that we are still facing a budget deficit for the next two years at least. Therefore, I see the implementation of a starter pack. if you will, as both wise and prudent. My favorite slide of the presentation is the one delineating the differences in scope between the two positions. It shows not only what

040kind of work has been asked of our library assistants that would better be suited for librarians, but also what it can look like when you have two people working in tandem for their school community. I was a full-time library assistant at Hokam and then Valencia middle schools. I did my best with circulation, assisting teachers with lessons, etc. But the hardest and yet most rewarding part was reaching those reluctant readers. I was lucky enough to have the encouragement of my administrators to do anything I could and also to find a live male tarantula in my office on my first day. Voila. Library pet. At each school, I had a critter in a terrarium at in my library that the students could name and maybe even help feed with crickets. Once those students came in, soon came

041the questions like, "Miss, do you have books on tarantulas?" And, "Miss, where are the scary stories?" You see, once you've grabbed the attention of those reluctant readers, the world is open to them. If I could do that by myself, imagine the magic too can do for their students. As a granddaughter of a librarian and a lifelong literacy advocate, I can only be excited for the future should this item pass. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Next, we have Gary Olsen. Good evening, uh, staff and board. first time at a TUSD meeting, but I've been a a resident since 91, taxpayer since 97, and I've seen our obviously all our taxes have gone up over those years. And I I know where you can get additional funds for that library and effort which I support

042100% is being more efficient with what you receive from taxpayers in TUSD which you know we've watched the the decrease in student population. It's just reality of Pima County and reality of across the country. We've seen the need for teacher pay not keeping up with the current marketplace and that needs to change and we've uh had to go to a budget override to fund the operation here and we need uh to look at reducing some of the administrative costs and my opinion. So I have one request which is with the uh school closure review efforts which I understand is called the reconfiguration of schools be given that committee be given the time and the data more than what has been allocated to do a a good review so that that you're it is addressed what

043schools need to close what combinations need to occur so that the savings will benefit the students and the teachers and the T US school area. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Next we have Ryan Msimpson. Good evening. My name is Ryan Simpson and I'm speaking on behalf of a fellow uh teacher at PBLO High School. TUSD governing board members, I am writing to present complaints regarding ongoing instances of sexism and leadership failures that I have experienced and continue to experience in my role as a teacher at PBLO High School. I have over 10 years of teaching experience. As a woman, I have countless examples of sexism exhibited by our principal. One evening, my classroom was used without my knowledge, and I came back the next day to find items misplaced, projects students were working

044on thrown away, and general disarray. I immediately went to find our principal for answers and guidance. Obviously upset, our principal stopped me in the middle of explaining the situation, telling me to stop and quote, "Not be so emotional." He did not provide support or answers as to how this happened and instead told me it wasn't quote a big deal. I knew then I could not I could no longer go for him for guidance or support. Our assistant principal team works incredibly hard. They are visible in hallways, provide support and guidance when faculty and staff need it, respond to emergencies in a professional and calm way, communicate directly and consistently, and encourage meaningful change at our site. I believe this to be effective leadership. It is surprising then that our principal would address the stellar team

045as quote pains in my ass and quote his little boogers during professional development meetings. It is important to note that our AP team consists entirely of women. This is the way he speaks about women publicly. I do not feel comfortable speaking with him privately without a male colleague in the room. I am concerned about the lack of effective leadership practices within the school. Ultimately, concerns raised by teachers are often handled reactively or ignored altogether, resulting in recurring problems that remain unresolved year after year. When teachers took the initiative to amend the site council constitution for specificity and inclusivity, our principal missed planning and discussion meetings and instead held behind behind closed doors meetings in order to halt progress and cast doubt about the project. We are hoping for change of leadership at PBLO High School.

046Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Next is Chrisal Sana Buckner. Good afternoon. My name is Crisabel Savana Buckner and I am a TUSD parent, mother to three children, and a TUSD educator. through the lens of a parent and teacher. I believe it is my moral and ethical duty to share my experiences and observations with everyone here tonight. Specifically, I am here to share my experiences as a teacher at PBLO High School and with Mr. Rothler, the current principal. Prior to working at PBLO, I worked at another district in Southern Arizona and in California. My experiences in at those schools inform my experiences at PBLO. It is no secret that teaching is a difficult job and having a supportive administration truly makes the difference between continuing our career or leaving education like hundreds of thousands

047do every year. Unfortunately, PBLO does not have a supportive principle. We are constantly disrespected as professionals. When we share our expertise, thoughts, and ideas, we are swiftly shut down, publicly shamed, and often threatened. Our input is never valued, and instead it is received as an attack. I will never forget the day when I went to Mr. R's office to share an idea for a project he was working on. After sharing it, he went to the corner of his office, grabbed a wooden baseball bat from his window, sniffed as he paced in his office, holding the bat with two hands. At first, I dismissed that incident, thinking it might be a quirk. Then I started to notice a pattern. Every time I gave my input and especially if I disagreed with him, he would issue some

048sort of threat. I cannot recall many conversations with Mr. R where he did not threaten me in a veiled or explicit fashion. Additionally, Mr. R is not very visible. If there's a problem, concern, or an emergency, he rarely addresses the situation. Most times he sends an AP to do all the work for him. In order to get a single meeting with him, I had to schedule three. He failed to show up for the first two without notifying me. It is a well-known fact around campus that he does not show up to work. And when he does, I'm not sure how much work he actually does because >> I'm sorry, your time is up. >> Thank you. Next speaker is Jason Buckner. >> Good evening board and community. Uh Jason Buckner. I am an attorney and

049also the spouse of Crisabel Salana Buckner. Uh I want to finish her statement for the purposes of the board. Um I'm not sure how much work actually gets done. He typically has an AP assigned to every task. His application of rules, policies, and procedures is arbitrary and inconsistent. He lets people who are in his good graces do and get away with unpermitted behavior. Then he targets certain individuals by making too many visits to their classroom, writing them up without following the proper protocol, and calling them out in staff meetings. He expressed great distress and sadness during a staff meeting that he was having a hard time losing a staff member that was released due to grooming and pedophilic behaviors. The same is true for his treatment of students. I have heard my students talk about

050how they are well aware that they will not get in trouble for anything, including drug use on campus, while other students complain about getting punitive punishments because administration does not like them. Even students understand where they stand with administration and what type of punishment they will receive or not receive based on how Mr. R feels about them. I have heard female student athletes talk about feeling uncomfortable about their principal filming them during their time in the gym and posting them on social media. It is for this reason that I am relieved that we made the decision not to send our eldest daughter to PBLO High School. As a mother, based on his reputation, I would not trust Mr. are with the safety and well-being of my children, and I do not think any other parent

051should either. Lastly, and shockingly, he has made it expressly clear in our site council and staff meetings that parents are not welcome on campus. I leave it to your charge as board members to ensure the safety and well-being of our community's children as your top priority. Our children deserve better. My colleagues deserve better. PBLO deserves better. Please remove Mr. R from his position as PBLO High School principal. Thank you board members for your time and attention. I want to spend the last minute speaking directly to something that Dr. Truhill mentioned. Dr. Truhill mentioned meeting with the Pasquay Yaki tribe at the tribal annex this yesterday. PBLO High School has the second highest number of Yaki students in the community behind Choya. It is home to two of the traditional tribal communities, two churches at Magros

052and San Juan uh San Martin de Poras on on 39th. If you care about the Yaki children, the native students, I do not understand why it takes multiple requests. You have now heard from dozens of teachers from the southside to co to look into this issue. Meanwhile, other schools like the ones our children attend. It takes one person to make an allegation and the wheels of justice turn and they descend on these schools to investigate. We should and can do better as tonians, as citizens of this community. And I urge you all to step forward uh to uh take on that charge. And Dr. Trujillo, please protect our Yaki students. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is Janette Ruple. Hello, my name is Janette Ruple and I am an English teacher at Pablo High School.

053And my question is, does TUSD have a plan of improvement for someone who does not believe they have deficiencies? As an AR, I'm privy to an incident between Principal Rosenhauser and another teacher. This teacher complained when Mr. Rosenhauser charged teachers to park in the main parking lot. This complaint had to be escalated to the district and AD before Mr. Rosenhauser refunded teachers their money. Later that school year, Mr. Rosenhauser issued an LOI to that teacher for being disrespectful towards a staff member. It took several emails to get Mr. Rosenhauser to release the ACU accuser's name and the formal complaint, which turned out to be a text message of Mr. Rosenhauser asking if she was rude and the staff member saying, "Yeah." This teacher was able to pro produce three eyewitness testimonies to prove she was

054professional during the encounter. Despite this evidence, Mr. Rosenhauser still wrote her up. This writeup was removed on appeal. During the last quarter, Mr. Rosenhauser has seated the campus with rumors. Upon being uh upon learning the anonymous letter, Mr. Rosenhauser accused teachers and administrative staff by name for writing the letter. Upon learning about the nonbias survey, Mr. Rosenhauser blamed teachers for swaying other staff members against him. Upon learning of the culture and climate review, Mr. Rosenhauser told teachers his superior said he would be fine. He told teachers district said he was too lenient with them and should be stricter. He told teachers he will be writing people up next school year. This one that starts this August. Rather than selfanalyze, self-correct, Mr. Rosenhauser has some mistrust, anxiety, and fear. If 10% of my students told me

055that they were afraid and unheard in my classroom, I would change my behavior and my instruction. That's what a good leader does. I fear no evaluation, no observation, no survey, no critique because I want to be a better person and a better teacher. Why do all of our principles fear this? So I ask you again, does TUSD have a plan of improvement for someone who does not believe they have deficiencies? Thank you. Next is Sooa Weiss. Um, hi. Hi. Uh, my name is SA Weise. I want to share about why I left Pebble. Um, it's because teachers are treated really awful. We are demanding improvement of scores with no support. We were given extra tasks that did not help us in our classroom. And then the final hit was um this one time when I

056had asked me questions during our department meeting. She refused to answer but then pulled me out later during our PLT meeting to tell me I should not question authority in public. The question I asked her was to clarify incorrect information that she was providing to the department. I took an active role in the summer in writing, choosing our science curriculum and then when I told her about it, she disregarded it, devalued it. Um, and then just demanded that like shouldn't question her at all. Um, at this time, Frank joined in. U Mr. Rosenhauser um joined in the conversation. This happened in the library. Um and in front at the time like all my colleagues could see what was happening in that conversation. And um basically what he told me is that I should follow their

057orders. I should pretend that anything they say I should disagree with it. Um and that was hard for me. I couldn't I was trying to share my opinions, my the concerns my students and my teachers had. the lack of planning time that we had um and all these things um that he said um I will not trust you until you show me an improvement of your scores and and then he told me I know what you do during your time and that hit me hard because I told him I spend an hour after contract time every single day to lesson plan. I go home, I cook dinner, put my kids to sleep, and I stay up another just to finish lesson planning. I dedicate 100% to my kids, and he didn't care. And it broke

058me. I felt devalued. I tried my best. None of our voices mattered. And when I sat there in my classroom the past few days, regardless of what my fellow colleague said, how great I was as a teacher or my students that I shouldn't leave, I couldn't stay there anymore because how could I stay in a school where there's no support, there's no trust and all the things that you do like did not matter as a teacher. Um, so you know, I'm hoping that this make a positive impact today. I hope that we get better quality administrators in our school because that's what's going to help us in our school. Thank you. Next is Eliia Cruz. Hello, my name is Aaliyah Cruz. I am a paraprofessional at Palo Verde High School in the autism classroom going

059on my fifth year with TUSD. I want to firstly thank you all everyone for taking your time to be here and listening to me. I hope your summers are treating you well. I think every department definitely deserved the break, especially since the past school year has posed so many of the same, but also astonishingly new challenges, errors, and overall incompetence. Many that could have been avoided by simple communication. And that's a direct quote straight from the board at the Exed forum of May 14th this year. When asked what steps they will take differently this coming school year in terms of communication, they responded, "We're going to move forward from that and focus on the positive." This is what we call lip service or performative concern where one expresses a concern to appear caring yet no

060action is truly addressed. After that meeting, I took it upon myself to reach out to different staff members from various departments across the school district to hear their experiences with TUSD and leadership. What I found was many similar, if not the exact same stories as my own, such as the concerns being shed from PBLO High School. I personally have never felt valued in my confidentiality. One example is this year we were given a new speech therapist, a much older gentleman in his 70s. Much like the other speech therapists we've been assigned, he would work with our students maybe twice a month if we were lucky. This one in particular never missed a day, not because he was working with students, but because he would use his time to talk with female staff in an inappropriate

061manner. one occasion telling me that if he's not too old, I'd love to apply for the position to bear your children. I reported it immediately and made it clear that I don't feel comfortable working with him, especially if I'm going to go through with this report. They said not to worry, I'd be protected, so no retaliation happens. I get notified later that I need to talk with the speech therapist face tof face with the mediator scheduled for August of 2026. I made the report this February. I have to continue working with this man for the remainder of the school year and he made me feel so little and so uncomfortable that I had to start taking my lunch breaks when he was there just to relieve myself. What this is showing me is that this

062is not just an individual school pro problem. This is a deep internal pro problem that has unfortunately become part of the TUSD culture with no support from leadership roles. If anything they contribute to it. I have mentioned the performative nature, the lack of confidentiality and the retaliation that have been the core foundation of our district. So I ask, how are we supposed to help aid our students when we can't even help ourselves? If I may give a suggestion, just listen. Too little listening leads to rush ineffective action and listening without action leads to paralysis. Listen enough to understand then act on what you've learned. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is Cameron Rodriguez. My name is Cameron Rodriguez. I'm at Rinkcon High School and I wanted to say first thank you to all those of

063you who from Pueblo who came. I was so glad to hear your stories and that you came out here. Uh, I'm here to address the removal of audit committee vice chair John Blackshshire on May 12th. The stated reasons in the talk were open meeting law violations, attorney client privilege concerns, and unauthorized communication. But a veteran auditor doesn't get removed for process concerns that happen over months and suddenly become urgent when he was looking into missing money. It was also a bit much accusing him of violating open meeting laws because I myself reported this board's own open meeting law violations to the attorney general earlier this year and the following week the agendas were substantially expanded having been in potential violation for years. Open meeting law was designed to promote transparency not to conceal. Every time

064you bring up open meeting law and an exc as an excuse in the future, please remember that it involves regular pe if it involves regular people knowing less, that's not the intent of the law and that TUSD was in violation almost right up until the day they used it to fire the auditor. Using open meeting law as a pretext to fire an auditor is too good of a joke not to use at dinner parties. Also, the fact that Mr. Blackshshire's special needs remark was used against him. A man in his 70s was a low blow. That was his own description of his own educational history which he reclaimed for his own use in that particular context which I listen to too. And as a teacher, I would not discipline an exceptional ed student of any

065age for how he chooses to describe his own experience and himself. It would not be my place. But the board treated Mr. Blackshshire's self-referential language as if it were a slur against exceptional ed kids which was disingenuous and bad faith. So the public record now shows a veteran auditor removed her process by leadership recently questioned on its own process shortly after he raised financial concerns that remain unressed. I told you months ago that I would try to assume the best about people or that I try in general and that I actually do defend TUSD. You may not believe it, but I do. But these sorts of things happening over and over and the doubling down, it just makes it harder and harder and to defend, which saddens me truly. Next is Lillian Fox. Members of

066the board, President uh Shaw, Dr. or Superintendent Trillo, and Yolanda Barbboa, you slurred and defamed Blackshare. You should all be ashamed. He got no due process. None of you talked to him. You're basing everything on what he told you. I was at the same meeting. I read the same transcript. He never did the things he's being accused of. Okay. Thank you. Um, this is too loud for me. If you just look at this, this is really so sad to me. The reason I keep coming here and telling you stuff like this, you can't let this kind of thing go on. Your very best high school is Sabino. Every single one of the East Side high schools in the other districts are far better than Sabino. And Sabino is your best regular school. Furthermore, two of

067UI's three high schools are far better than Sabino. You know, they're up there with the other east side districts. The Flowing Wells High School, that's a very high poverty district. They are better than all except for two of your high schools. Now, unless you think something's wrong with our kids, I've got a, you know, if you think something's wrong with our kids, I've got a problem with you. Our kids are far more intelligent than this would suggest. TUSD year after year is the highest the richest district locally. There are occasional years where some other district gets a little bit more money than you do. You are a rich district. Every year you have more money per student than all of the other big districts except for one. And yet every year your teacher prof your

068student proficiency is horrible. You know, this is this graph shows you what it's like. You can't tolerate this. You have to demand better from this district. they have the money to educate kids. They are not doing it. Um, one of the reasons there's a problem here, in order to have really proficient kids at the high school level, you got to work hard at the elementary school level, you have got to educate those kids. They've got to have the resources they need. The first three years, they have to be in small classes. You have to have good libraries. If you want them to get past a second grade reading level or third grade reading level, you're not doing it. You also need recovery teachers for kids who are struggling. You have a lot of struggling kids.

069I had a hard time reading. I am so thankful that I was not in this school district the way it was now because I wouldn't be reading. I had a wonderful third grade teacher who uh did a lot with sending homework home with my mother for me to do specially to help my reading. My mother had two aunts who were teachers. >> Time is up. Thank you. >> Just a rose. We're at the 45 minute mark. We've hit the 45 minute mark. >> All right. So, governing board, we have five more um in person. None of them relating to any items on our agenda tonight. Um and we have none to be read. I will move that we um continue to call to the audience but after item 7.2 so we can get through our

070action and study action items. >> Second. >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppos? Okay. Item passes 50. So we will continue to call to the audience after item 7.2. But I will give the board a chance to um comment on items from the original call to the audience. If a governing board has the opportunity to respond to criticism, ask staff to review a matter or ask that a matter be put on a future agenda. Reminder that no more than two members may legally address each topic. Go ahead, Michelle. >> Thank you to everyone who spoke today um especially members of the PBLO community. And I do want to remind um our staff throughout the district that per governing board policy GBP uh when the adverse treatment is reasonably

071likely to deter the individual or others from making such disclosures to a public body is grounds for discipline of the employee engaging in the retaliatory conduct. And so retaliation, intimidation, or harassment is strictly prohibited and will not be tolerated. That goes for the PBLO community and elsewhere in the district. So do let us know if you're experiencing retaliation uh after you speak to um the governing board. Um, with that, I'd like to put on a future agenda a policy to codify um a standardized process for our culture and climate review process. Um, I'd also like to ask staff to review the matter raised by uh the 13th speaker, the exed staff member who was uh verbally assaulted. I'm sorry I missed your name, >> Miss Cruz, thank you. Um, and thank you to those who

072came to speak on behalf of uh librarians um and librarian assistance. I'll save my comments for that uh for that agenda item, but I'm um in full support of your requests. >> Go ahead, Mr. Romero. So, first first thing I just want to mention um again to our Gail librarian um again experiencing uh Chicken City at our at our library um was just more than an event for our students. Um and a lot of our libraries librarians do special events for them. It's not just again for the reading aspect of it. It's also educational learning in a lot of other other ways. I know you you're exceptional what you're doing. Leonard Kitis, Johnson's Library, we have a few throughout the district. Those are just name a few. So, I just want to let you know

073that I see that as a board member and I appreciate the work you do for those kids. Um, in doing that, you go above and beyond more than just reading assistance. You make it an experience for the kids to want to come to the library. So, first of all, I want to say thank you for that experience when I was there. And then I also wanted to uh thank Mr. Rodriguez and Miss Fox for um you know, bringing up uh the situation with Mr. Blackshshire. Um something doesn't feel right with me and it does bring up concern and we are I am working with legal counsel on process and policy uh for removal and um hopefully that'll be coming up in a board me a board meeting soon as well. Go ahead, Miss Rose. >>

074Thank you and thank you to everybody who spoke. Um, first to uh the speakers from Pueblo. I know it takes a lot to come to a board meeting, especially when you're um perhaps nervous, but um I we are listening and we do appreciate your time this evening. Um and I'd also like to um acknowledge uh Mr. Olsen who also said that it was his first time coming here. Thank you sir for for coming and and speaking about um the budget and and how um we can be uh going forward. So I appreciate your words this evening. >> Dr. Sha, >> go ahead. Ma, >> uh I would also like to thank Mr. Olson and I forgot to um ask staff to um provide uh full comprehensive data uh about um enrollment like for the past

07510 years and also the budgets of uh schools um and the district to the reconfiguration committee. >> Okay. Uh thank you everyone. Like I said, we'll from the vote, we'll get back to the rest of the call to the audience um after our study action items, but we'll move over to our action items. Um item 6.1, administrative appointments. Uh we have interim director of grants and federal programs. >> Uh President Shaw, members of the governing board. Uh tonight uh it is uh our pleasure uh to recommend uh an outstanding leader uh who for the last uh uh almost 10 years has been serving as in the assessment and evaluation department as a research project manager. He's been deeply involved in the school improvement process with our principles uh on the ground meeting with site administrative

076teams helping them put together school improvement plans identifying funding sources uh to fund some of those efforts. And tonight uh we think that he will be a great uh addition to the leadership team. He also served as um he's also uh what comes from the classroom where he served in PBlo Gardens uh since 2000 to 2010 and then over at Graalva for the better part of the 2010. So um Daniel Sanchez is tonight's recommendation to serve as the interim director for grants and federal programs. >> Great. Thank you, Dr. Trio. Governing board members, go ahead, Mr. Romero. >> Um just a quick question, Dr. Trillo. As far as in this position, do we have somebody that was running it last year or is he kind of coming in after uh >> so with the appointment

077of John Lansa who's the incumbent um the the appointment of John Lansa to serve as interim regional assistant superintendent his incumbent position has come open as an interim. >> Okay. And is there like I guess um for this interim thing will he be then considered as the full-time for this position after that or is it open up for um people on that also? >> That's a great question. As with all of our interim positions it this candidate will have to apply and compete in a permanent selection process. Great. >> I'll move the item. >> I'll second item moved by Miss Lunaro. Second by myself. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Item passes 5-0. Mr. Sanchez, congratulations. Mr. Sanchez, here. Go ahead. Dr. Sha, governing board members, Dr. Thruillo legal counsel. Thank you

078for your confidence in my appointment to serve as interim director of the grants and federal program department. Uh I'm humbled and honored to be for this opportunity to work with an experienced and skilled team in continued support of our students, staff, and our schools. TSD has been an important part of my life since my elementary school years as a student at Menlo Park. um through the onset of my general education career at PBlo Gardens and my continued professional growth as a special education teacher and learning supports coordinator at Grihalva as well as my nearly decadel long tenure in the assessment evaluation department. Uh I wish to thank my director and my teammates at A&E for living and breathing our mission statement through our strong collaborative spirit. I look forward to our continuous partnership on district

079initiatives. I wish to also extend my thanks to my wife and our daughters for their support and for sharing me with our TUSD community. Thanks again and I wish you and your respective loved ones a pleasant and peaceful summer. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Sanchez. Good luck to you next year. >> Next, uh we have item 6.2. Dr. True. We have four interim assistant principal appointments. >> Yes, President Shaw, board members. We'll go ahead and read off the four um uh individuals being considered and then of course upon vote, we would obviously invite them up um for a picture as as well as our new director. Um so recommended candidate number one is to serve as the interim assistant principal of TAP, which is teenage parent high school and project more. Uh we will

080be recommending Amber Paris uh candidate number two to go ahead and serve as the interim assistant principal at Pister Middle School. We will be recommending Mr. Elutio Cortez. Candidate number three, uh we will be recommending to serve as the interim assistant principal at Valencia Middle School, Alexis Clark. And our final uh candidate recommendation tonight, we will be recommending to serve in the capacity of interim assistant principal at Hollinger, Marco Dominguez. >> Thank you, Dr. Trill. I'll move the item. >> I'll second. >> Governing board members. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Item passes. 5-0. Congratulations to our new Trump assistant principles. So, our governing board meeting will take a momentary break so we can congratulate the new appointees and do some photos. >> Yes. So, appointees, if you want to join us

081for a a quick photo op with the governing board, that would be great. Thank you. All right, we're going to keep this meeting moving along here with item 6.3 regress request to rename the second building at 220 West 6th Street to the Hubert V. Summers Building. Dr. Trillo. >> Yes. Um, President Sha, members of the governing board. Um, as >> to all rein everyone's excited. They're so happy to see the positivity. What if we ask the members of the audience to hug and shake hands? And >> no one's me. It was a gabble. >> Oh, there we go. >> Don't get to use that too often. All right, Dr. Trillo. >> Yes. Uh governing board members, uh it is my pleasure to um speak tonight on item 6.3. Consistent with what we did a few

082weeks ago in exercising the board's authority to transfer an existing governing board approved name to one of our facilities to a newly acquired property. We'd like to recommend the same. um for years and years and years, building B, we we've affectionately called the second building at 1010, is actually the summer's building. And I think that um as I've done with 1010 itself, I've in the last couple of years have made a conscious effort to say the Mororrow Center, I've always made a conscious effort to say the Summers Building because of the contributions of Hubert Victor Summers. Um, I'd like to say a few few words about Mr. Summers and then I'd like to welcome his daughter uh to speak about her father's legacy. Uh, Deborah Summers was a long time principal at Mansfeld and >>

083Utterback, I'm sorry, Utterback. I'm thinking because I'm thinking Richard Sanchez and getting you confused with Richard was at Mansfeld. All right. Um but a native of uh Kuk, Iowa, Victor Hubert Victor Summers lived a life defined by service, dedication, and excellence. After bravely serving as a tank commander in the 14th Armored Division of the US Army during World War II, he relocated to Tucson in 1947, bringing with him a spirit of valor and commitment to the community. Hubert's contributions to education in Pima County were outstanding. A graduate of the University of Arizona in 1950 with a degree in public administration, he dedicated himself to school finance positions within the county. His tenure of 27 years as the business manager, the business manager for Tucson Unified School District, a role that he assumed following the passing

084of Joseph McGee, showcased his unwavering leadership and commitment to fiscal responsibility. Hubert's service culminated in his retirement as an assistant superintendent for business services, leaving a lasting and enduring legacy of integrity and excellence within TUSD. Beyond his professional accomplishments, Hubert was a man of diverse interests and passions. From his love of card games to his talent for creating stunning stained glass artwork. From his adventures in travel, fishing, and camping to the joy he found in the company of his family, Hubert embraced life with boundless enthusiasm. Hubert's impact extended far beyond the walls of the school district. His involvement in the Tucson community was legendary as noted by his leadership roles in organizations like the El Camino Baptist Church where stained glass work graced the entryway as well as his service on the YMCA board of

085directors and the Southern Arizona Heart Association board of directors and also the Palveri Kaiwanis Club. These commitments underscored his deep commitment to serving others. As past president of the Arizona School Business Officials Association, he did play a pivotal role in shaping educational policies and modernday school financial practices and structures. In recognition of Hubert Victor Summer's outstanding contributions to education, his exemplary leadership within the Tucson Unified School District, and his unwavering commitment to community service, I respectfully submit his name for your consideration in transferring his name from building B at 1010 East 10th Street to the second building over on 220 West 6, which would designate that building going forward as the Summers Building. And with that, I would like to welcome his daughter to the podium to offer some words about her father's legacy. I

086hope I get through this. Dr. Ravish Sha, members of the governing board, Dr. Trio, Mr. Ross, I am here representing the family of Hubert V. Summers. who knew hereafter referred to as dad. We wish to express our thanks and appreciation for honoring dad's extinguished querior in the Tucson Unified School District or as he would have said district number one. Dad was proud of his 29 years of working in various physical manage management positions, starting as a Badger when he was the bookstore manager at Tucson High and retiring as the assistant superintendent of business services. During his tenure tenure, there were many accomplishments which you've heard of, but two that stood out for him were first libraries in every school. That was that was something that he thoroughly believed in. Not the rolling carts going from

087classroom to classroom that my brother and I had. Second, the building of the central kitchen that became self-sufficient after five years instead of the projected 10 years. The best part of the job for dad was the accomplishments of all TUSD employees and students along with the joy of watching student performances and competitions. It is with grateful hearts that we again thank you for this wonderful tribute to our father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. If you ask my my staff at utterbeck, I don't think they ever saw me cry. Thank you for your time and have a wonderful summer. Thank you for that heartfelt uh dedication there. I'll move the item. >> I'll second >> item moved by myself and second by Miss Governor board members. Any other comments? >> Go ahead. >> I just want to thank

088Dr. Trillo and the family of Mr. Summers for us talking to us about his legacy, all of his work. Um, and I am very happy that we'll be carrying his name over to our new building. >> All those in favor say I. I. >> Item passes 5. Thank you. Next, we'll move to our consent agenda. Dr. Trio, items 5.2 to 5.18. Uh, President Shaw, members of the governing board, the administration recommends consideration and passage of the consent agenda as presented this evening. >> Governing board members, are there any items to pull off of our consent item agenda? Excuse me. I'll be pulling a number of items. I'm going to be pulling items 5.3, 5.8, 5.9, 5.11, and 5.13. >> Mr. Romero, you had your hand up. >> Yeah, I'm sorry. >> Uh 5.6, please. >>

0895.6. Okay. Any other items? So, I'll move uh the remainder of the consent agenda, including 5.2, 5.4, 4 5.5 5.7 5.10 5.12 and 5.14 to 18 >> item moved by myself and seconded by Miss Extramm. All those in favor say I. >> I. Item passes 50. >> All right. Next we'll go on to 5.3 then approval of supplemental materials systematic instruction and funological awareness phonics and site words. So I pull that item. Um and I understand this is for move on with reading. um program for phenological phological excuse me awareness and I saw that there was licenses for digital material. I know we've had discussions about digital material in previous board meetings um especially for our youngest kids and I I understand this will be uh targeting uh work for our youngest kids. So I

090wanted to ask more about the digital license material or license for digital material uh in this proposal. >> Yes. I'd like to welcome uh Dr. Dr. Flory Huitt, our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction, uh, to speak to this item. Dr. Hwitt, >> thank you, governing board. And our SIPs program, we actually brought some samples. It is a completely paperbased program that is phonics based specifically for our interventionists. Right now, our interventionists don't have a structured program that they can utilize with our early readers, and this would satisfy that requirement. They've been asking for it, so we're happy to to bring it to you. We have some samples. We brought a box. It's all paperbased and there uh their lessons that are sequenced very specifically for our students. The digital component is accessible just for teachers.

091So, they can access the lessons and the materials. But I do have um here's the team. There's a caliber to bring some examples of of the materials. questions. >> Okay. So, all the digital materials, all the licenses are for the teachers, not for the students access. >> Correct. Correct. >> Okay. All right. Thank you for bringing the material and we can pass those out and I'll move to item list if any other questions from the government. Go ahead, Mr. Romero. >> So, quick question on that. Um, is has this been used at any of our schools so far? Is this something brand new to all of our schools? It is brand new for our schools and because we have our new interventionisters at at our schools, this is going to help them have materials in

092the curriculum to support their instruction with small groups. >> Are we doing any other programs that are similar to this that we're overlapping? >> No. No, we don't. Uh we have our I Ready platform that that's the digital one that we'll bring next week, but it's it doesn't overlap. This is more one-on-one instruction directly with students, not a computer-based Okay. And so are we looking then to replace what we currently have or is this just addition as a selic says supplemental to and help those that are struggling or having trouble you know keep you know keeping this uh information. >> Yeah. So actually with our interventionist uh initiative, one of the challenges we've had is that our instructional model didn't have the materials to support it and this will satisfy that that need that we

093have with our in interventionist for reading. So it'll help have a something a little more structured for them. We have offered of course the I Ready for 15 minutes three times a week and then they provide that instruction with our small groups but they needed something a little more sequential that has a progression and more structured and that's why we're bringing this forward. >> And is this more directed uh for our primary grades? I you see it says K8 here but are we focusing heavy on them or is it everyone all together? This is for our elementary grades uh based on the move on one reading grant. The requirements is K3, right? >> K8. >> So are we're not doing anything ex extra special for our K3s just kind of overview on that one or

094or are we bringing in more focus for the proficiency on those? So when they get that strong foundation, they have these tools that they need later on or or is this kind of a a hope that because of this supplemental program, we're going to build that foundation. >> So the skills build on each other beginning, of course, in the elementary with that phonics instruction, the phmic awareness, and then you have the comprehension skills as the grades go higher. So it it's built on skills. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Go ahead, Miss X. Um, did I hear that they are on I Ready in their intervention groups? >> And what we've recommended as part of our intervention program is that they can use I Ready as part of that for progress monitoring throughout their

095intervention. But we really want to make sure that there's direct instruction for our interventions because we know based on research that that onetoone small groupoup direct instruction is more effective. So then yes, they are on I Ready when they're pulled out or in classrooms. >> Every school has a different model. So it could be that I Ready is part of that to the to do the progress monitoring, but it's not necessarily what all of our schools do. Some schools do, for example, walk to read. So then they split up their their groups based on skill and they'll go directly to that interventionist or to another teacher to practice the skills. Just as a note, I if we're pulling out people for instruction in front of our interventionist, I would prefer them not to be in

096front of a computer. >> Yeah, >> I'll move the item. >> I'll second. >> I will myself and second by Miss Lose. All those that >> Dr. Shaw, >> go ahead, Michelle. >> Um, thank you for the presentation and bringing these materials. Uh, per Miss Extramm's point, I I agree. I don't think uh students who are pulled out should be in front of a computer. And like with all of these new phonics materials and curriculum that I'm I'm thankful that we're um approving um both tonight and in the past, um you mentioned that our interventionists don't have a structured curriculum. Um, and I think this has been an issue we've we've talked about at previous governing board meetings, and I thought that the governing board had addressed that issue and ask that they have like

097a structure when they're um, uh, working with students and so kind of disappointed that this now is the structure that they'll be provided because I thought we had already fixed that issue. And so I would like you know maybe you can come back and present to us the structure that all students are going through to become um proficient readers um in K8 especially with all the new materials that we've been adopting. >> Certainly we can bring up our level up initiative and give you a more clear picture of what that looks like. >> Okay, you can do that. >> Thank you. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? >> Item passes 5-0. Thank you. >> All right. Next, we have item 5.6, approval to award request for proposal K12 content filtering and digital

098safety services. Uh, Mr. Romero, you want to pull that item? >> Yes. Um just wanted to get some answers in regards to um again uh the need for this content filtering digital safety services. Um thank you very much Mr. Yeah, sure. Uh, board member, uh, Romero, content filtering is what we use for security and safety for our students and staff pretty much since the 90s, since the inception of the internet. What content filtering does is organizes and monitors areas where uh we are protecting our students. example, adult sites, weapons, drugs, alcohol, gambling, you know, all the stuff that a student should not have access to. And that also goes for staff. Content filtering is another form of a firewall where you protect students from being hacked and malware and viruses. Uh so anywhere within our

099school district uh our students and staff are protected but also when they take their laptops home since the COVID era era they're protected over there as well because they're under the umb umbrella of protection of the content filtering and the firewall. >> Now are we then when we take those laptops back then we're usually updating these things on all of our different devices. Yeah, it updates in the cloud. So, it updates anything that is within TOZ bounders. Uh, >> have we have we had any big issues that we've seen or we've been able to alleviate even having those because of having this program in place? >> No, this this is a protection. Without it, we cannot run our system. So, this is like uh any safety for a building. This is like the key to

100your door to your house, right? So nobody can get in and do any damage. That's the same thing. This is like protection for the whole network at TUSD for staff, for students, and even for guests when they come in to present at a conference that is protection available to them as well. >> And do they update this every year or is it on an ongoing basis? So 3 months come out that you have a new program because something's been hacked or gotten into. How frequent is that? >> Yeah, it's part of the program. Usually within 3 to 6 months or as needed if there's a new threat, for example, then that will be automatically upgraded. That's all part of the contract. So whenever we get a software from any of those vendors, that's part of

101the contracts that they'll be doing the upgrading. >> Fantastic. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Yeah, >> thank you. Uh, I appreciate the information and thanks uh, Mr. Romero for pulling this. Um, recently a parent reached out to me about issues with her um, son's computer and his ability to access like gaming websites during school hours and and at home. >> Does this um, does this uh, >> filtering? >> Yeah. Does it filter out things like that that aren't necessarily um you know rise to that degree? >> It does. It does. However, however, like any security measures, you do your due diligence. You do any the best protection you can, but then every once in a while some hacker or some bad actor can come in. Uh the second we know about it, we block it.

102So uh if we know for example somebody had access to a site gaming site right um then we'll block it so they will not have access like any security we always like to say we're secure and up 99.9% that.1% is when somebody who's up to no good can still get in that's how we have hacks and malwares and cyber attacks and such. >> Okay. Um cuz I'll just briefly read a quote. He u from the parent. He and his friends have managed hours of gaming at school in a week with the that's with teachers being able to use GoG Guardian. And so guard Gog Guardian I assume is uh teachers ability to see what's on >> Yeah. Go Guardian is a monitoring device at a classroom that can monitor for example if a student is

103cheating or not. >> Okay. And so what would you recommend for those students who are able to bypass whatever protections that we have to like be off task during school hours on their school computer? >> First thing I recommend is we know which uh if if I have access to that email and we can take a look at that school. We can take a look at the student. We can do things for to maybe not disable the account but prevent the account from accessing certain sites. So, if I have access to that information, we'll take care of it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Right. Are we moving it? >> I'll move the item. >> I'll second. >> All right. Item moved by Miss Shaw, second by Miss Luna Rose. All those in favor

104say I. >> I. Any oppose? Item passes 5-0. Thank you. >> All right. Next, we have um item 5.8, approval to award invitation for bid uh beverage and snack foods. I'm the one who pulled that item and I see Miss Agar coming over to the podium and my big concern on this item was sugar and I know you have a presentation I was just added today so I haven't had a chance to dive into it much but can you can you I know you have a yeah go ahead and give your presentation and kind of my focus and on those governing board members have other uh questions about this topic was uh the sugar content that we're loading up our kids on and expect them to behave in our classrooms. >> Sure. Um, so good

105evening, President Shaw, board members, Dr. Trillo, Council Ross. Um, for our beverage and snack bid that's on consent. Um, I did just want to go through and clarify a couple important points. So, um, with the coming school year, um, all cart snacks and beverages um, will no longer be sold to students during lunch at middle and high schools. the items that have previously been available do meet all of the federal, state, and local nutrition standards, but um with larger initiatives that we're focusing on, um we've decided to just really emphasize the meals, right, and not having students purchase those snacks and beverages. um on the snack bid, the crackers, dried fruit, 100% fruit and vegetable juice, sunflower seeds. Those are examples of items that are used in our breakfast, lunch, or afterchool snack program in

106various applications. Um the chips, cookies, brownies, all of these items do meet again the nutritional requirements to be eligible to be offered during the school day. Um but these would be for use with catering or special events on campuses. Um, I did also want to clarify that vending machine, snacks, and beverages have a separate bid. So, the items on this contract um are not associated with vending machines. Um, the district currently has no student vending machines um available. Um, there is one high school that has requested a vending machine um through our vending contract. Um, all other vending machines across the district are staff accessible only. Um, just to clarify the nutritional requirements for the items that are listed on this contract. Um, they all meet the USDA federal smart snack standards, the state nutrition

107standards, and of course our local district uh nutrition standards. Um, so here are the nutritional requirements for snacks and beverages. Just to to clarify, um, the sugar requirements here are less than or 35% of weight from total sugar. when you get into the meal program, there's different requirements for added sugar for school lunch and breakfast. Um, so what is the use of these beverages and snacks that are on this? Oops, sorry, I went the wrong way. Um, and then I did just want to reiterate our district in uh ingredient initiative. Um, so as you may recall, our state did pass the Arizona Healthy Schools Act last year that goes into effect um July 1st. Um our state has defined ultrarocessed foods with a list of um 11 ingredients that are highlighted here in yellow. Our

108ingredient initiative uh for our products in TUSD are based um in addition to the state law requirements. We have all of these other ingredients um that we follow from the Centers for Science and Public Interest. So we are looking at all of the ingredients and products to ensure that um these ingredients listed here are not included. questions. >> Thank you for putting together that quick presentation. Um, last minute here. So, I'm a little confused. So, these the products that are proposed to be purchased, they are not being sold to students. It's not doing all cart selling anymore. >> No longer starting this coming school year 2627. Um, we have made the decision to not have allocart snacks available to middle and high school students during lunch. We've previously had um a limited amount of products

109available again that met all the requirements um but for this coming school year we are not going to be offering those products. >> So what are we purchasing items for then? >> So these would be available for catering events. So we for our district catering that we have as well as if a school a lot of times we get contacted if the school wants to do a special event, right? a fundraiser or maybe they're um doing a celebration of attendance, right? For kids that have perfect attendance, they want to offer a special treat. They can purchase, for example, a cookie through our department that is whole grain, meets the sugar requirements, the fat requirements to be eligible for students to consume that product during the school day. We're supposed to follow the district wellness policy

110and the state nutrition standards, as well as the federal smart snack standards. So, the list of the products on this bid meet all of those requirements. Um, there are certain ones that are part of the meal program. For example, the um um we have bottled water on there. We do purchase bottled water for middle and high school uh students to have at lunch as an option. Um sunflower seeds, for example, we use that in our afterchool snack program to meet our protein requirement. Um, so yeah, there is it's a combination, but like all of the chips, for example, those aren't something except for the tortilla chips, we do have a corn tortilla chip that we use as a component sometimes um with lunch, but the Cheetos that are on there, those are formulated for K12.

111We don't offer those at lunch. >> So I see Flamin' Hot Cheetos on this list, correct? That's for catering then. So as yes, catering or like I said, if there were to be some special requests for an event that they want to purchase that through our catering service, those are not purchased as part of the reimburseable meal. >> Okay. And I guess my bigger concern was like the beverages. You said in your presentation that all the beverages have no added sugar. So all the chocolate soy milks and all the fruit punches have no added sugar. >> So the juices are all 100% fruit juice. So they do not have added sugar. It's just the natural fruit juice of the fruit that the juice is made of. Um the soy milks and flavored milks um those

112are for dietary accommodations. So for students that are lactoseree um we do have subm substitutes that do meet the requirements. The national school lunch program has the less than 10% I mean sorry less than 10 grams of added sugar for those flavored milk substitutes. So yes >> I see like some of the chocolate milks like chocolate soy milks have up to 21 grams of sugar. Ours don't have that much sugar. >> They do not. We're not allowed to offer that. >> Okay. Any other questions? Michelle, >> go ahead. Michelle, >> um if you can go back a slide to slide four. Um the unwanted list of ingredients uh including artificial colors, titanium dioxide, um and others. Are we not h we're not purchasing any items that have any of the unwanted? correct >> ingredients and

113>> that is correct >> the watch list and the allergens are we are the obviously there's some on the watch list like cuz it has added sugar for items but we're trying to be careful uh with purchasing food that is on the watch list >> correct that is correct so yes as you pointed out added sugar is a that's a challenge right that's something but it is something that we look at right so if we're looking at an ingredient the labels now require the added sugar to be separate. Um there are added sugar thresholds now for national school lunch and breakfast program. So we are monitoring that. Um nitrates for example, things like that. If um take a hot dog, right? Like we're looking at that. If there's a clean label hot dog, we're selecting

114that versus something that would contain the nitrate. >> Okay. And then if we're not allowing students to purchase single items anymore, are we notifying parents that there's this change? >> So they can purchase entre if they want. So meals are free. So we're really trying to encourage students to participate in the meal program, right? I would much rather have a student consume a meal than purchase a bag of Cheetos that meet the nutritional requirements, right? Um, and to be honest, the volume when you look at um, the amount of snacks that we were selling across an entire school year, it wasn't a tremendous amount in terms of impact, right? So, most of our students are participating in the meal program. Um, we do see higher interest at the middle schools because I think it's exciting

115to them. They come out of elementary and they get to middle school and they can buy a bag of chips or a cookie. Um but it's something that we've just decided with our wellness committee as well and just other initiatives um in our department that um if we're expecting and now with the state law right the different clubs and other things can't sell these kind of products or have them available to students even though our products meet the requirements I don't think it's very consistent messaging like why can you buy a bag of chips during lunch but we can't sell it you know to students for fundraising so I think it in the spirit of wellness for our students and our environment of the schools with health and wellness it makes sense to not offer

116those allocart. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead Mr. >> So does this also mean so like football games and basketball games and volleyball games those things are not being able to be sold during those games? >> So the healthy schools act um applies to things before during and directly after the school day. So, a public event for like a football game is different, but the caveat and I can turn to council Ross to clarify if I misspe, but my understanding of it is that if it's purchased with district dollars, right, um state or federal dollars, it has to follow this um these laws. But if it's an outside funding source, then that would be something different. So, like if the PTO or something like that bought a bunch of these things to sell at a

117like you said fundraiser, they're able to do that. >> Correct. As long as it's not during the school day or before school or directly after. >> All right. And is it possible though if the kids are not getting that option, they can throw these things in their backpack and take them to school? >> Correct. The state law does not restrict anything that a parent is purchasing or that an individual student is bringing. Correct. Do we think we're going to have any, you know, bathroom hot Cheeto breaks that we're going to be needing to look at as far as those types of things go? I just, you know, hey, I got to buy my hot Cheetos maybe in the bathroom. >> The black market for hot Cheetos. >> Takis. >> Yeah, that's going to happen. >>

118Yeah, I'm glad I governing board member actually said Takis. Our number one challenge is the QT and the Circle K. I think food I think you've heard director Aguilar and our wellness committee. are doing everything possible to tighten up um at lunch. And I love the initiative of just prioritizing the meal and and getting rid of this the alle cart snacks, but the the the QT contraband and the Circle K contraband coming in with the sugary drinks and the Takis and the and the funions. Yeah, that's that's a big big challenge for us. >> If I can just say, my daughter's third grade teacher, she said no powdery chips. So that's how they got away with not bringing it. So kudos to Miss Sam. >> So yeah, I was just kind of curious again if

119you know kids can still bring in in those things. We're going to have bigger issues. I guess we'll see those things. But again, it's it's good to know, let at least the public know that we are promoting uh more of a healthier student lifestyle with with it comes to the food and not just snacking. Uh because I think we've seen so many kids that that's just all they do and they skip the whole process of the reason for having a a meal um and not just to snack on and have that energy burst and then crash. And I know that probably also uh assists in their attention span and their learning um by not being you know with a with a healthy uh food regimen. So I want to say thank you and I know

120Dr. Sean's been been doing a lot towards this to make sure our kids are eating healthier uh as well. So, thank you for the work you are doing. >> Thank you. >> I'm curious. I'm I'm excited to see what the wellness committee will work with and put together. >> So, I'll move the item. >> I'll second. >> I moved by myself and seconded by Miss Lunar Rose. All those in favor say I. >> I. I. >> Item passes 5-0. Thank you. >> All right. Next we have item 5.9. Um approval to award invitation for bid education aids and materials. Uh I pull this item. Um I didn't know what we were voting on. Um we're we're voting on $4 million over five years and all I see in the materials were just broad categories of

121language arts laminating supplies. So I didn't feel comfortable voting on this without any more details. >> Yeah. So board members, this is so we put out a uh an invitation for bid to vendors in order to respond to different items that schools and departments purchase. So in order to essentially make it quicker for schools to make purchases for educational materials and aids rather than them having to go through individual procurement processes, we actually ask vendors to basically say here here's what we're looking for. So like DMAN uh may be looking for monosur materials. Monatory materials is one of the items that's in here. So then we ask vendors, can you respond to the fact that we need these types of monastery materials or science materials or fine arts materials? And so it allows schools and

122departments to essentially make purchases from these list of vendors who responded to the invitation for bid without having to go through a lengthy procurement process. especially if they're going to buy, you know, if they're going to use title dollars to spend, you know, 30, 40, $50,000 on a specific item, they'd have to go through a more rigorous individual process just to buy, you know, a set of Montasauri classroom materials at DAM. Um, so what we're asking for is approval to essentially approve these list of vendors who responded to our bid invitation um and responded to the various materials that are part of that contract. >> Okay, thank you for that clarification. Any other questions on this item? Governing board members? >> I'll move the item. >> I'll second. >> I moved by myself, seconded by

123Miss L Rose. All those in favor say I. I. And item passes 50. Um, next we have 5.11 um approval expenditures in excess of 250,000 for uh to USD food services dairy products using cooperative contract. My questions was the same on this one. The like the chocolate milks and other things is still within the 10 grams of sugar and all that. >> Correct. >> Yeah. I know they can go a lot higher and no burst of sugar is not going to help with behavior issues. All right, I'll move the item then. >> Okay, I'll second. >> I moved by myself and second by Miss Len Rose. All those in favor say I. >> Item passes 50. Uh, finally we have 5.13 approval of soul source purchase designations for fiscal year 2627. I pull that item

124and my questions were specifically about Eureka math material on there uh and what is digital, what is paper and just going to get in more clarification on what we're approving on the math material. Thank you. We did bring a hand out. Is that okay if I pass it out? >> Yes, please. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, with that, we'll welcome your questions. But our Eureka digital platform as you can see on the handout is essentially it supports four main purposes. The first one it's a digital resource library where teachers can access their lessons. The they have slides that they can access. They can access problem sets, classroom materials, sample solutions, etc. It also has another component that's the assessment piece. This is probably the most utilized. 85% of teacher platform use is for topic

125quizzes. And this is really great because that means that they're consistently monitoring how students are performing through the digital platform. The other piece is our math catalyst. And what this is is our intervention for math. It's supplemental and it allows teachers to access the resources that are designed for specific interventions. And then for students, the student assessment platform, it's only an assessment platform. So they can digitally access their scored results item by item. They get feedback and it has summaries of their performance. So you'll see on that first page that throughout the district about 44% of our teachers use that digital platform. About 32.8% of our students are using that platform for the assessment component. This is not a plugandplay where students get instructed by some digital tool. It's more used for the assessment piece.

126And then we have a list of how teachers use the platform. As you can see, the most utilized way is through the resource library about 23.28. That's what's accessed the most. And then on page two, you'll see uh they use this for our students where they utilize it for the assessment component. Then you'll see a breakdown of the different components of the digital platform that they use. So uh also on page two at the very bottom you'll see how students experience the platform. So you'll see for example they have a portion that's called my work and that's where they complete those assignments the assigned assessments. So teachers have to assign the assessments digitally and then they are also able to look at their scores once they finish those assessments and they can also access lesson

127level materials like problem sets and there's also a really great resource for families that they can access that gives them this is what we're looking at for example and on page three you'll see an example of what that looks like. So, uh, I know it's like font five, but you'll see that the it has little tabs on the top that says my work and the student can see how they're performing. So, it's really for students, it's an assessment piece that they can access through this tool, not a plug-and-play. So, then you see some of the schools with highest platform engagement listed there and then some summary points for you all. So I think with the math program and that's what started my whole concern about the digital platform. see my own eighth grader coming to

128me with the y= mx plusb graphing stuff and on her tablets a district issue tablet and me not really feeling like she was learning anything about actual math on the tablet format without the paper and pencil to actually graph things out do the calculations go line by line with the with the equations on those uh formulas uh and so I'm I'm concerned and I see like the the highest users are some of them are middle schoolers and elementary schoolers like I yeah like I I don't I don't know if kids are learning on this platform and and how that's contributing to our our struggles with math scores and actual learning and teaching with this. >> Just to clarify the the digital platform for students is just an assessment piece. I I wonder what tool they

129can access lessons and they can access the resources there but the core materials are all physical materials. are all books. They're all textbooks and the teachers can utilize the digital pieces to support, but all of our lessons are uh workbooks and and books. But how many teachers are using it just to supplement as opposed to using it as a main curriculum piece? Like my daughter doesn't come home with any workbooks or textbooks ever in the whole three years of middle school. I have not seen a single textbook. >> I know we provide them. >> Go ahead, Dr. Trio. Yeah, there's a large portion of our uh teachers, they don't like to send the textbook home because of damage, loss. We don't encourage that. You know, we always want teachers sending the textbook home, but we

130certainly that's one of the more common uh rationale that we hear consumables should they'll be going home. Like the workbooks like Mr. Romero was holding up, those are designed to be beaten up and used and we purchase those every single year. Uh my daughter, I think her third grade teacher allowed them to bring it home, but fourth and fifth grade, she wasn't allowed to. So I don't know how to help if I don't see the book. >> Right. Right. And we provide all of those materials and encourage to use the physical materials as well. So >> So, so then what happens if two or three are missing from a classroom because student has forgotten or has damaged their books? Are those easily replaceable? >> They are. So, we do inventory, of course, all of our

131books and provide a few extras for our schools, so they can be replaceable, but it depends on the quantity. So, of course, we have a certain number of books for every school. >> And I guess I'm still concerned because we approve curriculum and we've been told that parents, you know, are able to look at it online and get a better understanding, but I have yet to see that come home. So I I'm just wondering where the disconnect is. >> They they should be they should be going. We we have every year we have uh a lot of distribution of books for all of our schools. It goes through our warehousing process. So uh they should be going home, especially those workbooks. They're consumables and our students need uh definitely to be using them. So perhaps

132it's uh on us to make sure that we provide more explicit uh directions and more explicit guidelines for our teachers ensuring that those materials are accessible for our students and they can take them home especially the consumables. >> So is there a component where a parent can log on to this check to see what assignment their child is doing and how to help them? >> I'll refer to Miss Heidi because I'm not sure about that. Um I also did want to say you see two workbooks with each of the teacher manuals. One is called learn and the other one is called apply. And one of those is actually meant to be taken home. So one is for the classwork that they do and then the other is for the practice which can be done at

133home. Um we give our schools the option to order those two um books. Um not all schools take advantage of both uh books but we do offer um to purchase those every year. Schools turn in o or orders um for that. So, uh, on the students digital platform, there is, and you can kind of see it in this font five that Lori was talking about, um, there is a family um, tab um, under the students uh, digital access and there it goes specifically to the lesson like here's, you know, what your child is doing in this lesson and how to support them. So then my child can log into Eureka and find their assignment. >> Uhhuh. >> Okay. I don't think that's being dictated to parents from from teachers or administration. And also why are

134we allowing schools to decide to have one and not the other? I I feel that um in this new day and age with the new way of learning math, um I definitely need a book and going into middle school, it's going to be much worse. So, I'm just wondering why there's uh the ability to decide and not just you're getting two books, this is going home with your student. >> And every school does homework a little differently. like my granddaughter went to Borton and they don't assign homework at Borton. So depending on what the school's, you know, systems are for homework, we we do allow them to choose. But what I'm as I'm listening to you all, I think we just need to be really clear, you know, with our administrators that um students should

135be using and consuming these materials and practicing the math at home and to teach them how to show their parents or the family. um materials are online as well. >> And I think if they're getting stuck on a problem and that's something that we can teach them at home, then maybe math scores increase. So I feel like there's a huge disconnect that we need to figure out and really remedy because this would have been great to have in elementary school for my family. >> Yeah. Before I um we continue on this form, was there any other uh items on this was a lot of different items on this. My only concern on 5.13 was this Eureka math. M was there anything else? >> Okay. Nothing else. So, um maybe we can divide the question. We

136can vote on all the other items and then decide what we want to do with Eureka math. >> Sure. I'm okay. >> Have a second to divide the question. >> I I'll second. >> Okay. So item we're dividing the question motion by myself second by Miss Luna Rose to divide up Eureka math materials from the other items in this agenda item. All those in favor say I. >> I posted that items passes 5-0. I'll move to uh uh I I'll make a motion to uh to support the other items besides Euro math materials. >> I'll second. >> All right. Item moved by myself and second miss. All those in favor say I. >> I. Okay. Item passes 5 Z. Now we're back to the Eureka math materials uh here and that's the one item that

137we're addressing. Go ahead, Miss Lunar Rose. >> Um Dr. Huitt, do um Hello. Uh do we know because I'm as I'm looking and thank you for the information here. Um because it says 44.1% of teachers using platform, 32.8% of students using platform. So I'm assuming these are our our people, correct? >> Correct. Okay. Do we know how many parents do parents have a login? I'm I'm obviously I mean my daughter just graduated so I I'm I've been long gone from that part of of my world. So, um because to be fair, I mean, I I think not to say that none of our, you know, our parents um aren't dedicated to their children's learning, but we're a very set we're very dedicated set of parents up here on the dis. So, I'm kind of curious

138in terms of um we do struggle in this district with parent participation and a lot of things. So I'm just I'm just wondering is there data about parent involvement >> with the digital platforms? Yeah. Or Okay. I I think they have to log in with their student login and that has that family tab available for parents to view but no I don't think it's a separate account. Um I know through synergy and parent view you're able to see some of the progress but um it it doesn't directly no parent accounts directly with Eureka. >> Okay. So I'm wondering if maybe there are some other parents who um are intimidated perhaps by the material. Uh, and I don't know how, you know, I know things get sent out at the beginning of the year, but I

139think maybe if there's reminders within whatever classroom platforms they're using to connect to connect with their parents, you know, there's something to remind the parent once a week or bi-weekly or something like remember or please log in. I don't know. just something that maybe having something like that would lessen some fears of of what um our kids are learning in the classroom and how that how that relates to their testing scores. >> I think a lot of that has to do too with the school culture and the newsletters they send out and the updates and then the relationship that teachers have with their parents making sure that they're informed as well. The great piece about Eureka is that that family component, it's really helpful. It does help families see what lessons their students are looking

140at, how they're progressing, but maybe we need to do uh, you know, more more information and education on how it works and how to make it more accessible for our families. >> Okay. Thank you. So for the purposes of this agenda item tonight, are we able to approve just the physical materials and not the digital platform? >> I think it's sole source, right? >> Go ahead, Mr. Dr. Trio. >> I I would have significant concerns about cutting teachers off from the digital lesson planning resources. I I would I would have to advise against that. I understand where you're coming at with students, but Eureka Math is the district's math curriculum and our teachers do rely a lot on the online tutorials and the online resources that are available for math. Please also remember we only

141have certified math teachers at the secondary level. So, your elementary school teachers are general practitioners. They rely a lot heavily uh more they're more heavily rellyant upon the curriculum that we provide them. So that's just my advisory. Again, I understand the student stuff and and I we're only talking about an assessment here, which if the board votes, you know, no on that, we can live we certainly live without that. I just would hate to see our teachers lose the digital support that goes along with this paperbased curriculum. uh I think we can move in a direction where uh it sounds the general feedback we're we're getting from the board is we probably you know and everything is a balance. I think that in our approach to sites um we are very very strong proponents of

142sitebased leadership. We trust our principles but we also understand that that has to be a balance as board member said should every classroom be able to benefit from consumables going home? Absolutely. that may not be an area where we want to be loose anymore and we there's probably areas where we do need to centralize some of the authorization but I think in terms of you know just the whole digital suite my humble request is the board split out what's available to teachers and educators versus what's a available for the students I don't know Heidi if you had any other >> I did want to mention we did actually talk about this um with Eureka math because we know you know some of the sentiments with with the board in regards to student digital access. There

143are ways that we can turn off access to students and leave the access on for teachers if you know if that is a direction that we want to go. But I agree completely with Dr. Trujillo taking away those tools from the teachers and it would take away a whole um access to the intervention and diagnostic which our RTI interventionists are going to need um next year. That's it. That's the adults. >> The adults. It's teacher led. The intervention program kids never get on a computer for it. It's all teacherled um lessons. >> Dr. Sha, >> go ahead, Miss Shaw. >> Go ahead. >> Thank you. Um how long have we utilized Eureka Math >> as a district? >> Going back to when it was New York, right? >> Yeah. going way back to when it

144was engaged New York actually when Steve Holmes was here >> 14 15 >> it's yeah it's been a good 10 10 11 years >> okay >> it's evolved it's changed you know because we just adopted Eureka math squared um maybe three years ago >> is it effective as a curriculum program I mean really uh I don't think we've seen great improvements in our our like math proficiency scores. >> So different grade levels have different levels of achievement over the last 10 years. Some grade levels have been fantastic, others have been stagnant. Uh I think there are so many other variables like the system itself does not require highly qualified math teachers at the elementary level. There's no state requirement that you have 30 university hours or more of mathematics instruction until you get to middle

145school and high school. So that's a huge that's a huge issue. Uh you have non-certified practitioners that that's everywhere. That's not just USD. That's the state of Arizona. So I think that's barrier one. I think barrier number two is of course the traditional teacher turnover that happens. I think we have to look at those things first. You can get any number of curriculum in here. You're still running into those two big issues. And then the barrier of embedded job embedded teacher contract time embedded highquality professional development for best practices in mathematical pedigogy systemwide is always the gold standard. We have uh four PD days to to really try to get at that. We need a lot more. Um, we have a curriculum service providers that uh have to be the jack of all trades with

146literacy and PBIS and AVID and everything else. So, I just it's not that we couldn't benefit from looking at other curriculum. I just don't want to be I don't want anybody to be under the illusion that curriculum solves all the issues. Which is why math is different in high school because you have certified practitioners versus what you'll get in a rank and file second or third grade teacher whose stronger focus tend to be literacy. >> Right. Well, thank you for raising those issues because geez um you know I think we need to have high highly qualified uh certified math teachers in our elementary school because that is like the bedrock of um their foundation for middle school and high school. So really doesn't make sense that we're focusing those teachers um on our higher grades.

147We need them in every grade. Um and so How much of the 1.5 million per year for this program is consumables versus textbooks? So um that amount as well includes professional development and we never go to that amount but so for example this year um for professional development and the consumable materials and digital access. It's I I believe the quote is $1 million and like 23,000 something like that. I don't know the exact number that's on next week's agenda. um which includes all of that. So that's how much we spend on Eureka math. >> Okay. Um because you know my daughter has brought things like this home before uh throughout the years she's going into 8th grade now and many of the times this a book like this would be filled up 20% of the

148way maybe 50% never fully consumed. And so because math is a subject that is uh not changing really, uh I wonder like if our budget if it would be better for our budget to just purchase textbooks, have students do problems within the textbooks. Like last year, probably the first year that my daughter brought a math textbook home, she has one at school and then she has the same one at home so she doesn't have to do the back and forth. Um, and so I just wonder like thinking long term if it would be more sustainable for the environment and also our district budget to just invest in like a textbook that students can reuse throughout the years um that has the math curriculum in it that's high quality. you know, we we do that for

149a lot of our more advanced high school um courses, but usually in the lower grades, they have, you know, the pages that students will write in and draw in and organize their work in. Yeah. Um I know that you've discussed like school culture and you know we give principles the ability to make decisions but I think at this point we need to make the decision that a book goes home with every child and um you know there's an option to order two that should just be the regular thing to do. If we want scores to change and, you know, the ability of our students to learn better, we need to constantly change as a district and not rely on, well, that's not, you know, that's not how school A does it and school C does

150it a different way. Um, we really need to start changing with the times. Uh, because it's it's obviously not working. So I've um we have the um assessment committee which is a collaboration of our tea and our curriculum leadership and so I've asked TA leadership uh in this next couple of months to really transform their work plan to focus on some of this digital platform get the teacher uh feedback uh as we go into making decisions for the 2728 school year. Uh so I'm hoping that the DA team and our curriculum team can really vet some of this and uh give some good feedback so as we're as a governing board as myself kind of being a real uh downer on some of the digital platforms and and the same feedback coming from my governing

151board colleagues that we can get more feedback from uh the teacher group along with our curriculum leadership on on this topic as we start making some changes in terms of what is accessible for our students. And so um would it be possible to move this item for Eureka map materials for the physical materials, the teacher digital platform and the student platform just for TUVA? >> No procurement. Uh so the sole source evaluation is for the whole content. um if you're going to separate it, we need to pull this item and go back and re-evaluate the whole thing because the sole source contract that is being provided is inclusive of everything that that uh Holly or that uh Heidi and and Flor are looking for. So if you want to pull out segmentation, we'd have to

152go back and evaluate because the sole source is basically saying that only Eureka can provide this specific type of item. And so by starting to segment that out, we need to go back and decide is Eureka the only one who can provide a teacher the teacher component, the supplemental, the consumable, so on and so forth. So I mean I hate to kind of be the rule guy, but the procurement would you'd violate procurement at that point. We'd have to go back and redo that. Um and until then, um the department would be limited to only $100,000 in purchases. >> Dr. Shaw, >> go ahead. I think for now I'm okay with approving this. It's just we we we need to start changing the way that we do things and the way that we communicate to

153our parents um and to our schools. I understand school culture. I get it. But if I had known that I had the ability to have another book, you know, maybe my daughter would be a math genius. Who knows? But it's something that we have to continually do. And I I just feel like we're not doing that. We're just okay with what we have and and it's not working. >> So, what is the will of the board tonight? Go ahead, Mr. Romero. >> So, kind of to piggy back what Miss A was saying again, I don't think we need to throw the baby out with a bath water here, but what she did bring up, and I don't think it what you're talking of, correct me if I'm wrong, that we're really worried about so much

154the digital platform and having people collaborate together on that one. What we're looking at is when Miss Fox gives us these things and we talk about proficiencies and things of this nature, are we getting a return on this investment? Are we using our resources best with all the money that we're spending? Um why are we not? You know, I understand different communities uh run their schools a little bit different, but consistency. If a child leaves from second grade on the east side to second grade on the west side, it's two different type of uh books or they're reading. They're taking this home at one school and they're not taking it home at the other. I think what she's talking about is more of the root of what's going on. Not necessarily the the criteria we're

155using, but we need to change that and getting more of this in front of our parents that want to be involved with our students. And I don't know if I'm expressing a little bit what you're what it sounds like to me that you're saying. Yeah, I think I'm just frustrated and I'm continually just saying things, but yes, you're right. I feel like we need to do better as a district and informing parents, hey, you can log on to Eureka Math and you can see what your child is doing or hey, here's the book for this, you know, this quarter because I think they get like four different books a year. Um well I mean I think but you know like my daughter would come home when this book is done and bring it home. So

156then I then see what she has do has been doing but then she's like hey mom this is we learned this equation and she's trying to describe it to me and we're not able to communicate because I don't know what she's learning. Right. >> Right. And I think that goes along different. You know, this conversation, I don't think, is going to finish here tonight, but I think it's a good way to start a conversation on being better as a district and being consistent within the district. And I I agree with Mrs. Extra on that. If we decide to go that route, I would definitely be interested. >> So, was the will of the governing board tonight? >> I'll move the item. >> M. >> Yes. And I'll second. And I would just like to say

157I mean I appreciate all my colleagues um comments. I just think um you know school starts in six weeks and I think it would be kind of um a hard time to make serious changes right now since there's only a short amount of time. We've got a short window. Am I am I correct? Yeah, because teacher and induction and all of those things are going to be happening rapidly after the 4th of July I'm assuming. So, I would want to see this, but um I'm just make I just wanted to clarify like that's going to be happening soon. Correct. >> Yeah, absolutely. And then the ordering of materials and things like that. >> Okay. All right. And when this um if this item passes, uh when would the materials come? >> They're supposed to come

158before June 30th or No. Okay. Heidi has a better picture than me. So next week is when you'll actually have an opportunity to approve the purchase. Tonight is just saying Eureka is the sole source for providing Eureka mass squared materials. Next week we're coming back with the purchase. Um that purchase we then generate the POS on July 1 and the teachers those materials start shipping to schools uh in July. >> Okay. >> But hopefully before the before the school. Okay. >> Your starts of course. >> Okay. Thank you. That was all I had. >> Dr. Item is moved by Mr. Romero, second by Miss Lar Rose. All those in favor say I. >> I. Item passes 5-0. Thank you. And I I just want to thank you for the conversation for the governing board. I

159think we've had this a couple of times now and I think the curriculum team has heard the feedback from the governing board about our skepticism about digital material uh and student learning. So, as we get more materials, as we get this committee going, uh, with the TEA group, um, and looking at digital platforms, um, just just know that, you know, we'll we're approving this now, but it's not going to be forever. We we'll definitely need some changes, uh, how how we're using digital materials for our kids. All right, we're going to move on to item 7.1, code of conduct, proposed revisions for the 2627th school year. Dr. Yeah, I'd like to welcome our uh director for student relations, Anna Warren Brand, who as usual is rolling deep with her team, which is great. We get

160to meet everybody, but they've done some fantastic work on the code of conduct revisions and I think Anna will be breaking the lead story about a major achievement this year with some of our disciplinary data. I'm going to turn it over to uh Anna to get us started. >> Point of information, Dr. Shaw. Um, when is the call to the audience getting back on the agenda? Because I thought it was like after the appointments. >> After 72 is what the motion was. >> Like we have some folks in the audience who I'm sure would like to go home. I wonder if we can move up. Call to the audience. >> We have a lot of people in the audience also waiting for a code of conduct in the library program. >> That's true. There's only

161five, I believe, people who need to speak. I just >> I don't know. I thought I was misled. I feel misled. >> No, Miss Miss Borboa, I knew a couple more came in. How many more? >> So, that would make it seven. >> Okay. Can we get 7.2 I thought would be at least before 7.1. I wonder if we can at least move up to 7.2 before 7.1. Are you making a motion, Mr. >> Yeah, I'll move to um move 7.2 to the top of the agenda >> and then have called to the audience directly after >> I'll second. >> All right, we do have a lot of people here for 7.1 as well. How many staff members do we have here for that? All right. So, we have >> 10 staff members. >> Wow.

162>> Waiting for 7.1. >> How many members of the public are waiting for call to the audience? >> Okay. >> Right. We have seven speakers. That's another >> 21 plus potentially minutes and we don't want to cover topics after 9:00 is what this governing board has stated in the past. So, I mean, we have a motion and a second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed say nay. Nay. >> I All right. >> I >> All right. So item passes 41. So we're doing 7.2 then remaining call to the audience and 7.1. >> All right. So we're doing 7.2. >> That was a motion, right? >> Okay. I'm so confused. Okay. All right. So, I'm back. >> Okay. Well, good evening governing board members. Thank you. All right. So we

163are here to present a an exciting opportunity with our certified school librarian placement initiative and the way I am presenting this presentation is around these six areas. So we'll open up with the purpose and the background of the initiative the why behind this work and from there we will look at the research base. We will then walk through the selection criteria for our schools and the process we use to identify them. We will spend some time on the role definition and differentiation which is a critical piece of clarity and then we will close with our accountability framework and next steps including what we're asking the board to do tonight. So once again the purpose of this initiative is to fund and place six certified librarian positions identified based on the academic need with very clear

164instructional focus and measurable outcomes for our district with our district goals. These positions are are going to be academically focused and in in instructional roles placed in schools where a certified librarian can directly support reading engagement, research skills, information literacy, and teacher collaboration. And it's going to rest on the three pillars that you see on the screen. The first is going to be that literacy access, expanding that equitable access to highquality library services at schools that need it the most. The second is that instructional support which will position the librarians as academic partners at each of the school sites. And the last piece is that measurable impact. So we're going to go ahead and build accountability from the start so the board can evaluate the return on this override investment over time. So with the

165research I am going to invite Dr. Holly Freighus but I'll start with uh the research is compelling. The American Association of School Librarians describes school librarians as serving in interlin interdisciplinary and crosscutting roles as instructional leaders, program administrators, educators and collaborative partners and information specialists. So as you can see uh the first piece here is around that academic achievement. A there was a 2023 study out of and uh North Carolina state that was led by Wid and colleagues that found that students in schools with full full-time certified librarians outperformed match peers on ELA and math. And then there's second piece of the research that confirms that increased library engagement with librarians. So the research by Smallless Snder has found that students in schools with certified librarians use library resources more frequently and they demonstrate higher

166reading motivation. So both of these uh outcomes we care greatly about. And last stronger school culture. So there was a study by Culvin and Croft that found that certified librarians who build genuine partnerships with teachers contribute to improve school culture, professional collaboration and even parent and community engagement. So I am going to invite now this is where I invite Dr. Freighus to help with identify our selection process. Thank you. Good evening. Uh good evening everybody. Uh so I just want to start off by um explaining that each year uh assessment and evaluation creates a um sort of a risk matrix of all the schools and we use about 12 measures. And so uh this this report that we develop every year is uh intended to identify high need schools that need additional support. And so

167you can see from this slides uh the different variables that we use to understand um which schools have highest needs uh based on these characteristics. So so okay so some of those characteristics you'll see the free and reduced lunch English language learners exceptional education and so forth. So with that matrix, these are the recommended schools that we've identified based on this process. So we have Lawrence is a K8 school that has a high need. So this is one of our highest need schools in our district across multiple of those indicators. The next one is Morgan Maxwell, which also has high academic needs in performance. They have a lot of mobility and student support indicators that show that they need this support as well. Safford is also has significant mobility and literacy access needs that may

168get a strong candidate. We have de as well with also elevated free and reduced lunch students, a large English language learner percentage and also academic performance indicators that show that they they would also benefit from a librarian. And last uh the last two are Kragan and Ericson. These are both schools with solid need indicators that align to our early literacy goal of this initiative. One thing I do want to clarify with the with the placement of our of our schools or that we're recommending we focus on the elementary schools because we know that in the early grades there is higher impact. So that was part of this uh preliminary placement as well. We did do a quick survey with our principles that would be receiving these librarians and they are ready. They're very excited about

169it. All of them mentioned that they have the space. It would not conflict with the library assistant which I'll go into in a in a brief moment. But as you can tell from that survey, they are they're ready. They're excited. One of them says, "We have this position would help fill a gap. We have no reading interventionist." So our students are typically one to two grades level below and teachers would h have worked very hard and this support would help our students reach more grade level. So that's just one of the comments and I'm happy to share all those survey results. So the next slide just talks a little bit about the differentiation between the certified school librarian. I do want to clarify in TUSD I had to dig the job description is actually called

170library media specialist in TUSD. So um just for that clarity and as you can see on the slide they on the left is the scope of those certified school librarians. They are instructional responsibilities. So they promote that schoolwide reading culture. They collaborate with teachers on curriculum. They connect lessons. They teach information literacy and research skills developing academic programming align to school and and district goals. curating instructional materials, tracking impact data, etc. On the right, you'll see the scope of our library assistants, which will remain at our schools. They are a classified position. They are more operational responsibilities with that circulation desk management, the shelving, inventory, clerical tasks, supervising students during those non-instructional time, processing materials. So, these two roles really we see them as a complement to each other and not competing. And the library

171the certified librarians will not replace the library assistant. The librarian works above that operational layer as an instructional partner and the library assistant helps sustain the the daily functioning of the library. So both are necessary. We have reviewed uh the scope of the work very carefully against our existing library assistant job to ensure that there is no overlap in terms of our accountability and impact metrics. We want to make sure that from the start we are reviewing how well these these librarians are doing in terms of making sure that we see some growth in our ELA and math and in our ELA assessment results for those grades three. So you'll see these four accountability impact metrics that we'll be looking at and monitoring. So we'll monitor academic achievement, staff and school culture, library engagement as

172well as program implementation. So very quickly, this is our timeline and next steps. If we receive your board approval tonight, we will move forward. We'll begin recruitment in June and July. Uh we'll post the six positions, begin that recruitment with our principles on boarding in August. And then those selected librarians will on board and begin integrating into the school's literacy plan. And then of course our year one begins in August with our launch. And we'll do a mid-year review in January and February. and in the spring provide the board with an annual report of the impact. And uh our requested action is to approve those six preliminary placement sites uh confirm the academic focus scope of our certified school librarians and then authorize our TUSD department with the recruitment and hiring and on boarding for

1732627. I know Mr. Hernandez has some of the financial portions, but I'll welcome your questions at this point. >> So, of these schools that are being put in here, um, do you have the I guess we have the criteria going on through. Do we have their scorecard that you can give to the board? >> Yeah, we can we can do that. We can give you the the whole report. So, >> and and I saw you also had like a midyear review or something along those lines. And are we going to be just going against last year or are we taking we'll just say Craig for example, we go back two, three years and then see kind of where they are comparatively to or I guess on this score card when we gave them. Did we

174just look at last year or was it multiple years we looked at these schools? >> We could do it in multiple measures. So, we can do a threeyear fiveyear analysis to look at those scores over time. But I mean, as far as the ones that we picked, do we just use last year's numbers or do we go back multiple years to figure out that these were the schools we needed to go after? >> This will probably be our base year and then we can build on that. But Dr. Fredus, I'd love to hear your input here. She's my expert. >> So the uh ranking report that we develop every year is based on the prior year data. So we're currently in the process of developing the same report using 2526 data. So the data that

175was used to identify these schools was 2425 data. And um my recommendation would be to use last year's the baseline before librarians uh were available to these schools and then um you know over time longitudinally see what the impact is based on the um different four categories of measures that we have um outlined above. So then do we have a second tier of schools if this which I believe will be successful that we're looking at next? Are we just building that same criteria bottom um bottom of the list we add them to it or are we spreading it throughout? What what's the long-term vision other just right now? What are we looking out in the future? So, um, with this ranking report, it's it's really not that schools are at the bottom or top of

176the list. It's what kinds of supports that schools need. And because these schools, all of them have elementary grades and all of them have literacy needs in particular, they were identified from this um from this list. And um I I would imagine that we will be monitoring them very very closely. So if we see that there is a lack of progress in certain indicators that um they will need additional support. >> Now as far as to make sure we in recruitment that we're talking about that we get the right people in place. Do we have our existing librarians that we have like I know we have like principal mentors. Do we have if they're not an experienced librarian? Do we have library mentors we're going to be using? What does that look like as well?

177How do we prepare them for success in this role? >> Yeah, that's a great question and I think that's where that onboarding is going to be very important, but also I do have that job description that we're going to look at closely and see working with HR if we need to make any adjustments. I know right now it does have uh pretty strict requirements, one of them being that library media endorsement. So, we want to review this, but make sure that our onboarding that we provide those clear guidelines of what the expectations are throughout the year and check on them as well. >> Okay. And I'm sure Rick is going to get into the financial aspect, what we're looking for compensation. So, I'll ask those questions later on. But you said how many positions because

178we do have current some assistance on some of them. So, how many positions are we looking total? >> I know Ricky has a list, but we're looking for six for tonight for these positions. >> Six. Okay. Okay, >> question on um so the third uh requested action item here is authorize the CNI to proceed with recruitment, hiring on boarding. So what is going to be centralized and what's going to be done by the principles and the um in the in the schools like what is what's your plan in terms of how that's going to be >> that's a great question. I see this more as a collaboration with the principles. So the principles would be in charge of that hiring. We would help with the guidelines, the professional development, kind of what are the structures

179expected for the librarians and how we can support them as well. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Any questions before we go to MH? >> Um, let's see. So, librarian assistance will be retained. >> Correct. >> Okay. And then will our current librarians be able to assist uh you with the interview process for incoming librarians? >> I would welcome that. Yes, I would welcome that. >> Okay. Um and then thinking about like the future and really having robust uh libraries, are we um considering hiring a a librarian director? I'll leave that up to um Dr. Trillo and finance and see if we have >> Has it been discussed? Dr. Trillo >> or did well the feedback we've received publicly is uh this board does not want to see additional administration. So that that's an administrative position.

180You know the board the feedback we receive changes. We can certainly revisit that. >> Okay. Well, maybe um I don't know if anyone could speak to like who oversees our librarians, who kind of provides some professional development. U perhaps our um members of the public can enlighten us at the next call to the audience. Um so I you know I don't see in this agenda item a uh budget for books for libraries. >> That's going to be I believe the next part of this presentation. Okay, great. >> Um, let's see. Well, I'll I'll wait for the next part of the presentation. Thank you. >> Go ahead. >> Thank you, Dr. Sha. Yes, I'm gonna ask you, Mr. Nandez. Yes. >> Well, he has a presentation. >> Oh, well, let Okay. Do your presentation because I

181was looking I have a lot of questions for you. >> Okay. Yeah, I'll go through my presentation. that'll answer a few financial pieces. So, I am here um as your wet blanket. Um I know you guys are all excited about librarians, but obviously money talks. So, just a quick funding overview of kind of how we currently fund, what our positions status is in regards to our library media specialists. So, currently the formula that's board approved is one full-time position at every high school only. So, um there are 10 FTE across all high schools. The only high school that does not have one um uh that do not have one actually I should say is Innovation Tech High School, Project Moore and TAP. The only reason being is they do not have libraries. Um Gail K6

182School has a point FTE librarian that they fund out of title one. Um and that is you know that is their decision to do is is to use their title one for that since it uh it works with literacy. The library assistant formula is a little bit more in-depth. So, if a elementary or K6 has less than 500 students, we provide them a half-time library assistant. Anything over 500, they get a full-time person. Our K8 and middle schools all get a full-time position as well. There is no library assistant allocated to high schools. Um, it doesn't prevent a high school from hiring a library assistant if they so choose from other funding sources. So all told, we have just under 55 uh full-time equivalent positions across the entire district for library assistance. Um so if

183if the position, you know, so like I said, positions may be funded supplementally through title one or DEG. So you know, if a school wanted to use their magnet funding or wanted to use their title one funding, they could do so to supplement whatever the formula isn't already providing them. Um so that's currently the position. So the current funding status is like this. So we spend about $2 million right now on library assistance. That's all in. So that is salary, that is benefits. Um you can see that the majority of them are funded through M including some DC funded positions. Um the library media specialists or the certified librarians about $663,000 on those. The vast majority are funded through um M which also includes DEG. Um, so all told the total library related positions about

184a $2.7 million investment across the district. All coming the majority coming from the M funding of the district. So in terms of trying to take a look at at, you know, what it would look like to place one at every school, for example, I know that that's that was a a prior request. So right now the median salary for our library media specialists is just over $61,000, which includes the cost of benefits. In order to provide one full-time person at every single school that doesn't have one, um, excluding Innovation Tech, Project Bore, and TAP, we would need an additional 76 positions, uh, with a total cost of $4.7 million annually. Um, now, if library assistant positions were eliminated in lie of the librarians, then the cost for those would be $2.8 million. So, we would

185need just under 3 million for those. One item to note that's not in here because librarians are considered um teachers uh and and they're under the TD salary schedule. It would require the district to commit an additional $1.1 million uh in classroom site fund money to provide them supplemental base pay. Um so teacher so certified librarians are eligible for supplemental base pay the the $12,000 um or the $11,000 that they now get. Um, so if we hired the 76, you'd have to tack on another $1.1 million commitment um from the classroom site fund for those positions. Um, but speaking specific specifically about the proposal that was provided by curriculum. So the six uh positions just about $368,000 um all funded from the override. um you can see kind of what the status is in terms

186of um all all the schools that are up there uh currently have um library assistants in them. Um so we would obviously all they currently do not have librarians. We would add those librarians to them. Um, and what's not included, as I mentioned in the prior slide, is that those six positions would also require an additional investment of just under $84,000 from the classroom site fund to provide for supplemental base pay since those positions are eligible for supplement supplemental base pay like classroom teachers are. Um, and I will take your questions. >> Go ahead. This one. >> Okay. Well, you did answer a few of them because I was going to ask how much the additional FTE. Um, so how much maybe maybe I'm not reading this right. Um, if this is a pilot program

187and we keep increasing each year, can the bond support that I mean sorry the override >> the override? Um, no. >> Okay. Um so as you recall the basically the majority of the override funds I would say all of the override funds have all been allocated out to you know our social workers counselors interventionists the vast majority to salary increases um PE teachers and fine arts um CTE social workers so all of those items we've already allocated those out we do have some dollars available um we know that obviously there you know we're not going to be able to hire every single position day one. So, we'll have some available vacancy savings, but the override would not be able to then fulfill the entire commitment if the goal is to then get to, you know,

188one certified librarian at every school. Um, kind of tacking on to to Mr. Romero's question is like, you know, is the goal to kind of increase? I mean, if that is the goal, we'd have to identify alternative sources of funding or restructure staffing um around libraries in order to accommodate the the price tag because it's it's basically about $6 million in order to hire librarians. >> So, can you can you go into a little bit more as I'm reading this slide? position funding may be supplemented using title one or DSay disegregation, >> right? So, right now, for example, um like in the example of Gail, right? Gail is a small uh K6 school. They're only eligible to get a library assistant. They've decided to use a portion of their title one to uh to fund

189a 0.8 librarian, which they're allowed to do, right? Because the formula doesn't allocate them that. So, in the example of these six schools, all these six schools that are that are being proposed in the pilot all have title one dollars. Um, they would not be able to hire a librarian with title one. Um, because the formula or the adoption by the board would be we're giving you these formulas. So, it's anything above the base formula that can be used for using title or DEG, right? So, it's in order to supplement what the formula already says that they're getting. Um, in a in a lot of instances, I will say a lot of schools use Title One dollars maybe to supplement library assistance. Um, since they kind of come at a smaller price tag than a

190fully certified librarian. Um, so that does happen because, you know, it's easier to get a six hour or eight hour position than a 4-hour position. >> Sure. Um, I'm sure I have more questions, but I'll open it up back to my colleagues. Ricky, can you talk about um the curriculum materials, book materials? I know we talked about it before. There's like designated prisonable money or other things. Can talk about how we're funding. >> Right. So, right now um so when when the state eliminated soft capital um and they created what is now called district additional assistance. Um they collapsed those dollars and at that time that board decided essentially to collapse all of the instructional material budget into one line item. So, we provide every school with $34 per student that allows a school to

191buy essentially anything whether it's an instructional aid, a library book or you know paper and pencils. Um it's at the discretion of the principal ultimately because you know they know what they need or don't need um at their campuses. Um and they can certainly purchase you know sub other additional materials again title DEG or any other funding source that they may have available um to purchase these um I mean it as has been noted before our schools they don't they don't purchase library books um they purchase a lot of instructional aids but in terms of what would actually be a library book that's not happening very often but that's a decision that the site makes right that's the kind of the financial independence that we provide our site leaders. Um so there this proposal does

192not include dollars to provide library books or library materials. Um if that would be the case I' the override can't fund that. So override cannot fund any of this any library books um library books we we'd have to find a different source of funding for any amount of money that that you all decided or if you wanted us to come back with recommendations um to provide that. But when soft capital was eliminated, which is what we used to use for textbooks and library books and instructional aids and it collapsed into one large capital bucket, that's when you get the competition between the library fixing a library book or buying a library book and fixing a toilet stall. Um it's kind of difficult to kind of have, you know, good school day without one of those,

193you know, or both of those. So that's kind of the unfortunate position that we're currently in. Can you um by the end of June, Dr. Trillo, in your weekly or your reports to the governing board include uh just the last two or three years of how much is being spent by school on actual library books? >> Sure. >> Kind of coded probably something. >> Yeah, it's coded. Yeah, we have a specific code for library books. >> Yeah. So, can you can you send that to us then before the end of the month? >> So, just a question >> for for clarification. We see a lot of instructional aids, right? Millions of dollars in instructional aids that flow into our schools. >> They're books, but they're housed in the teachers classrooms because in the last 10

194years, the actually as a function of the recession era removal of the librarians uh 15, 20 years ago when it all started, I think a natural reaction to the absence of a librarian was classroom teachers started building their own classroom libraries. As all of you know, you visit schools. So there's a lot of books that flow into classrooms. I want to make sure we have a way of coding like what's in the classroom versus what's in the library. >> So there's Yeah, there's a specific code for instructional aids. So like you said, you know, like if a teacher wants to, you know, have their own small classroom library of books. We call those instructional aids, right? They're they're not for a library purpose. They're to supplement the, you know, to supplement the instructional day. when

195they're buying a library book that's actually going to be put on the library shelf, then we code it with li you know as a library book. So there is distinct coding um that you know and we depend on the school to tell us that right because ultimately they're the ones making the purchases to say these are going you know in Dr. Shaw's classroom versus these are going into the library. Um and so there are distinct codings. Yes. Do we buy a lot of instructional aids? millions of dollars in instructional aids. We do. >> Dr. Shaw, >> go ahead, Mr. Sha. >> Yeah, I would be interested in seeing uh those numbers. I know they're going to be really unfortunate um because I've seen some thanks to Mrs. Lillian Fox's advocacy, $0, $40 a year uh

196for new materials for our library. So, you know, I was as a governing board member from year one been trying to increase our library budget for books, trying to get uh certified librarians at every school um with no support uh from some members of this board. And I'm happy that our override is going to be able to fund this position. Now, um it was my understanding that if the override passed, it would put a certified librarian in every school. Um and so, you know, being that this is an override funded position, at least from what we have put out to the voters, um I hope that in the future we can get for any override um position uh Excel sheet or what have you with all of our encumbered and unencumbered uh override money so

197that we can see it like as we're about to vote on it. >> Yeah. As as I mentioned when when the override passed, we've developed a separate accounting process just for the override that will track everything down to the activity. Um so we will create an activity code specifically for the libraries um in the override so that when renewal time comes in year five or year four depending on when the board wants to do this we will have an accounting of kind of where all the dollars went you know by department by activity whatever you want to look at it. So yeah the accounting process is already in place to track the dollar investments of the override. >> Okay. But you're telling us as a board that there's not enough currently in the override funding

198to support 76 new positions. >> Correct. There just the way the everything is allocated, we've allocated down to probably within $2 million of the 44 million that's currently available. Um, but like I said, because we know that we're going to have vacancy savings from positions that are we know are not going to get filled on day one, those dollars can accumulate. They can be carried forward. So, we can use some of those dollars to continue supporting some semblance of the libraries um or librarian positions specifically um going into the future. But that 44 million and change, it's all been kind of doled out to all of the the different um priorities of the override. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Go ahead, Mr. Romero. So, and this might go back to um um Dr. Huitt also

199as far as this question. So, what is our improvement in literacy? What is our goal that we're looking to get to? What is our final outcome that we want to see in these schools? >> Well, ideally, we want to see 100% proficiency, of course, but a couple of things that are happening in our district. We are providing lots of training across our district as part of our literacy framework that we presented uh a year ago. These schools actually showed some growth with the implementation of very systematic explicit instruction in reading. So we're seeing some growth there. It is a matter of making sure that we provide the professional development that our teachers need. One of the findings that we've seen out of implementing the framework is that they do need a lot of coaching but

200also lesson modeling to to see how to deliver that instruction. So our goal in curriculum and instruction is to make sure that we have the professional development options available, the coaching that's that's a little harder because it's expensive to do that. Uh so those are some of the pieces. But one other thing that we're doing is providing more training uh in a train the trainer model. So we equip a group of teachers to be able to then disperse the information more widely across our district. So so those are some of the steps we're taking in literacy and making sure that we provide very clear guidelines on what's the expectation for for example literacy. This many minutes you need to focus on phmic awareness and phonics instruction. this many minutes in comprehension. So, we're providing those

201guidelines. It's just making sure that our teachers feel confident and equipped with the resources and the training to be able to deliver those. >> And then how are we going to, for lack of a better word, market it to the students that are at these schools because they have not had this before. How are we going to incentivize or have our kids go to the library, participate, get involved like Chicken City or or whatever else we need. What What is our push to make sure our students are getting to that and we're utilizing these library and these library assistance services for our kids. So a couple of ways I the vision that we are in right now just framing is making sure that it's part of their schedule, right? Making sure that students have access

202to that library schedule, but also can we utilize the librarian to push in and bring in some books and read in the classroom. So definitely those are some ideas that were floating around right now, but we need to develop what that framework might look like. making sure that there's it's part of the schedule that the librarian is part of those conversations with teachers that we're encouraging that literacy rich environment >> and then so then are we at this also at this point then not just selling it to the students but we need to sell it to our teachers. >> Yes. And that's going to be part of building that collaboration between the librarian and the teachers so they're integrated as part of that instructional team. Do we have other I guess examples of what we're

203doing that? I know we only have you know Gail that has you know our K6 as far as having a point8 there but do we have any other examples of other schools probably middle school or high school that's doing good job for these? I'm sure we do and I'd love to collaborate with some of those principles and ask how are you making it work so we can model similar examples across our elementarymentaries and I think that would be I think important not just to the board up here but those that are involved that are investing in this. Are we talking to the experts that are doing that right now within our district? Do they have ideas? You know, case in point, when we went out for a bond, we didn't talk to our principles at

204the schools. We just had facilities go out and say, "Well, this is the best thing for us." >> Are we going to those that actually make a difference, have lived that life on a day-to-day type of thing and getting their input? Because it is very valuable to see it from their point of view and their perspective, what tools they need. We might think we know what they need, but because they live it, they breathe it and you know they've been doing it for so long, those experience on there, how are we utilizing their experience to help us make this again a successful program? I think everybody up here wants to make sure it's successful, but I know the people that are doing the work are the best uh uh resources we have to make sure

205it's successful. >> Absolutely. I completely agree. And as we're planning this this vision, I think it's important to engage our current media specialists and make sure that we get that feedback so then we can do it the right way and get that feedback directly from them. So I would love to have a focus group with some of them and engage them at the beginning of the year or uh as we are onboarding some of these new certified librarians to let's let's have a discussion what are the needs and how can we make sure that we have exemplary models of what this might look like at the elementary level. So, being there's I'm sure there's a lot of those people out there that are listening to this meeting, you would be you'd be willing to have

206them reach out to you right after this meeting and fill up your inbox. >> There you go. That's perfect. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome, >> Dr. Shaw. >> Well, I want What was that? >> Oh, go ahead. But I do have other comments and questions. >> Go ahead, Michelle. >> Okay. Um, real quick, um, if you can let us know what, uh, qualifications, uh, the library media specialist, um, would require. Um, so I have a redline job description right now and it says they have to have a valid Arizona teaching certificate with a library media endorsement. The other is a structured English immersion requirement. So, I'm not sure how old this is, but I want to review it and make sure that it meets those qualifications. Those are just some of the minimum requirements.

207Has to have a fingerprint clearance, of course, and it says one year classroom teaching experience, and then it has preferred qualifications, such as a master's degree in information resources. So I I would have to review this with our HR department and potentially with some feedback as well from our from some principles or library media specialists currently to to make sure it's updated to the best we can do. >> Okay. Okay. >> Great. Um Okay. Well, I'm not sure if there's any more comments or questions, but I'll just go ahead and uh you know, I I don't know how we can accept uh the data that we've seen in this presentation that certified librarians are linked to higher achievement, greater use of our libraries, um and a stronger school culture and only move to approve six

208uh positions in our district when we know there is uh such great need across TUSD. So, with that, I'll move to approve funding for 76 FTE positions for librarians um as well as full-time librarian assistance at every school in Tucson Unified. >> I would like to second just for discussion, please. >> Thank you. And you know, I think if there's a will, there's a way. I'm disappointed that we don't have all the information about the funding uh available for uh the override. I think the public um will not accept that six positions is what they voted on. Uh the majority of tonins voted to approve um the override and I certainly was under the impression that we were going to fight and get librarians, PE teachers, and robust art education across Tucson Unified. Um and

209so six six additional librarians is not going to cut it, especially with so much need in our district to get our uh reading scores up, get students reading and you know address all the other um quality education issues that we have. >> And just kind of go along with that, I see the need uh for that, but I also see our budgetary uh restraints uh on that. Um, you know, we're approaching a new season um where we are looking at uh consolidations and possible closures, you know, and maybe we won't have, you know, 76 uh libraries that we'll need to and it'll be be less and there'll be more vacancies where we can spread some of this money around. That's later to be seen. You know, what's going to happen uh as far as that

210goes. Um, I I want to I think it's a good start um for us doing our due diligence as a as a district to let the community know you've been heard. Um, we did the research. They they see the need for it right now with our budgetary restraints and whether you know the what we had to put on our belt and and tighten things down. um when funds come available or how Ricky always works magic uh with with these things to help us accomplish that. And I think some of the success of this will help us cuz if we're showing improvement in literacy on here, then we have other schools uh maybe not in our, you know, students not in our district seeing what we're doing with our literacy. We're taking it more seriously. We're

211getting our numbers up higher for persistency. Now we're gaining more students because this is something that we're able to offer those. So I think this is a good starting point um but not an ending point. Ideally I think um we'd love to see that but again within our restraints of a budget I I I I find it hard to do but I I agree with you. We shouldn't just have only focus on six, but I I think this is a great start. >> So, if you go back to the presentation from last year when we approved the override as the governing board, there was actually no money allocated towards uh librarians in that budget. And I'm glad that we were able to find the $300,000 to $350,000 to fund this program. And I appreciate you

212coming to the governing board with a proposal to fund 76 librarians. And I want to ask you, Miss Sha, what work have you done with our finance team or anybody in terms of how this is going to be funded? >> Well, we just approved 1.5 million for Eureka. I mean, four, what is it? 4.7 million. It's not a huge number. Like, we cover subscriptions and curriculum every year that far exceeds this amount of money. And so we need to find areas in our budget where you know maybe this program or subscription is not really uh pushing uh students to achieve more or it's just not necessary because teachers don't use this subscription very often. Like there are definitely ways that we can find 4.7 million um to cover librarians. Six is six more positions is

213not enough. 50 would be a good start, but definitely not six. And I think because there's such high need in our district, we need to just nip this in the bud and cover all 56 positions. >> Sure. You voted for the 1.5 million Eureka programs. What subscription should we cut to fund this? You know, like I said, it was my understanding, and I'm sure many voters would agree that we were going to cover librarians with this override. Believe we added it to our letter um that we put in like the voter handbook. And so, you know, whether or not we completely allocated the funding wherever you're saying we didn't, like it was my understanding, and I'm sure voters would agree, that we need to cover 76 librarians for all of our schools. >> Right. So,

214I'll ask you again. What $4 million would you cut from the budget to fund this? >> I'm not the CFO. >> Our job as a governing board to set the budget. So, >> correct. And and it would be great if we had all the information provided when we were going to make um you know, decisions like this. I'd like to see the override funds like I requested just now that because this is an override funded position or at least I thought it would be um that we would get all the data for the override just like we do with the bond funding of what we've spent what's going to be allocated now and later and in you know in the past. So >> we actually have gotten that money like all the funding was in

215the presentation when we approved the bond overrider outer there in the first place. >> Yeah. But this is the override and this is a agenda item today and it'd be nice to have all that information so that we could you know trust the data and and move accordingly. Um you know maybe there's money in DC maybe there's money in M there's money available like you know we have a very large budget and if we put the money where there is highest need then I think it would go a long way. Sure. You've been on this governing board for five and a half years. Do you have a single thing you would cut right now to fund $4 million of librarians? >> Well, that's a very pointed question. You know, during COVID times, I suggested we

216use ESSER funds, but none of you agreed that that was a proper use of funding. So, you know, I'd like to approve this now, and then let's uh sit back and find a way to fund it. I'm sure Ricky is very creative. he could find a way. >> Go ahead, Miss Larose. >> Um, and I don't know if this is Mr. Anando's question or not, but um, are there I know librarians are teachers, so and we do have a teacher shortage. Are there even 76 librarians to hire? Are we going to be able to fill that need? >> We're not going to be able to fill 76 by the start of school. Um, I mean, we get a good start. I mean, if if we were able to bring 30 in, I mean, that would

217be at this late stage. You're talking about we're coming up on the 4th of July. Most educators have a contract either with their current district or they've already made arrangements to move to another district by this point in time. So, at this point, your talent pool is very limited to folks that who are out there that don't have jobs. It's a very small pool. Um, and that's pretty much going to be for any position in education. Now, it's not just the librarian, but teacher, exceptional education, administrator. June and July just really it's not the peak season for top tier talent. >> Okay. So, Mr. Hernandez. >> Um, >> yes. and I appreciate your work and I know everybody talks about your magic but you're you're just you're just moving coconut shells basically is what you're

218doing. So um in just correct me if I'm wrong if I if I know this in the five and a half years I've been on this board things that I've learned those pot of money like the money that we just approved for Eureka that's a different pot like when we couldn't use it to move to other things. Yeah, the the money that we use to buy instructional aids like the software pieces that you just approved, they can only be live they can only live in capital, right? They we can't use those to pay in for salaries. Now, we've already gotten in trouble with the auditor general for moving capital to M, which is what we're trying to avoid doing. So if the board wanted to use that and they wanted to direct the superintendent and

219and and myself to move backwards against the kind of the wishes of the auditor general, we can always do that. I would not recommend that. That's kind of what's put us in a high-risisk category is the movement of capital to M, which is where we buy subscriptions. >> And I would prefer not to do that again either. >> Um, so I'll say it's nine o'clock right now. We have called to the audience. We have stool the code of conduct and the enrollment stability campaign. And we only have until 10:00. We have the ADA interpreters here. So, let's have a vote on this item. Um, I'll do a roll call. Miss Brabaua. >> Miss Luna Rose. >> No. >> Mr. Rometo. >> Uh, no. >> Miss Shaw? >> Yes. >> Miss Extra? >> No. >> Dr.

220Robbie? >> No. Item fails 14. I'll move the item as presented. >> A second. >> Motion myself and approve. Uh second by Miss Luna Rose. Uh roll call on that one. Miss Boa. >> Miss Luna Rose. >> Yes. Mr. Rometo. >> Yes. >> Miss Shaw. >> Yes. >> Miss Extramm. >> Yes. >> Dr. Robbie. >> Yes. Item passes 5-0. I want to thank all the work that happened. I think every meeting I thank the voters for approving the override that's given us the $350,000 to u make this move. those six schools are going to do, I think, great work next year uh utilizing these library um media specialists uh as they're called in our system and I think it'll hopefully make a big difference for literacy in those schools. So, thank you for bringing that

221proposal. Thank you to the voters and thank you for the governing board for approving this proposal tonight. All right, we're going to move over back to call to the audience, Miss Lunar Rose. >> All right, >> Mr. Rash, shall I read this again or is this I don't have to. No. >> Okay. Well, I'm just I'm just asking legal counsel. All right. Um, we have Jessica Ramirez. Good evening board members. My name is Jessica Ramirez. I graduated from Pueblo High School just last month. I stand here before the board to discuss some issues I saw regarding the administration, specifically the principal at PBLO. Although I'm no longer a student, speaking up about this means protecting future students and the school. During my time at PBLO, I was a part of Metra. In Meta, we frequently

222brought up concerns to our principal to which we were met with rather unprofessional responses. In January, we asked to have a meeting and had requested an adult to accompany us. He initially rejected this, saying he spoke better with students than he did with adults. The adult would only be mediating. He then individually called our parents to ask if he could meet with us privately instead. He had said he feared that we were being coached by teachers which is not only false but also reflects the relationship of distrust that he feels towards our teachers and the lack of faith he has in us to advocate for one another. We also felt as if this method of meeting with students and calling our parents was meant to intimidate us. We thankfully did end up having an adult

223present for the meeting. Prior to our meeting, Mr. R had gone on film and TV as well as radio to address the issues we had brought up with him. He had also gone to student council about the issue which I and other machistas were also a part of. In this meeting with student council, he made comments about how they were his favorite because they didn't start problems. This all seemed very immature and unprofessional to us as he was escalating the situation and involving other student groups. He had done this without consulting us first. On these segments, he discussed student safety. During our meeting when we had brought up what he had said, he told us to not pick apart what he was saying and he said that he would not tolerate us bullying or intimidating

224him. We were not bullying him. We were simply inquiring more. Aside from these strange interactions, Mr. R conducts himself in an incredibly unprofessional manner. For the sake of time, here are some more issues that we encountered. One, Mr. R shows a strange favoritism towards cheer girl. cheer girls and football boys. Students often joke about this. Um more serious issue. Um when coach Tank the weight training teacher was outed as being predatory, students said that this was common knowledge. It is also common knowledge that Mr. RF frequents the rate weight training room yet he also fails to protect these students. He frequently works out in the weight training room with students and he posts evidence of this on his Instagram. Students have talked about having suspensions lifted or shortened because they get along with him. His

225unprofessional attitude leaves students not knowing how professional adults should act around them. He acts more like a friend than a principal. During my freshman year, the library was renovated, but upon Mr. R's request, books weren't returned. This became an issue when in my freshman year, we experienced a power outage, then a Wi-Fi. >> Your time is up. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Next, we have Dominic Sto. Hello. Uh, good evening board members. Uh, my name is Dominic Sto. I'm also a PBlo Machista. Um I'm here to also just share my uh feelings as well as the thoughts that we shared amongst us machistas regarding this situation uh that we felt was unprofessional. Um uh it started as uh the the situation that we uh encountered um was that we we we as

226META were posting uh resources uh know your rights resources and law enforcement may not enter without uh a permit signs that we gave to our teachers as uh we wanted to show our support um and our contributions. Um, in a time where we had families and friends who uh weren't showing up uh out of the fear of being detained or even deported because uh we weren't seeing much action being taken from our own administration. Um these resources were seen being taken down by Mr. R by Machistas which is a conversation that we had uh in our club. we uh devised a response and in an email his response was that these posters and signs were removed because they weren't aesthetically pleasing. And um after we didn't take this answer, that is when we did decide

227to um ask for a meeting. And uh as Jessica said uh he kind of in in my perspective he kind of took advantage of us being students because he asked for so many specific requests. He asked that he only uh meet with the machistas who uh thought it was a problem because he thought that we were being coached by teachers. Um, the big part that we uh as as Mechis says thought that was disrespectful to us was that he went out of his way to talk with film and radio instead of coming to us, a club who has open doors, who advocates for the safety and protection and proper education of our students. Um, so I just feel like that this situation really highlights his unprofessionalism when it comes uh to keeping his students thoughts

228in mind. That's all I have. >> Thank you. Next, we have Annabelle Guptal Godfrey. >> Uh, Annabelle left. Am I able to speak on their behalf? They've given me permission. >> That's fine. >> Okay. Good evening, superintendent through TUSD governing board members. My name is Annabelle, and while I live within the boundaries of Tucson Unified, I have chosen to teach in Sunnyside Unified. A choice made because of principal R's conduct toward me towards the uh during the interview process at PBLO High School in the spring of 2022, an experience I will detail shortly. I want to start my remarks though by commending the TUSD governing board for taking the concerns of public community members seriously. Doing so communicates a commitment to your constituents that takes leadership and courage. While I grew up in California, I

229had chosen to start my teaching career in Tucson because my dad had grown up here and my grandparents taught in TUSD for many years. Fortunately for me, when I submitted my application to TUSD, there was an opening in the English department at Pueblo High School where my granddad had taught industrial arts in the 50s. I was so excited when Mr. R called me to schedule an interview until just after we exchanged pleasantries when Mrs. R's first question to me was, "Do kids like you?" This question is the only thing I remember from this conversation. His phrasing threw me off balance. At the time, I was willing to chalk it up to quirkiness or generously his child-c centeredness. What I know now about Mr. R's consistent misconduct today, I understand this question now as an attempt

230made by a man planning to abuse his power. and attempt to feel out how I might respond to his pressing up against the boundaries of professional conduct. This dynamic also showed up in my in-person interview as context for what I share next in my assessment of it. I am non-binary and am wellversed in men's perception of me as a woman and I am a lesbian who has endured many years of being hit on by men. On the day of my interview, Mr. R greeted me in PBlo's foyer. I interrupted his I interpreted his energy toward me as warm but is too familiar for our first time meeting each other. I sense that Mr. 's orientation to me was as if I was a woman and as one he felt attracted to. This confused me as

231I was there to interview a job interview for a job, not to be courted, but still I thought that his sexual sexualization of me would perhaps help me get the job. When we got into the interview uh room with the other administrators, however, Mr. R's demeanor toward me shifted. The warmth he had shown me just moments prior disappeared. His tone measurably shortened. In the middle of answering quite well, I thought one of his questions, Mr. Mr. R cut me off to ask the same question again. This felt unnecessary to me and I continued roughly the same response I had begun when he asked the question the first time which was accepted by the other interviewers with head nods. I took this clear shift in his demeanor towards me now in the presence of his administration

232team as an indication that in our private conversation in the foyer Mr. R had been hitting on me. This interview process was so discomfitting that it motivated me to apply to jobs outside of TUSD which I had not considered doing before. Uh, I am glad I did because the interview team did not even email me to inform me that I had not gotten the job as they said they would. I found out I did not get the job when one of his assistant principles called me 10 days later to inform me a different position had opened up and would I like to apply. I had already accepted a position in SUSD at this point, but I would not have taken public administration up on this offer given what I had described. >> Times up. Thank

233you. >> Next is Julie Stair. Julie. Uh, thank you. And in the interest of brevity, um, my name is Julie Stair and I am the ACT prep teacher at at PBLO High School. >> Miss Stair, I'm sorry. Can you move the mic to your mouth so we can hear you a little better? >> Okay. My apologies. I've been told I talk too loud. Anyway, >> so um uh I'm been asked to read a letter written by Raul Grihalva Gomez, a former student of mine. Um Raul, just a little bit of background, has written plays for Pueblo. He sings, he dances. He was an excellent student of logic and rhetoric when he was in my class. He's a leader of his peers and as everyone knows his hair is perfect. All right. Hello. I Good evening.

234I am an incoming senior at PBLO High School. I would like to attest to Mr. R's prof lack of professional abilities and performance as a principal. among countless other examples I've seen secondhand from my peers. From personal experience, I can recall when he made me and other PBLO matistas feel unsafe. We had called attention to um the lack of a proper um safety protocol in the event of an ice raid. We sent an email and Mr. R responded to the email and he set up a meeting for two weeks. He requested he was alone in the room. we were not comfortable with that and so we still had another person with us. In the weeks leading up to the meeting, he reached out to every other club and talked about how students were bullying him

235and attacking him and how there really was a plan in place in case of an ice raid, but it was all in his head and would have to be executed in the moment. He would also often corner myself and other machisas privately about the meeting while at lunch or on our way to class as many machisas were also on the student council and so he visited student council as well and talked about the importance of rule enforcement. He attempted to guilt trip us into believing we were bullying him. These are not the actions of a professional authority figure and I among students and teachers would like an evaluation of his past actions and works and something to happen now. Thank you for this time. >> Thank you. Next is Gomez. >> And um is this

236you or are you reading on behalf of somebody? I'm reading on behalf >> Can you state your name for the record, please? >> Yeah. Uh my name is Eliso Gomez. I teach science at PBLO High School. >> Okay, this is you. Okay, thank you. >> Yeah. Uh I'm reading on behalf of a uh PBLO parent who sent this email. Um and I have her permission to read it. Uh, dear school board members, I'm writing to formally report a serious situation involving harassment toward my daughter by another student and the school's lack of action after multiple complaints were made. About a week before the incident on May 5th involving my daughter occurred, six girls reported this same student to the uh school office after discussing in a group chat how he had been taking pictures of

237girls buttocks and following girls around campus. My daughter also spoke with the office regarding these concerns. The student was suspended for one week, but after returning to school, the behavior continued. On the morning of the incident involving my daughter, she noticed him following her around school earlier in the day. Later, while walking to her second period class, she realized he was directly behind her. She turned around and discovered he was extremely close to her, almost against her backpack with his phone positioned underneath her, recording her buttocks. As soon as he realized she saw him, he quickly turned around and walked away. My daughter immediately reported the incident to the office. She explained that she did not feel safe or comfortable being at at school with him if no action was going to be taken. She

238was initially told that something would be done, but later Mr. R informed my daughter that although al although he was disgusted by the outcome, nothing was going to happen to the student regarding the situation. As her parent, I did not feel that calling to report the situation further would lead to meaningful action as there have already been other incidents and complaints reported without resolution. It is extremely concerning that multiple students had previously come forward about this behavior. Yet, the situation was allowed to continue and ultimately affected my daughter as well. I am extremely concerned not only for my daughter's safety, but for the safety and well-being of other female students who may continue to experience this behavior. Multiple students reported concerns before this incident happened to my daughter, and despite prior complaints and disciplinary action,

239the behavior continued. I am requesting that the school board thoroughly review this matter, investigate how these reports were handled, and ensure that students are protected from harassment and inappropriate behavior while at school. Students should feel safe attending school without fear of being followed, recorded, or ignored with uh when reporting serious concerns. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I hope appropriate action will be taken to ensure students safety moving forward. I'll use the rest of my time as a teacher at this school just to say that there's a history of sexual violence occurring at this school. uh when Miss uh Bell from earlier said she wouldn't send her own daughter or child to the school. This is why um the administration has a responsibility to ensure the safety of all students and that basic

240necessity is not being met. There were two uh instances of grooming that occurred at PBLO High School this past year. Um this parents lack of trust in the school process is indicative of a wider problem that affects PBLO's climate and culture. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is um Saul Ramirez. High School. Renovio. email strollers for no responder. I'm sorry, your time is up. >> Thank you. And our last speaker is Isis Mor Morales. Um, hello board members and good evening. I hope everyone here is having a great and restful summer, though I guess not since we're all here. Um, uh, I wanted to speak out about PBL, how PBLO High School desperately needs new leadership and administration, especially in regards to principal Frank Rosenhauser. As an alumnest and graduate of PBLO and an active

241community member, um, I found that it was my duty to speak about my interactions with him when I was attending. Um, as an alumnest and graduate, I was in my sophomore year when Mr. R first took his position as principal. Me and him became very close when I did a tree uh planting project at the school where we planted over 20 trees. Um and though I didn't think anything was off then, I do think that his behavior towards me was weird now that I am a little bit older. He was always overly touchy with me. He would let me go in and out of his backpack and office when he was and wasn't there alone for snacks and gum. and he would even offer me rides to and from school events when I didn't have

242one, where it would just be me and him alone, to which I always declined. As him being an administrator and me being a student, I believe that this was very inappropriate behavior. Since I have graduated, I have heard very concerning things in regards to his continued inappropriate behavior against minor students, and I hope that our concern is taken into serious consideration and that he is removed from his position. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. And that concludes call to the audience. >> All right. So, the same uh rules apply about a governing board opportunity to respond to criticism uh asked after review matter or ask that a matter put on a future agenda. We've already had two members uh address this topic. Any additional comments on a call to the audience? >> Dr.

243Shaw, >> go ahead. Michelle, >> um thank you to everyone who waited and spoke. Um, just now I would like to ask staff to review the matter raised by uh, Elyo Gomez. I believe that was the name of the 18th speaker. Um, and then I'd also like to ask staff to send us a translation of the comments by uh, Mr. Ramirez uh, the 19th speaker. This is the second time this year that we've had a speaker um speak to us in Spanish and I requested last time that we have translation services available to us and the public if needed and I haven't seen that um actualized. So I'd like to ask staff to make sure that we do have uh translation services uh for Spanish speakers especially um at our governing board meetings. All right,

244that'll conclude our call to the audience then. Uh, thank you everyone for being here tonight so late. We're going to move over to our 7.1 code of conduct proposed revisions for the 2627 school year. >> Yes. Um, as previously noted, I'd like to welcome uh, Director Anna Warbrand uh, and her team for uh, this item. Good evening, governing board. Governing board president Dr. Sha, esteemed governing board members, Dr. Trillo, Mr. Ross, and thank you. We are here again. This feels oddly familiar. I just want to acknowledge my team. Thank you all very very much for hanging in and and much appreciated. So we are here again our annual event for our code of conduct revisions. As Dr. Trillo had mentioned previously. I did want to start off with just a little bit of data for

245you um in the good news realm because uh we we are here this evening and I always like to bring if I can something positive to the space. Um we know that our revisions are made to the code of conduct. This is all for the benefit of students in TUSD. And this is the document is the policy document and it all of the input that you hear for recommended revisions are from stakeholders. So here's some updated discipline data and I wanted to lead with that. Um, first off, our suspension numbers are down from last year. And so this time last year at the very end of the year, we do our accumulation of all data. And I know you as the board receive your weekly reports from student relations. We had for all suspensions, and

246this includes inschool suspension and out of school suspension, 300 3,958 for the previous school year. And now we have 3,788. So we are down uh 170 suspensions. So that means that um we have kids that are back in our school programs and our exclusion numbers are coming down. I also wanted to highlight and I will acknowledge our Aspire team, our program manager, coordinator specialist and Miss Ordunia hanging in. she's our CHW at Tucson High um representing because I did want to highlight with our Aspire team the decrease in suspension numbers and exclusion for those kids um dealing with substance abuse and misuse and so we have 118 less suspensions um since the suspire team has had a full year to do their work. So this is this is really important um especially when you look

247at turnaround practices and large district initiatives. From the beginning of looking at the code of conduct and coming into this position, it was really important that we started to see our exclusion numbers go down. So our kids are in school and learning. And then the really really big news and this is something that we haven't seen in TUSD for a decade previously is that our risk ratio which is our disproportionate or in this case lack thereof numbers for disciplinary incidents. So, um, when I became the director of student relations, we had, um, in particular for our African-American students, disproportionate incidents that were occurring for the number of students that we served in TUSD. Um, we were some weeks 2.89, sometimes 3.12. The national average is 3.0. So, we were at or below a little bit

248the national average. But when you look at your colors, you always want to see green. Red, not fantastic. That means that your disproportionality is really high. And for the first time in a decade, this last year, we were at green 1.50 for our African-American students and less for all of our other um students of ethnicities that we serve. This year we have no risk ratio again. This is the second time in a row and before that it had been a decade and before that people were not tracking this disproportionality in the same ways and we are green again and we're at 1.45 45. And I think it's really important before I bring just these two recommended revisions that we acknowledge that the work that you as the board have approved and supported with student relations

249is making a really important impact for our kids here with the incidents that they're engaged with. and that the goals that were set forth in what was the desegregation plan when I took this position and now we're in that post-unitary status we're we're doing what we need to do space um that these numbers and these goals are being met and so I think it's really important that the board sees that and that the community sees that because this is a really really good thing and just credit to our regional superintendent credit to our site administrators credit to our directors of all of our departments um that serve all of these ethnicities in the district um just and our our district behavior management committee as well. So I just want to acknowledge that because it's been

250a lot of work and many many years to get to this space. We do have a robust committee, lots of folks, Hunter and Eli TEA, all of our equity departments are represented. Shauna Rodriguez sits on it representing um district leadership. Mr. Armenta sat on it. Michael Arnoff, he's been since the beginning with us. Um I'm missing Judy Mitchell tonight. She's not able to be here. She's dealing with some things and and we just I just wanted to really shout her out because she's never missed a code of conduct meeting and um she's she's an extraordinary member of this committee. So, I just want to say that we have two recommended revisions and when we started this process and you all we worked through all of our code of conduct spaces and what we needed to

251do, we had so much work and I would bring six or seven revisions and now we're at this point of very detailed refinement which is a great place to be going into year five. That's a good spot to be. So here is our first revision from the committee. We have other aggression within our aggression categories and it says intentionally or knowingly engaging with physical contact that has a reasonable risk of resulting in physical injury. Examples: pushing, kicking, biting, hitting, slapping, punching with no physical injury, etc. Similar conduct not meeting the definition of other aggression shall be treated as a level two offensive minor aggressive act. I'm going to show you what our recommended revision is and do a little explanation. So, what we'd like to add is in red without documented injury or only with

252minor injury. And we'd like to add that language because when we don't have the specificity of the level of injury in the other aggression level three violation, which is a short-term suspendable violation, our administrators are left to look at the level four violation of assault because that's where the language when it comes to aggression and injury typically sits. And so all that we're asking the board to do is allow us what is in red without documented injury or only minor injury. Therefore, if students get into a physical altercation and it's not characterized as a fight, as in one student is not a willing participant, but there is some injury like a red mark that fades or um there's a bite, but it doesn't break skin. and then by the time they come back from the

253nurse, there's no there's you can't see that anything happened that we're able to have a level three violation as a short-term suspendable offense versus having to go to a hearing or a long-term suspension obeyance for an assault. So that is for other aggression. We're just asking to add that one sentence. And this was very much supported by both TEA and Eli because we were seeing a lot of admins say, well, should I do assault? Well, is it serious injury? No. Okay. Well, let's look at other aggressions. So, this will help folks to make much clearer choices. The second recommended revision, and we have Michael Blunt and Michelle Merrick here from our MTSS team, and they can answer any specific questions you may have about this recommended revision, is taking the language that has already been

254approved and vetted previously and embedding it into the code of conduct. So, we know in our progression that you have to have an MTSS plan to move from a level one to a level two offense consequence, two to three, three to four. And so, it's really important that we are able to articulate to all of our stakeholders, our kids, to our parents, to our staff what that MTSS language and that process is. We talk about PBIS, we talk about PIC, we talk about all of these other components that are board approved and supported, but we have not articulated what the MTSS process is, but we have it embedded in the sequence for progression. So, the committee is asking that the MTSS language be added into the book. It looks like a lot here on the

255slides, but it will actually fit in half a page section within page five of the code of conduct. I know it is late. I I if you would like me to read all of it to you, I'd be more than happy to. I'll leave it up here for a moment. I'm going to go to the next slide and then we can go back if need be. But this is not new language. This is nothing that we created. That's brand new. This is the MTSS system that has already been vetted through. We're simply taking what's already been approved and supported and just rearticulating it into the document. So, we made zero changes to the process to how it sits in progression. None of that. It's just explaining to folks what it is the MTSS process is

256so that when they see it in the progression chart, they can look back and say, "Oh, okay. I understand what this what this plan and process is. And then we're going to put our interventions in just as we do under a supplemental consequence section. We had previously called it SEAL. Now we'd like to put our MTSS language there. And this is a pretty exhaustive list of both the tier 2 and tier three interventions that we utilize as part of our MTSS process. It's not absolutely everything, but it does include a pretty comprehensive list. And so that does give both administrators an option to go back and say, "Oh, let me make sure that all this is in the plan. Let me make sure these things have happened before I request to elevate discipline." And then

257for our tier 2, you have all your check-in, checkouts, mentor supports, behavior contracts. And again, none of this is new. We're just asking to take this already created, already implemented, already utilized MTSS language and just putting it right in the book. All but one of our wonderful committee members said yes. So, we're a majority, we're majority rule type of organization when we have this committee vote. And that is all. I know it is late, but it's good news and two recommended revisions for you this evening. >> Great. Thank you, Miss Warmbbrand. I do have a question um on the recommended revision for the other aggression with the conflict on the warding in the red and the highlights. >> So, the no physical injury in yellow with the recommended revision that would be removed. >> Oh,

258okay. >> Yes, sir. >> Sorry, I missed that Benton. No, that is I believe my error in that it should have literally just been crossed out and kept highlighted. >> Okay, governing board members, any other questions, comments, feedback? >> Can you say uh Dr. Sha, >> go ahead. >> Can you say again what what on the screen is going to be eliminated and what is kept? So what it in red is what we're going to add if you approve it so that we have an area for um physical injury that's minor and not significant and then what is in yellow no physical injury will be eliminated. >> I see. Okay. And then do you have um the reasoning behind the one no vote for the person who voted no? Like do you know their their

259reasoning behind that? Um yes, for at least the recommended revision, this one, the other aggression, um they felt that everything should be analyzed under assault and that as it was was fine. Um they were not a site administrator. I only say that because um Eli was very strong in favor of adding the languages. They're the ones having to make that determination. But even still, had it been, it's it's majority rule. That's what we agree on in that space. And then for the MTSS, um they felt that it would be too busy because it's a lot of documentation, but um Carla's team and communications, they're going to make it really concise. And we've already talked about if this was to be approved, um how that would look page-wise. >> Okay. And then if a student was

260assaulted with no physical injury, but then they went to the doctor and found that they had a concussion, let's say for instance, we're able to elevate. >> Yes. To a level of four, >> and they wouldn't have to even do a request to elevate discipline. It would just be like, "Oh, wait. We now have this doctor's note. Um, this is actually an assault. And um, thank you for the recommended revisions last year. where you allowed administrators to have some extra time for that exact reason. Um, so yes, it's within the code of conduct that they can upon getting new information change that violation for sure. And the head injury one is really important that you bring up because you may not know >> for a day or two. >> Yes. >> Thank you, >> Miss

261Extravos. >> That was my question. >> Hello. Hello. Thank you and thank you for coming back. Um, I'm assuming this would be implemented for the upcoming school year. >> Yes. >> Okay. And right away, I mean, when these changes are made, I'm just out of just out of curiosity and probably shouldn't be asking long questions. >> Okay. >> Um, is this like uh put into the code of conduct that's given out to the families and all of that? >> Okay. >> Yes. So, um, the next step is by the end of this week, this will be put into a word document. Whatever is approved, it gets sent to Carline Communications so they can make the book look like it does and work their magic. And then it goes to Louis and meaningful access. And then

262that team does the Spanish version so that that's ready for printing. And then they take July to do all of the other language versions of that so that that is accessible. Um and then at that point we um will create before July 1. We'll have our decks Melanie Shiaini our compliance leazison and I we already have it in the calendar and we'll go through for our training decks for students training deck for staff training deck for parents and all of the parental communication with all of um the new violations and whatever else is is approved and that will be ready to go. And then when we meet with site administrators at their two admin days back, they receive all their new code of conducts for themselves and anyone else who manages discipline. So their dean,

263APS, all of that nature. And then um we do go over what those are and what that looks like. And if there's a change in synergy, the synergy team will also train them. And then we preview for them their deck that has to be shared with families, students, and staff. We show them their deck and then they have a certain amount of time. We usually give them the first six weeks of school to have shared that with families, with students, and with staff. And when they hand in their monthly discipline report to student relations, those dates in that professional development has to be there. And if it isn't, then the department reaches out. How can we support you? Do we need to set up a parent night? Do we need to come and train staff?

264And I've done that at many sites. I've done the student presentations with students. We have one for elementary, one for secondary. And so we'll go out and do that. And all of that information is also shared with the regionals and it will be shared with the regionals and the deputy superintendent next year just so we make sure that every stakeholder that this impacts has a training and has that information. >> Okay, great. Thank you, Miss Warren. >> Absolutely. >> Dr. Um, I think I asked this like every time the code of conduct comes up, but you kind of addressed it just now about how students interface with the code of conduct at the beginning of the year, even without uh new revisions. But I wonder if we are targeting students who have a history of

265having disciplinary issues and bringing them together in small groups or one-on-one with like a teacher, mentor, or someone in the community to go over some of these things, their prior history, and like moving forward and, you know, trying to prevent these things from happening in the in the upcoming school year. Mhm. >> So, actually our compliance liaison has uh been working on our high-risisk lists. We work on those every summer. Um and those high-risisk lists are now looking at truency. Now, as we have our attendance and enrollment um and and as I spoke last time, truency initiative here with student relations. So, it's a high-risisk list of those kids that are struggling with attendance and truency, substance abuse, and misuse, high levels of aggression because those are drivers um for all of our violations here

266in the district. And so, that list is not only our eighth to 9th graders, which we call empowerment kids. That was already sent before even summer school started for every single high school. So, they know our high-risisk kids coming into that space. But that list is shared with every regional. It's shared with every equity director. Um, dropout prevention got their list way way in advance. And now we're working through every single high-risisk student in the district. And if they've been withdrawn, we are now putting withdrawals and we're umbrelling that under our truency and attendance um, violations as well so that we can see um, that trifecta overlap. And then that list is given to site administrators. Um, it should be done tomorrow. We had three schools left today. We I I check it every other

267day with Melanie. And once that's done, then it goes to every single site administrator so that they are well aware in advance of the kids exactly to your point that are struggling who are going to be walking in our doors. It goes to every single equity director. It goes to the regionals. Um and Dr. Trillo has access to all of this. He has every full file of every data as well so that he can access that if he needs to. Um and so everyone in our department also as well the Aspire team of course and our community liaison when they come on in July will have their master high-risisk list as well. And so um ah and the IGA I'm thinking of Diana back there she's got all of our court involved students and manages

268that initiative. That list is also there. We won't get that um usually until a week or two before but once that happens then we will highlight those high-risisk names for those court involved students as well. And so, yeah, it's a it's a it's a spreadsheet. Jonathan, our program specialist for Aspire, he works on the substance abuse and misuse tier three list. So, it's a collaboration, but yeah, 100%. Um, and that's not just this summer. This will be the third summer in a row that we generate for site administrators and everyone who supports the school sites so we know who's walking in our doors day one. Yes. >> Okay. So, we're giving them the information. Are we also providing them with like you know mentorship opportunities like you know what what do you want to do

269when you're an adult? Have you thought about like going into career and technical education? Like not just addressing their priors but like opportunities within our district. >> So that's part of the articulation of the list is to triage it to the departments that work in those spaces. And then Michael and Michelle, I'm glad you're here. if I look behind me then I'm like, "Oh, here's all the people in my neighborhood that that we work together." Um, so they also get it so that they then cross reference the MTSS plans and then when we train at CIPDA their MTSS coordinators, we go through the components of the high-risisk list so that they can do this check-in checkout and that whole list of tier 2 and tier three interventions that we shared that we want to add

270so they will start to engage with these kids in those processes. And then if they need dropout prevention, guess what? um they're already boots on the ground. They're rocking and rolling. They've had their list uh our equity directors. They have all of their student lists and those are updated for them um in some instances on a weekly basis upon request. So yes, at that point the triage system of supports should start to be initiated and we monitor that through our monthly discipline reports. We track to see if our high-risisk kids are being discussed and supported um during their behavior management team meetings which are required every other week or weekly for those schools that are in our top 10 high-risisk overall meaning they have high-risisk ratios, high disciplinary numbers, things of that nature. >> Great.

271Thank you. Absolutely. >> Go ahead. >> Hi. Thank you. Um, has it ever been discussed about um going out to each school and talking about the use of slurs and things of that nature because I know um it's everywhere in our school and I just feel like this last year um it's something that was brought to my attention more often than not. Um, and when I bring it to the attention of principles, they're like, "Oh, you know, we try to do this, this, and this, but they never really address the issue. They always talk around it. And so, nothing ever gets fixed or or handled. And so, I mean, I know it's a touchy issue, but um I don't know, maybe there's schoolwide assembly or something like that." Um, so the no slurs component and

272the use of derogatory slurs in schools was actually the first topic that was brought to the district behavior management committee. Um, we had oh I don't know Michael at least five meetings in relation to that particular concern. And so um it was a lot of discussion about what do we do? Please go back to your stakeholders, right? Eli to EA, the equity directors, come back with a plan. Um Jim reached out to me, I want to say the end of October after there had been a lot of discussion um within TEA and and we really came to the conclusion to bring back to the district behavior management committee that perhaps we needed a secondary committee in that space that addressing with policy we had already done. you already approved the non-discrimination AC policy this last

273time which has made a big difference honestly in terms of um exclusion and discipline but not necessarily in the day-to-day practice of what you hear and so um we actually um we had a meeting in the spring uh with Eli with TEA um Bobby from Saro represents Eli and Jim was there for TEA Dr. Huitt was in that space. Um, and Rosa Linda Rodriguez and all of our equity directors and myself. And at that time, Charmaine Fort, she has a no slurs campaign literally that she runs and had already been implementing it in the schools. That committee was simply there to say, Charmaine, run through the entire presentation for us for this committee and then let's talk about as a collective how we can support your efforts and expand that. um into further schools and

274what else we need to do. Um so we had met and then we went back to the district behavior management committees. They said great go to work and we won't address this via policy um as changes occurred um at the district level. That has paused but we will be reigniting it. And part of what we're going to do is um I've met with a variety of folks that exist in that space both in district and out. And we're looking at um funding sources for whole child learning that will include the no slurs because I don't have funding specifically for character development specifically, but there are other funding sources of course as you know in my budget. And so um we really need to marry the initiatives that student relations oversees and include very specifically that

275no slurs component to be able um to work in that space again. So it's not uh for lack of effort. I assure you on student relations part we've been finding trying to find many an avenue and I really thought we were on the right track and then there's been some shifts and so now we're having to pivot. Um but anyone who knocks on my door about coming to the district or is internally I want to work with you on behavior management. The first thing I say is how do you address racial slurs, derogatory slurs? Do you have anything in your toolbox in that regard? because if you don't then this is going to be a difficult partnership for us to engage in. So please know um that is definitely at the committee's forefront of the

276mind and all of us at student relations as well. >> All right. Well, thank you for bringing this work to us. I'll move the item. >> I'll second. >> All right. Item moved by myself and seconded by Miss Luna Rose. All those in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed? Item passes 5-0. Thank you. >> Thank you again. >> Unless there's any objection by the governing board, we'll move uh the information item 9 8.1 to next meeting next week. Seeing none, I'll take those unanimous consent. And Dr. Trillo, we have future meeting dates and agenda items. >> Yes. Um I want to thank number one, our ASL interpreter team. Thank you so much for the continued service. Um we're going to be busy a week from tonight. We have both um the desegregation budget and

277the district's maintenance and operations budget will be up for um possible board adoption. Just a reminder on that, your adoption sends it out for 30 days of public comment and then your final vote on it is after the July 4th weekend when we come back in July. We'll have two public hearings, one for the M budget, one for the DEG hearing on tap for next week. We will also have probably the biggest conversation will be around the board's consideration of the approval of digital platforms. Uh we have a bit of a preview of that tonight. The platforms are actually in front of you next week. Uh we have an approval one of six recommendations from the alternative education committee is ready for board uh consideration next week. The approval to make uh DAPE mandatory for

278students that turn down a bandance. Um, so that one is up for possible board action. Just a note, uh, the other five recommendations are being assessed for financial impact and staffing and will be scheduled for board consideration and public discussion in July. And as if we're not uh loaded already with um topics that are uh have all kinds of varied opinions and are hot topics, we also have the return of AI uh policy JND. The board was deadlocked, so it's back next week. We do need some kind of a of a policy, so we'll be busy. >> Thank you. Anything else, governing board members? All right, I'll close our meeting. Thank you, everyone. Have a good night. What? I went to start.