TUSD1- March 31st 2026 Governing Board Meeting

001I did not. Thank you so much. Just picked them up broad down. It's probably Go ahead. How are you? Foreign Come on. Yeah. I'm like They already testing. One, two, three. Testing. Guilty Monday. Perfect. Oh, that's right. >> Perfect. That's right. I'm looking at my room today. I haven't poster. 20 years old. >> Did you guys know each other? I'm sorry. Hello Zoom participants. Thanks for joining us. Just wanted to let you know that the governing board is still in executive session. We're looking at another 15 minutes. >> And then the public meeting will begin. >> Thanks for being here. >> Thank you. Stop. Right. Exactly. boys. I don't know. The um the pillars What's your name? Sorry. She thinks he's wonderful. It's nice when he's doing his third here. >> However, there's a matter

002of before the road. Not a lot of American University most Okay. >> Maybe next week. Yeah, we're getting late. They always go longer. I just >> I'm not gonna say I I'm coming. >> Visited Dubai. Here we go. Hello. How are you? I know. That's Okay. >> No, no, it's called How would you do that? Is that I'm gonna get us started in just a few seconds here. You know, I have some fun comments to start off. So, I know the governing board is still working their way up before roll call. >> All right. Okay. I'm going to get started here this evening. Good evening everyone and sorry for our late start. We had a busy exec session uh preceding this part of the meeting. Uh today is Tuesday, March 31st, and I'm excited to

003open up our open part of the meeting. On this day in 1889, the iconic Eiffel Tower opened. Many of us have been there. It's a beautiful place. But more locally here and more historically for us here in America, on this day in 1870, Thomas Mundy Peterson of New Jersey became the first African-American individual to vote under the 15th amendment. So very important significance for us as a nation. Uh today is National Tater Day, celebrating all things potato and national Crayola Crayon Day. So those listening at home, please use your crayons to draw your favorite filled baked potato tonight. Uh today is also international transgender day of visibility dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raging awareness and discrimination of discrimination worldwide and I'll acknowledge uh just the the cruelty of the Supreme Court decision tonight coming

004at the same day as international transgender day of visibility. As a family physician who's taking care of a lot of folks of all ages who are trans, this is going to that decision is going to harm a lot of kids and a lot of people in the years to come. And so I'm very sorry about that decision. But that said, I'm going to turn it over nearly for the first time to Kayla. Uh welcome aboard Kayla who's going to run us uh in our roll call to say >> Dr. Robbie >> here, >> Miss Luna Rose >> here, >> Miss Extramm >> here, >> Mr. Romero >> here, >> Miss Shaw >> here. >> All right, looks like we have everyone here this evening. Uh and we're going to get next to our land acknowledgement

005statement. And we have two students for our land acknowledgement and our pledge of allegiance. Both of them are eighth graders at Gridley Middle School. So excited to have you here tonight. Our first is Daryl Ignasio Ray Palmer who's going to do our land acknowledgement statement. Are they on Zoom? Are they here? Over here. Great. So Daryl Ignasio Ray Palmer is an eighth grade student at Gidley Middle School. He is a trumpet player for both the jazz band and the symphonic band at Gidley Middle School. He likes to listen to music and draw different styles of graffiti art. He also likes to ride his BMX bike around town. One of his hobbies is that he likes to collect different things such as hats, shoes, and music CDs. Daryl finds interest in restoring and building old cars

006and likes to build low rider bikes and build them to his liking. On top of his hobbies, Daryl stays connected to his roots by performing traditional grass dance up in Scottsdale, Arizona. What is grass dance, Daryl? Uh, grass dance is a dance like for um it's like uh sorry uh >> that's okay. I put you on the spot there without any warning. >> Yeah. So, sorry. >> That's great. We'll look it up ourselves later on, but we want to lead us in our land acknowledgement statement then. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Please go ahead. On behalf of the governing board of the Tucson Unified School District, I Daryl Agnosio Ray Palmer acknowledge that the schools, buildings, and faculties of the Tucson Unified School District reside on the ancestral land of the Toono Odo Nation and federally

007recognized tribal land of the Pascoyaki tribe. >> Great. Thank you, Darl. Thank you for being here this evening. >> Yeah, you're welcome. Have a great day. Next, we have Julia Barley. Julia is an eighth grade student at Gidley Middle School. She is a member of student council, a member of the honors track, and plays with the advanced symphonic band at Gridley. Uh Julia is the oldest of four with three younger siblings, one sister, and two rowdy little brothers. In her free time, she enjoys reading fiction, baking, swimming, and archery. Awesome. She plans on participating in the swim team and continuing her honors classes at Sarro High School next year. Her friends describe her as very responsible, animated, supported, supportive, and a leader with no filter. She's a proud daughter of Lynette and Daniel Barley. Thank

008you for being here and for leading the pledge of allegiance. And for everyone who can, please stand. >> Go ahead. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you for being here this evening. Good luck in Swarro next year. >> Okay, Dr. Trujillo, next is agenda adjustments. >> Uh, President Shaw, board members, we'd like to recommend our administrative appointments. We got a lot of family members here tonight. Uh we recommend items 8.2 through 8.6 uh directly following the call to the audience. >> Thank you, Dr. Trill. Any objection? Seeing none, I'll take that as unanimous consent for that change tonight. I'll turn it back to you, Dr. Trillo for awards

009and recognitions. >> Yes, >> board members, uh President Shaw, uh those that are in attendance here with the community. Um we'll get started uh tonight. awards and recognitions. Before we get started with the celebration and the recognition yesterday, uh we sadly and tragically learned of the loss of a longtime TUSD leader. Uh somebody who left an indelible mark on the school she was so proud to lead in the school she was so proud to attend as a student. So tonight we begin uh mourning the loss, the sudden and tragic loss of former Bonius principal Jennifer Ambrosio. She was a proud product of Tucson Unified. She was a proud student at Bonius. Um, she became a Bonus principal and for my first 5 years in the district, she was a fixture. She was the first face

010I would always see on any school visit. She was the first person always out to greet me in the parking lot at any school event. Uh, she would be the first person to find me at the magnet uh, recruiting fairs that we would hold at the Children's Museum. She lived, eat, and ate and slept bonus. And there weren't enough hours in the day for Jennifer of doing kind things for students and staff. Uh we mourn her loss. Uh we mourned the loss of such a tremendous administrative leader and talent and person. I remember how hard it was for her to leave the school she loved to go work uh at Sunnyside uh where she serves uh where she served um at the um elementary school there in Sunnyside, Drexel Elementary at the time of her

011passing this weekend. Uh her journey from student to principal is just such a powerful example of the lasting influence that educators have on our young people and the trajectory of their lives. Jennifer was a living example of that. And um I'd like to start our uh meeting with a moment of silence in remembrance of Jennifer Ambrosio. Thank you. Thank you. So, as we transition from remembrance to recognition, we now turn to honoring the employees that make such an amazing dis and make make this district as amazing as it is. It's my pleasure to introduce our first recognition to celebrating the contributions and the impact of Mr. Michael Mills. He is an outstanding educator whose dedication, passion, and commitment to students continue to make a profound impact at Dodge Middle School. Mr. Michael Mills has been

012a valued member of Tucson Unified since 2018, and he is a cornerstone, a pillar of the climate and culture of excellence in the Dodge community where he's been since 2019. His contributions extend far beyond the classroom. Mr. Mills uh serves as a yearbook teacher, visual and media arts teacher, cross country coach, track and field coach, middle school black history brain bowl coach, and while pursu all of this while pursuing his educational leadership degree, his doctoral degree. Mr. Mills is known for creating opportunities for students to engage, grow, excel, and succeed. Each year he invites new students to participate in the Black History Brain Bowl where they commit countless hours of studying and preparation. Under his leadership, Dodge Middle School has achieved an extraordinary milestone, seven consecutive Brain Bowl championships. Absolutely. That's wonderful. This year's team

013competed in honor of Mr. Al Lonmeer, a pillar of the Tucson community, demonstrating not only academic excellence, but also a deep respect for history and legacy. Through his work, Mr. Mills inspires his students to understand the past so that they can shape a brighter future. His commitment to student success and cultural awareness and educational excellence exemplify the very best of the Tucson Unified School District. So, at this time, I'd like to invite Mr. Micah Mills to join me up here uh at the dis for a photo and to receive the superintendence award of excellence. Mr. Mills, if you're here, Dr. Trivia. Um, just a point of privilege. I just want to thank Mr. Mills for all of his work. Um, he recruited my daughter to be in the Brain Bowl and you know, you're one

014of her favorite teachers as, um, she's in our class this year. Um, and so I appreciate everything that you do for the Dodge community. And if if any of you haven't seen the Brain Bowl uh yet, I do encourage you to check it out next year because it is incredible what all the students uh both at Dodge and all the other schools uh do to uh memorize all this uh incredible um achievements of the African-American community. Thank you. >> Yes. Little round of applause for Mr. Mills. Next, we're proud to celebrate an extraordinary achievement across the Tucson Unified School District. Our magnet schools are no strangers to winning awards. Uh each year, our magnet schools of America recognizes the top magnet programs across the nation, schools that exemplify high academic standards, innovative and theme-based instruction,

015and a strong commitment to diversity and equitable access. I'm proud to share that this year several Tucson Unified Magnet Schools have earned national recognition through the magnet schools of America merit awards. The distinction speaks volumes about the dedication of our educators, the creativity of our programs, and the success of our students. These schools are not only preparing students academically, they're engaging them in meaningful, relevant learning experiences that help shape confident, capable, and forwardthinking uh young leaders. At this time, it's my pleasure to invite Aaron Collins Kelly. She serves as our program manager for the magnet department to the podium to recognize each of our award-winning schools and present their awards. Mrs. Kelly Good evening, Dr. Trujillo. Uh, members of the board and the TUSD community. My name is Aaron Collins Kelly. I'm the program manager

016for the magnet department. And with me this evening is Twilight Busby. She is our magnet PEDAT. It is my pleasure to recognize and celebrate the outstanding achievements of our Tucson Unified School District magnet schools. Each year, the Magnet Schools of America National Merit Award honor top magnet schools in our country. Schools that demonstrate, as Dr. Trujillo said, excellence in academics, innovative curriculum, diversity, and a commitment to providing highquality theme educational experiences for all students. This year, we're proud to announce that nine of our magnet schools have earned MSA merit awards. I want to say congratulations to each school and to their entire staff for their dedication to creating exceptional learning environments. So, I'd like to invite each school to come forward and receive their MSA merit certificate and I'll call each one one at a

017time and if you'll remain up here so we can pose for a photo. Here we go. For merit distinction, Dodge Magnet Middle School recognized for strong academics and innovative programs. Tully Magnet Elementary School celebrated for creative theme integration and an inclusive learning environment for merit excellence. Borton Magnet Elementary School honored for innovation and student focused learning. Ross Scrooge K8 Magnet School recognized for engaging students with meaningful learning experiences. Gao Magnet Elementary School celebrated for commitment to student growth and magnet programming. Palaverie Magnet High School honored for preparing students for college, career, and community involvement. Our top merit schools of excellence earners, starting with Mansfeld Magnet Middle School, recognized for their ongoing dedication to supporting students. Davis Romero Magnet Elementary School celebrated for strong achievement and curriculum innovation. And last, but certainly not least, Tucson High

018Magnet School, honored for consistent excellence and student success. Dr. Trill, would you do us the honor to pose in our group pick? Is that okay? any board members that would like to come down and pose with us as well? Oh, sure. Let's go to the front. >> How about while we're getting ready, one more round of applause for their hard work. Yeah. >> Squeeze in there. Oh gosh. >> Three, two, one. Overhead. Good morning. I didn't realize it was windy. All right, another round of applause for our magnet school teams. No strangers to magnet excellence. Uh, next, we are extremely honored to recognize an extraordinary act of generosity that will leave a lasting impact on one of our most historic campuses and the broader Tucson Unified community. We would like to extend our sincere appreciation

019to Mr. Brad Miller, Tracy Pitt, Robera Shore, and the many community members and donors whose collective gift approaching $200,000 will support the creation of the Anne Eve Peterson Memorial at Sam Hughes Elementary School. The memorial honors the life and legacy of Anne Eve Peterson, a Tucson native, journalist, and passionate advocate for public education. Anne Eve was known for her commitment to doing what was right, her fierce advocacy for students and families, and her deep love for this community. The effort to honor her legacy has been a communitywide endeavor, one that brought together friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues who share a deep commitment to her vision and values. Literacy Connects served as the fiscal sponsor and provided vital guidance throughout the process. Professional services were generously donated by architects, engineers, and attorneys, and additional financial support

020was provided by the foundations and corporate partners. On behalf of the Tucson Unified School District, we do extend our heartfelt gratitude to all who contributed to this meaningful project. Your generosity ensures that the Annie Peterson's legacy will continue to live on in the very community she cared so deeply about. And at this time I'd like to invite our project partners and guests who are present this evening uh to please join us at the dis to be recognized for this amazing act of generosity and of course to accept our award of appreciation. There you go, guys. One, two, three. One more time. One, two, three. Perfect. Members of the board, that does conclude awards and recognitions. >> Thank you, Dr. Trillo. Uh, we'll have an abbreviated board member act to report since we did one at

021the beginning of the month. We'll do one. It's been three weeks. Uh, does anyone have any like report of where they've visited and how they've represented to USD? Mr. Romero, followed by Miss Luna Rose. >> All right. Spring break put a put a like a a stop on my visit. So um Blendman I visit a couple well Kelly Mack at Blendman White Kelly had a meeting with uh Choya principal Caesar Manda had my annual visit and birthday this was a breakfast at Deets with Jesus Vasquez and Julie over there and then a calendar committee meeting as well. >> Is this that's all? That's it. >> Oh my goodness. That's the shortest one. >> Go ahead, Miss Len Rose. >> That's the shortest ever, Mr. Romero. So proud. Okay. Uh, good evening everybody. Thank you for

022coming. Um, just a few items to report because there was spring break. Um, I attended the Kumunid Labor Unity Fair um that um was the name was changed due to the controversy with Cesar Chavez. uh and um but the community did come out and um I was uh invited to attend um and even though there was not a march from PBLO like there was in previous years uh we gathered at Rudy Garcia Park and and uh connected with community. So, I wanted to thank the organizers for still going through with that and letting everybody know that um you know despite what happened um and those horrible things that have happened that we're still a strong vibrant community and we're still going to get um come together to figure out the next steps. Um so uh

023thank you to um community organizers uh Eva Dong and Steve Valencia uh for um making this happen. Um I also attended um well I also met with parents of uh Davis Romero Alice Vale Middle School and SU for different issues and I appreciate them um emailing and and calling uh and so there's still some followup on a few of those but to members in the audience and members parents of the uh that are listening um our doors are always open. So, please feel free to reach out to any one of us or all of us if you have a concern. Um, uh, it's always good um, a good reminder to meet with parents since um, there's four of us um, that are currently still u parents of the district. And lastly, um, just wanted to

024give a congratulations to uh, the Rinkcon University High School Winter Color Guard. They just finished their season. So congratulations to RU R UHS Black and RHS Purple for their season. The uh Ringcon percussion is second in the state and will be having their final competition in April. And um they have a great show. So that but that will be in Phoenix. And I also wanted to recognize the the other uh two schools, well three schools that will be uh uh as part of the percussion. um Sarro High School and Sabino High School. And then um I'll be remiss if I did not mention also congratulations to the Tucson High JV and varsity color guard teams for um another great season. Um my daughter is graduating in May. So, uh, I will, uh, well, I'll probably

025still attend some of these, but if you have not had a chance, um, to attend or if you're a parent and your child is interested, um, they're always looking at any one of our schools to be, uh, part of these programs. So highly encourage you uh to support whether it's um with your time with uh donating uh uh for tax donation that can be directed to these programs or even participate yourself as a parent. Um and that's all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Luna Rose. Next. Go ahead, Miss Extra. >> Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Shaw. Uh, I met with some international uh, teachers right before spring break and I learned more about um, how they come to our district and what we provide for them. So, that was a great meeting.

026I also met with Tanisha Johnson. She is going to be our new African-American student services department director and we had a really great conversation about how she's going to really dig in and and be a part of this community. So, I'm very excited for what she's going to bring to our schools. I also attended the bond oversight committee, uh the Kamunid Labor Unity Fair. I met with parents from Davis Romero, and I also attended the elementary school track meet at Paulavery High School. Thank you so much, Paula Vvery, for hosting. Um, and that concludes my report. >> Go ahead, Michelle. >> Good evening, everyone. Um, I also met with uh parents and staff uh from the Davis Romero community about um issues on their campus. Um, and so thank you for all of those uh

027folks who um organized so well and uh really uh brought a lot of um information to the board for us to consider. Um, I also spoke with TEA President Jim Burn about an issue happening at our high school. You know, oftent times the board does get anonymous letters. Um, and some of the reasons why people want to remain anonymous is because they fear retaliation. And I want to remind the public that our staff is protected against retaliation. we do have really clear policies um protecting staff and so um some issues we really can't follow through without an actual complaint. And so I want to urge our community to um you know if if there's an issue going on and you want to remain anonymous at least go to your union uh representative so that we

028can handle this um in a manner um depending on that issue. Um, let's see. Last today I uh went over to Sam Hughes and met with Principal Bolasi. Um, you know, I saw that new fence that went up at Sam Hughes. It's just gorgeous. It's very, very tall. Um, and so, uh, thank you to the principal over there for letting me know about, um, some of the issues, uh, that, um, you are facing at Sam Hughes and all the great things that are happening. Um, one one thing that I don't know if I can share this, but I'm going to. Sorry if um there was an issue with the drone at the campus and I know that school safety was notified and so um Mr. Ross, I'd like to ask that if we can get

029like our schools to be a nofly zone. Um I'm not sure if that would take district policy or to elevate that. I think um it's warranted since so many uh people have drones now and they can be used for uh things that we would not want to subject our students to. So, thank you for bringing that to my attention. I think it was an isolated incident, but I just want to make sure that our our campuses are protected. Um I also went over to Miles Exploratory Learning Center and met with Principal Walls and I also uh stopped by the uh classroom of Mr. Kelly who uh brought students to our governing board meeting about a year ago uh talking about um you know the history of Sam Hughes and also General Miles um the harm

030that they did in our community. And so uh later on in the agenda I'm going to ask that um once again uh the renaming of these schools is put on our agenda so that the community can understand the process and we could move forward um with uh potentially renaming those schools. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Shaw. So, I'll conclude our um board member activity report. I had a chance to visit uh two schools over the last couple of weeks. One of them was Mccoral uh K8, one of our larger schools, over a thousand students there. I was invited by Principal Harris, thank you, to attend the Junior Achievement Day where over 100 students from the UVA came to work on financial literacy, career development, and other tasks for uh age appropriate from kindergarten all

031the way to the eighth grade level. and it was great to see some of that in action. I also had a chance to visit Coreo uh K5. Uh thank you, Principal Bidd, for the tour and for introducing me to the uh community there at Coreo. Had a chance to read to some students, which is a lot of fun and see their garden and see a lot of the work that they're doing, all the artwork everywhere in that beautiful uh elementary school that we have. uh as your board leaison to the audit committee. I had a chance to meet with our internal auditor uh Paul Houston who just started a few weeks ago and help him with his onboarding and orientation as well as attend the audit committee meeting uh that worked with him to help

032him a special meeting that was scheduled just to help support uh him in his process of onboarding his first 90 days. Also had a chance to meet with Tanisha Johnson, our new incoming uh director of African-American student services and help support her as she transitions into that role. And finally, I don't I'm surprised you didn't mention Dr. Trujillo. I know it was in your honor, but the superintendence concerts uh earlier on in March uh where we had uh teachers, our art music teachers and students, performers around our district coming together at Catalina High School to uh show off and showcase some of the amazing music programs and music uh talent and ability of our faculty and students around the district. So, I brought my kids with me uh and we had a great time uh

033listening to uh music from Wicked as well as musicals and other great uh performances at night. So, really happy to continue supporting the arts in our district and attending the superintendent's concert. With that, that concludes my board member activity report and I'll move us right along to our call to the audience and I'll turn over to our board clerk, Miss Luna Rose, to lead us in our call to the audience. >> Thank you, Dr. Shaw. Members of the public may speak during the call of the 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 or complete a request they address the board form before the

034meeting. Speakers who have not completed a request form are not permitted to address the board. The speaker must state their full name and topic prior to addressing the board. Speakers are encouraged to be brief with a maximum time of 3 minutes. While more than one speaker may speak together in the time allowed, speakers are reminded 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 the 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. Speaker shall refrain from inappropriate or slanderous remarks. And because TUSD serves students from preschool through high school, speaker should be

035aware that there may be children present and listening. At the end of the call of the audience, the governing board president will ask any board member wishes to respond to a criticism, wish to ask staff to review a matter, or wish to ask that a matter be put on a future agenda. No more than two members may address each topic. And our first speaker this evening is Lillian Fox. President Shaw, members of the board, Superintendent Trillo, and Yolanda Barbaua. Um, I'm going to start off with this thing. Last time I talked at length about the 87.6 mill, $3 million that's in the budget for this year for furniture and equipment, which is way out of line. Last year you were budgeted $1.3 million for the same thing. 1.3 is typical for what we've had year

036after year after year. The 87.6 as you can see is more than any group of our schools are budgeted for their total budgets except for high schools. High schools get a little more than $87.6 million. Now um the next thing is TUSD has gotten worse on chronic truency. This is a chart that shows from best to worst or best performing school district down to the worst performing one. We are the next to the worst. We are way below most of the districts are in Tucson. The only district you can say we're remotely competitive with the sunny side. Then you look down here which goes gives the rate of chronic truency. We now have a rate of chronic truency of 44%. We are worse than Sunnyside. You can't teach, you cannot improve academic outcomes if kids

037are in class. And that's what's happening in TUSD. That is a big part of why our academic performance is terribly bad. And when you have kids not coming to class, eventually they drop out because they can't do the work because they're not in school or they switch to a charter school or they switch to a better school district. And every school district is better than we are except for Sunnyside. We've got to do something about it. The state of Arizona put together a book or booklet for school districts to use to develop strategies to reduce chronic truency. We're currently not doing anything. We need to go through this book out, pick out the strategies that would apply and use them. We also need a strategy for how we're going to improve acade academic in outcomes.

038Only 28% of our students are proficient in reading and writing. Only 22% are proficient in math. We got to do better than that. Our kids are as smart as the kids in any other district. It's unacceptable for us to be treating them that way. Without TUSD also has no strategy and no plans for improving educational outcomes. Without educa strategies and plans for reducing truency, improving academic outcomes, you have you can't possibly budget responsibly. There's just no way. You don't know what you're doing if you don't have some strategy for how you're going to improve. So example, TUSD is spending thousands of dollars for artificial truth, but 85 of our schools got no money for life. >> Thank you. >> Next is B. Putnham Hadago. Good evening, school board, Dr. Trujillo, and everyone else here. My

039name is Bets Putnham Hidalgo, and I'm here before you again to demand as a mom, a taxpayer, and a TUSD grandmother to spend your desegregation funds on desegregation efforts. That means to continue funding the African-American student services without cuts. But you know what? Continuing funding apparently isn't enough. You have to also actually hire people to work there. Excuse my impertinence, but that should be obvious to a school district administration and board, and it shouldn't require court oversight to make it happen. After all, looking at the situation from the perspective of an African-American student who needs help, a reasonably funded department with only five out of 18 possible positions filled to cover 88 schools is pretty meaningless. People are feeling pretty economically stress stressed these days and giving the school district some 60 odd million dollars

040to not even fulfill its desegregation obligations may not last forever. On the web page there's a celebration of local control and discussions to support academic interventions rather than purely courtmandated initiatives. But have you looked to see who those interventions benefit? Because that's the point. That money is not supposed to make up for budget shortfalls for needed positions districtwide, but to help specifically Africanamean and MexicanAmerican and Latino students. When you need to help all of the students, instead of raiding the desegregation funds, you should be rating administrative salaries, planned furniture purchases, and the scholarship funds for preschool that cover individuals making more than $100,000. In other words, there are better places to cut budgets than continually raising the desegregation funds. I certainly don't want to see the district lose those funds, but I also don't want

041to see that amount of money used as a slush fund to cover buying new buildings for administrative suites, filling those new buildings with an obscene amount of furniture, etc., all while the subject of closing schools hovers above us. continue funding and filling positions in the African-American studies department now and into the future. Thank you. Next is Sylvia Campo. Good evening. After the federal district court lifted its supervision of the desegregation decree in 2022, the administration began chiseling away at the desegregation organizational structure. And yet another reorganization is underway during the current budget process, significantly changing the immunary status plan into something quite unrecognizable and unaccountable. Moreover, desegregation funding has become impossible to track due to the administration's continued reshaping of desegregation programs, significant organizational changes, and ongoing rating of desegregation funds in apparent and not

042so apparent ways. For example, the African-American Student Services Department was allocated a budget of in 2025 26 that included 18 FTEEs, including one director and one coordinator. The department started the year with an interim director and an inter interim coordinator, 15 staff members who provide direct services to 88 schools and one service provider vacancy. Throughout the year, employees left the department at an alarming rate. Yet, nobody did anything. By January 2026, only five service providers for 88 schools were available. That's the number right now. Interim administrator and interim coordinator do not provide services directly to students at the schools. So five people are providing services to African-American students in 88 schools. The ratio of two administrators to five service providers is a ridiculous ratio. It should not be taking place. Fix it. Next is Reverend

043Lisa Grich. President Sha and members of the board. My name is Reverend Lisa Gromck. I am an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church, a Tucson resident, and the mother of black daughters. I come before you not to recite statistics, though the statistics are damning, but to name what is happening here in moral terms, because that is what this moment requires. You approved 18 positions for African-American student services. You are funding five five people to serve AfricanAmerican children across 88 schools. That is not a budget constraint. That is a choice. And choices reveal values. As a mother, I know what it means to trust a school district with your child. I know what it costs when that trust is betrayed. not once but systemically year after year, promise after promise. The desegregation obligation this district carries

044was not created arbitrarily. It was created because this district was found to have systemically failed black children. The money you receive that we as a community provide exists for one purpose to repair that harm. When it is not used for that purpose, the harm continues. It simply continues without a court watching. A second grade boy was struck by his teacher knocked to the floor. The teacher received one day of administrative leave. One day. Hold that child in your mind as you make your budget decisions for this coming year. He is not an edge case. He is a measure of how this institution's values black lives. You are at a moral threshold. The question before you is not whether you can afford to fully staff the department. The question is whether you have the courage to

045stop making promises you do not intend to keep and whether you can finally keep them. These childrens are watching. Their parents are watching. The community is watching. Fund what you promised. Now, next is EB Ever Evely. My name is Eberline. I'm a retired TUSD teacher. I've taught at Menllo Elementary, Safford Middle School, Utterback, and Mansfield. I'm proud of that. I have three children who have come through TUSD. Two of them are adopted and black. they benefited from the services that they received and it was important because they both had certain issues that needed assistance. So I'm here in support of the African-American community. I'm also here in support of the indigenous community who face similar issues. And I want to remind you, if you haven't thought about it, that with the closing of ASDB, you

046will likely increase your enrollment of students with other special needs. And I hope you are preparing appropriately for those students. Thank you, board and superintendent. Next is Dr. Demon Holt. Good evening, U Dr. Trio, Superintendent, uh, President Shaw, members of the board. Uh, it's a pleasure to be here on tonight. Good to see Jennifer Extramm. It's been a few years since I've seen you, so good to see you. Um, I'm here u I come before you once again with uh troubling concerns about the administration's lack of support in specific areas that adversely impact black students who continue to be disenfranchised by TUSD. The last timeline was here. The administration committed not to cut the equity, diversity, and inclusiveness department. And still months later, the administration boldly recommended slashing the position with board approval. The segregation

047efforts have been scattered, lacking any concentrated oversight. The EDI demolition was yet one more broken promise to the black community, another detriment to the black and brown students. Last spring, the board approved the African-American student service department budget, which included 18 full-time positions. From the beginning of the year, the school year, staffing has been short and has continued to decline with with only five people on staff. Some argue that the disegregation case is over, but as long as this district lines its pockets with $64 million a year, it is obligated to continue implementing its disegregation unitary status plan. The most recent Arizona Department of Education academic proficiency results in English language arts and math provide a grim picture of black students in TUSD showing that the majority are failing in both areas. Yet with what

048witnessed in African-American student services department by essentially shrinking its staff to less than a third of its service providers. My friends, my concern is this is that if we are very critically low on this great department, that means many of our African-American students will not be serviced and supported that they may be able to pursue their God-given potential and to be successful as Americans. We do know if our kids are not proficiently performing academically, they're building prisons more than they are building schools because certainly the schoolto prison pipeline is real. So, I come to tell you today that I'm back. You haven't seen me in a couple years, but I'm back to work with us to be able to help our black kids achieve. I want the record to reflect that two of you said

049you have met with the director, and we're looking forward to bringing academic achievement. Thank you. God bless you. >> Thank you. Next is Natalie Mast. Good evening everyone. My name is Natalie and I'm here tonight in the capacity of a parent EXE employee and something I take no comfort in sharing that of being groomed by a middle-aged church-going progressive family man, a pillar of the community starting at the age of seven. As we know and are comp currently bombarded with daily with daily in absolutely every realm of our society, we live in a rape culture. This culture permeates all levels of government, faith communities, family formations, and to no one's p surprise, public education. As seen at Dodge Middle School and Shadow Mountain High School on the same day, it's a problem. I want everyone

050in this audience and watching online to start a daily news search. Teacher, principal, coach arrested. Statistically, there is an almost zero chance this isn't happening elsewhere in our district. While there are countless facets to this culture, I'm here to specifically shed light on the strategic tactics of grooming. defined as a process of creating the ideal conditions for control and sexual abuse. Grooming is an insidious piece of rape culture and often allows predators to go undetected. On the front page of your packet, I would like to call attention to the fact that grooming is a purposeful, often yearslong process that people use to build trust with their victims. It starts with friendship, mentorship, kindness, and often extends to everyone around them. On the back side of this page, you'll see a list pointing out the patterns

051of grooming, identifying a victim, gaining access, embedding in their life, isolation and secrecy, initiating sexual contact, and controlling through fear and false affection. I encourage you to read it carefully and reflect on other places you see it in your life. As I prepared to speak tonight, I had lots of people ask me what solutions I'm proposing. A big ask. Instead, this is the start of a conversation that needs many voices. We know we cannot rely on our internal chain of command to manage this issue. A rigid hierarchical structure has never protected us. We can't rely on a single professional development class, a background check, a fingerprint clearance card, or a letter of recommendation. We can't rely on an underfunded and understaffed child protection agency or problematic law enforcement structure. We have to begin to rely

052on ourselves and our safe connections in school communities. This includes the normalization of difficult group conversations, openly naming what we see, challenging the power structure, and putting safety at the heart of what we do. Without safety, there is no freedom. Please help me get this info into the hand of every person in our TUSD community. Thank you, >> Miss Luna Rose. >> Thank you, Miss Luna Rose. Yes, >> the 20 minutes are up. >> Oh, thank you. >> Sorry, I did not recognize your voice, Kayla. I didn't know where that was coming from. So, thank you, Dr. Sha. >> I'll stay with Sha. How many more do we have, Miss Laros? >> Um, we have three in person and two to be read. >> Okay. >> I'd like to move to extend call to the

053audience. >> I'll second. See no opposition. I'll take unanimous consents. Miss Luna, Miss Extramm, >> I'll make a substitute motion to do the ones in person and then the two to be read can be emailed to us. >> Dr. Shaw, >> um, Miss Luna Rose, are the letters that are uh to be read, do they pertain to our agenda items? >> Um, these two No, they're not related to our budget or our discussion tonight. >> I would prefer them to be read, but I'm asking a second. Uh, so I'll um go to original motion here. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? All right. Item pass. Any abstensions? Item passes 5-0. Okay, we'll continue on with clouds of the audience for the four remaining that we have. >> Okay. >> Or five

054remaining, excuse me. >> Okay. Um I'm sorry, Morgan O'Donnell. Next, Morgan. >> Okay. Uh Paula White Gross. Good evening, Dr. Trillo. Board members, I'd like to say that I'm a TUSD watcher. I pay attention to you policy makers and administrators. I pay attention to what you are doing and but my particular interest is how your decisions or lack thereof impact the young people in my community, the African-American community. From what I've seen, you're failing African-American students on several fronts. But tonight I focus on your lack of respect for the entire black community, which of course includes the youth. If you as an institution do not have foundational respect for how you view us, everything that follows is stated. February, the shortest month of the year, is Black History Month. Yet this year, and likely others,

055the month of February received no systemwide attention from the administration and board of any significance, such as a proclamation to honor and highlight the month. You, Dr. Trillo, and governing board members chose to ignore it. And in so doing, you ignored the black community, black employees, black students. You have passed proclamations relative to procurement, counselors, nurses, career and technical education, professional buyers day, and the board proclaimed National Hispanic Heritage Month for half of September and half of October. But as young black folks say, TUSD blanked black people. You curbed African-Americans. And it's in insulting and totally unacceptable. We notice your treatment of us. Look at the profile of the top level administrators, which includes the African-American individuals. The representation of black principles has shrunk over the last 10 years to an embarrassing number, especially concerning

056black male administrators. Black students are not fairing well in TUSD as the lack of regard and respect for African-Americans is permeating the entire system. It's really too bad that Arizona federal court lifted its supervision and proclaimed to US unitary. The court trusted you to continue its mandated efforts to ensure the vestigages of discrimination would not again surface. The court was wrong. because now how they have surfaced. Okay, next is Cameron Rodriguez. I'm Cameron Rodriguez. I'm a teacher at Rinkcon High School and this is my seventh time speaking in a row and I doubt it will be my last. I am here because I suffered an injury at work last year. TOSD and the insurance company both lied to Don Ny my claim and I am still fighting the district in court. Your captured judge has

057been removed for potentially conspiring with TOSD's hired firm to tamper with evidence. Both judge and attorney as well as Mr. general counsel right here are all under active bar investigation because of the matter I've spoken up here for 5 months and even after half a year of pointless litigation. It really floores me that you have the audacity to keep this man in charge of my case and district legal affairs. Someone who has disgraced himself enough in the eyes of his own profession to warrant an investigation about not telling you the truth about my case. It takes nerf to pay public money for someone to trap an injured teacher in expensive litigation based solely on the idea that the lawyer has got to be right and the teacher has got to be wrong and he's the

058one under investigation and not me. How dare you keep me coming back here month after month when now you know that I was telling the truth and he wasn't. Yet I will still have to come back here in two weeks and two weeks after that to say the same things. and you will still have your lawyer up here shortly to continue advising you regardless of the harm he's caused, the conflict of interest he has, or the new legal issues created by his continual involvement in district affairs. You know, I voted for every single one of you, all five. I realize now I was foolish and naive to imagine that you might have helped an injured teacher seven months ago. But to keep me coming back for a seventh, 8th, 9th, 10th time month after month

059when at least three of you now have the proof that your own lawyer's behavior merits disciplinary review from the bar while I've done nothing except try to get treatment for an injury. A teacher, I just want to get back to my students. I like teaching. This takes energy and it's a waste of my time. I suppose I will see you in two weeks when the situation is even worse and your lawyer and your avoidance have made an even bigger, more expensive mess of things with public money. Thank you for your time. >> All right, that's the end of the speakers. Um, I will read the first letter. You can read the last letter. Okay. This correspondence serves as a renewed whistleblower complaint regarding ongoing financial mismanagement within the district as well as a formal notice

060of a title 2 violation under the Americans with Disabilities Act ADA regarding the governing board's recent actions to deny medical accommodations to the February meeting. Number one, title notice title 2 ADA violation violation and denial of access. On February 24, 2026, the TUSD governing board passed an amended motion restricting the call to the audience strictly in to in-person comments. This procedural change actively disenfranchises individuals with disabilities and directly resulted in the denial of my previously requested medical accommodation. Under title two, state and local governments must provide equal access to public meetings because a documented medical condition prevents me from attending in person. My request to have my statement read into the public record consu constitutes a standard reasonable accommodation. The district's refusal to accommodate this request and its subsequent vote ban reading the subse submitted

061comments entirely is a discriminatory practice that obstructs public participation. The US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division has been copied on this communication. Number two, whist renewed whistleblower complaint fiscal management. I'm officially renewing my t my notice that TUSD continues to engage in unlawful fiscal practices and procedural obstruction regarding employee contracts. Statutory violation error is 15-502. The district continues to ignore the strict $500 statutory cap on liquidated damages for certificated teachers. Withholding funds and access of this cap is unlawful diversion of taxpayer funded wages and contradicts the established state law in Arizona Supreme Court president. USFR non-compliance exceeding this legal limit constitutes an ongoing violation of the uniform system of the financial records. Obstruction of board oversight ARS 15-545. Human resources continuing to block contract releases, specifically those involving involuntary moves from reaching the board.

062This subverts the board's non-eleable duty to adjudicate these matters and violates employee due process. Formal request for reasonable accommodation. I am once again exercising my statutory right to address the board on matters of public concern. A ars 3843 and policy BD beh. Due to my medical condition, I cannot attend the upcoming board meeting in person. As a reasonable accommodation under title two of the ADA, I formally request that this letter be read aloud into the public record during the call of the audience at the next scheduled meeting. Failure to grant this accommodation will be documented as a continued civil rights violation and forwarded to the proper federal oversight agencies Sunny McCarti. And last we have Kiana Matson. Okay. It used to be that TUSD would make claim of its absolute support of Black Lives Matter,

063but TUSD has exposed itself as a lying and turncoat institution. Board members, you have shown total disregard for students of color, among them, black students. You should be totally disgraced by the failing achievement performance in math and English language arts. You should be even more ashamed of the rate of time black students are extrocreated from their instit instructional environment through in-house of or out of school suspensions. And you should all hang your heads low knowing that since the beginning of the school year, African-American Student Services has lost one service provider after another and is now down to five service providers for 88 schools. But with only five people going out to schools and stretching themselves to the maximum, you have allowed for two administrators to stay in their office and virtually do nothing. If the

064board was aware, then you are complicit. And if you claim you are not aware, then you are incompetent. Either way, your neglect is part of your loud and continuing statement that you, the governing board, does not believe that black lives students matter. Take shame over your racist neglect. Take shame that two of you claim to claim that you are too are. Take shame that two of you claim that you too are dark-skinned. It matters not what skin color your is or it is matters not what color your skin is if you take racist actions. Kiana Madison and that concludes our call to the audience, right? >> Uh yes, that concludes our call to audience for this evening. >> All right, governing board. Uh now our governing board has the opportunity to respond to criticism, ask

065staff 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. Miss Shaw followed by Miss Luna Rose. >> Thank you everyone for speaking out today. Um in regards to the issues of African-American student services, you know, I want to be clear that this is not something that the board voted on. The vacancies, I'm not really sure why people left the department. I I would imagine it might be uh issues with the leadership and so I I'm hopeful, you know, the board did vote unanimously for a new leadership in that department and I look forward to a turnaround, a complete turnaround. We did not, you know, remove those positions at all. They're still budgeted and I do hope that

066we fill them. Um, and so I appreciate your advocacy and you know, if if there's any uh folks listening who want to come back to the department, um, I I do encourage you to do so cuz we do need staff um, members to serve our community. And so my apologies for for not moving on this sooner. And I would like to ask staff um to um find out why there's so much vacancies in that department. Like we were never notified that there was so much so many people leaving um in mass. And so yeah, I'm I am troubled by it. And so um let's do what we can to to fill those positions. um you know regarding the um red letter about the ADA violations. This is the reason why I always um try to

067have our uh written comments read cuz I know that there are people who um need accommodations um or just can't get to the board meeting. And so I do encourage um our board to, you know, whether or not we have a long agenda to always read our our letters whether they're in person or or not. Um Miss Natalie Mass, thank you for um this piece of literature and also sharing your comments with us. Um, I think it is really important and um, I'm not sure how much grooming is touched on in our family life curriculum, but I would like to see this information added um, especially with what's going on nationwide and um, in our district. You know, knowledge is power and so I am a Dodge um, family. my daughter um you know had

068classes with the individual who um who's in jail now thankfully and so you know there are definitely things that I'm remembering now that I I wonder if that was grooming behavior and so I want that our um sexed curriculum to to talk about this so that students know you know what behaviors to be aware of and to um you know take action if you know, anything seems odd. Um, and so, um, I know like changing family life or modifying it or adding things probably is a a whole can of worms, but I'm I'm up for it. So, um, I would like to add uh modifications to our family life curriculum to a future agenda. Thank you, >> Miss Luna Rose. >> Thank you. followed by Mr. Romero. >> Um, thank you for everybody who spoke

069this evening and I don't see him, Mr. Eberlene. Um, concerning uh any bud budget cuts or anything to um special education. I know Dr. Trillo I asked perhaps for a future agenda to discuss what that's going to look like with ASDB students and our exit department. So, if we can let the community know sooner rather than later, I think that would maybe calm some fears um for those families and for people like Mr. Everene who was a a former educator here. Um and um Natalie um from one Natalie to another, thank you for coming this evening. And also I I echo Miss Shaw's statements. if um we can somehow get some sort of um curriculum or a vetting of the information that we are given tonight to to make it age appropriate and see it

070maybe in our curriculums. Um it's obviously has become it's not become an issue. It's always been an issue but now people are talking about it. It's been an it's been an issue. I I think all you know speaking personally um you know I I myself have had like as I like call it a me too moment but I don't talk about it but it has happened to me. So if if um and I was older I was not in school but or in in the K12 setting but if if we can make this um available to our students so they're they're ready and they're aware as they're growing up. Um, and and I know there might be some families that are, you know, we want to respect their family, the families as well in terms

071of, you know, the schools are not trying to tell you what to do. We're trying to just make our students safe. So, thank you for the information. And, uh, lastly, uh, Mr. Rodriguez, and I think he left as well. I just want to say that um uh I understand that he is um frustrated with what is going on concerning his case in the district, but I do want to say um that Mr. Ross has been an exemplary attorney to the board um and also was not found in any violation from state bar. So um I just wanted to speak in support of his work to us as board members. Go ahead, Mr. Romero. >> Check. Check. All right. I know we had uh something um in regards to uh furniture and equipment. And I know

072I referenced uh that question to um Ricky Hernandez last meeting just so we can kind of clear that up. Is it all right if we have Ricky address that situation or is that a time we can do that now? >> No, can do that later in the agenda when we do budget. >> Okay, perfect. And then the other thing that I would like to just kind of discuss and I know I've brought it up before, you know, talk, you know, we brought up again the chronic truency, um, which also goes along with chronic absenteeism. And I know right now we're in a busy budget cutting situation and a lot of other things we have going on. But I still want to make sure we keep this on our radar to do uh, you know, kind

073of dive deep into this. And I'm not too familiar with the the the the documentation that was brought up, but I do see this as a not just a district issue, but a national issue. But I don't want to just be the national norm. I don't think any of us up here want to do that. So, I think addressing that probably sooner than later and maybe lifting the bar so we're not where we are or finding out exactly where we are statwise in Pimac County would be huge um for our us and our community. Okay, that'll conclude our call to the audience. Thank you everyone who spoke tonight. Uh we'll move on to administrative appointments. We're going to go to some feelood items here tonight and we have some really amazing candidates. Uh if approved

074by the governing board, it's going to help lead our district into the future. We'll start with 8.2 administrative appointments. We have our director for intercolastics, Dr. Trillo. >> Yes. Um President Sha, members of the governing board, it's always exciting when we welcome new members to the team. So tonight's recommendation for district athletic director is somewhat of a coming home uh for tonight's uh recommendation. And Mr. Gary Rules was a long time Badger. He served Badger Nation proudly as a Tucson High's athletic director for many years uh working uh with uh Herman House when Herman House was our district AD. he had the opportunity a few years back uh to go become a um an administrator uh over in Tanker Verde u served as Tankver's athletic director before becoming the Tankervery District's athletic director. And tonight

075we're so excited uh to welcome Mr. Gary Lewis back to the Tucson Unified School District. We're very impressed with his vision, his passion for what extracurriculars can do for kids. And uh to quote him in the in the interview, it's not about winning, it's about character development uh more than anything else. And so tonight, I'm proud to recommend for governing board consideration for our district director for inner scholastics, Mr. Gary Lewis. >> Governing board move item. >> Item moved by Miss Luna Rose and seconded by Miss Extram. Any further comments or discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Item passes 5-0. Mr. Lewis, congratulations. >> Yeah, we'll invite everyone up to the dis for a few comments uh after the appointment and then please stick around. We'll take pictures after we complete all the

076appointments tonight. >> Okay. Uh good evening Dr. Trujill and members of the board. Thank you for having me and thank you for approving me. Um this is a coming home for me. um as a product of TUSD, myself and five of my siblings, we all um went through TUSD. Um if I can only uh impact or have as well as great an impact as some of my former teachers and coaches and administrators have had for me throughout my process and my uh my journey through to TUSD. Um I'll be very happy. Um I'm going to keep this short. I'll just thank you. Um, I'm super excited about the opportunity. Um, you don't know, maybe later later on down the road you'll know that putting me in front of a microphone could be uh could be

077uh something that you don't want to do. But again, I'm passionate about what I do. I'm passionate about my whole life has been uh centered around athletics and branched out from athletics and all the opportunities that were that were afforded me through my um my journey through athletics. So I'm I'm hoping to impart that on um coaches, staff, uh students, parents um to try to impact the culture. Um, if as many of you know, youth sports today are are something it it brings me a lot of heartache some of the stuff that we're witnessing. I'm hoping that we can start changing that. um starting with our elementaryaries and our feeder schools and that when our kids are finished competing in TUSD athletics that they take what they've learned from their commitment, perseverance um and take

078that in any walk of life that they choose. I think they will be successful. Thank you again. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> Welcome, Mr. Willis. >> Next, we have item 8.3 administrative appointments. Principal Cris Middle School, Dr. Dr. Hill. >> Yes. Um board members, uh tonight's recommendation, um distinguished educator out of Chicago public schools, one of the largest school districts in the nation. Uh she proudly serves currently as the assistant principal for Edward Hurley Elementary, big old 750 student elementary school and um been an educator for several years uh including uh serving as a classroom teacher and uh most of her career, if not all of her career in the Chicagoland area. And so tonight, we're proud to welcome and recommend to the governing board uh what we're hoping will be the next principal

079of Serest Middle School, uh Rosa Aristi. >> Thank you, Dr. Tio. Governing board members. >> I'll move the item. I'll second >> item moved by Miss Shaw, seconded by Miss Luna Rose. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Item passes 5-0. Is Miss Oh, there we go. We have her online. Rosa, I welcome Tegu. Is that how you pronounce it? So my joke and I will do this with everyone that's there. Um can if you think about it or if you say it out loud say Aristotle and spaghetti and when you think of that something happens to your brain that then you can say auto steiggy without a problem. >> Autosteggy. All right. >> So thank you. Thank you for the appointment. I look forward to meeting all of you in person. >>

080And welcome to the warm weather. I'm transplanted here from Chicago 12 years 13 years ago and so welcome to the warm weather of Tucson. >> Looking forward to the weather and the trails. >> Yes. All right. All right. Next we have item 8.4 administrative appointments. Principal Gail K6 School. Dr. Djo. >> Yeah. Uh governing board members, tonight's recommendation uh proud principal of uh uh Gail uh seeking to return has a long and successful career in the district as a counselor, as a curriculum service provider. Um has done played a lot of roles for us, served as a principal's design. Um came in as the principal several years ago at Gale and has really engineered an amazing transformation of the school. It's one of the most uh sought-after schools, one of the most uh popular options

081that we have over on the east side. So, I'd like to recommend to the governing board um Kathy Oyo return to the principal ship uh at Gale. >> Thank you, Dr. Dill. Governing board members. >> I'll move the item. >> Second. >> Item moved by Miss Luna Rose and seconded by Miss Shaw. All those in favor say I. I. I. >> Item passes 50. Miss Oyo, congratulations on continuing at Gail. I'm glad to have you. Oh, there she >> Good evening, Dr. Trujillo, President Dr. Robbie Sha, and board members. Um, thank you for the opportunity to continue um serving as principal of my school, my amazing school. Dr. Dr. Trillo hit it on the on the nail that I'm the proud principal of Gail Elementary. This appointment is especially humbling as I was first appointed

082to this position nine years ago. Over time, I have developed a deep understanding of the needs of this incredible learning community and therefore I feel that the important work is still ahead. I am committed to continue this work and I'm honored to do so with my amazing team and our learning community. Thank you again. >> Great. Thank you. >> And last but not least on our principles, we have administrative appointment principal Craig Elementary School. >> Yes. governing board, I'd like to u uh recommend this evening a candidate who uh even before Craig was one of our brightest administrative leaders, continues to be a longtime assistant principal at University High School where she served for four years. Prior to that, she came to us from the South Point community where she was a Spanish language teacher,

083served as a department chair, served as an instructional coach at Borgate Catholic before joining TUSD and UHS. But for the last year, she's been serving as the interim principal uh over at uh Craig and has really uh grown and developed as a leader. And tonight, she is our recommendation to continue and serve in the permanent capacity as its next principal. Janette Arabz Gutierrez is our recommendation. >> Thank you, Dr. Trill. Governing board members, >> Dr. Shaw, >> Miss Lextram, >> I'd like to a motion to approve Janette Abayz Gutierrez as a new principal of Ken. I'll second >> item moved by Miss Extramm, seconded by Miss Luna Rose. All those in favor say I. >> Item passes 5-0. Congratulations, Miss Aayas Gutierrez. >> Good evening everyone. Good evening, President Dr. Sha governing board members, Dr.

084Tujiot community, and Craig Elementary. Over the past few months, I've had the opportunity to witness firsthand what makes Craig special. It's our dedicated staff, our supportive families, and most importantly, our amazing students. Together, we've created a community built on commitment, resilience, and care. And as we move forward, I am committed to continuing that great work already in place while also building new opportunities for growth and for success. So, thank you all for your continued support and for allowing me to serve this incredible school community. I'm excited for what lies ahead. Thank you. >> Great. Congratulations. Is Matthew Duca here? Yes. Okay. Oh, great. Great. So, next we have 8.6 approval to appoint a new member and the renewal of a current trustee to serve on the employees benefits an employee benefits trust for a three-year

085term. Dr. Till. >> Yes. Uh we're very very excited uh for tonight's recommendation. And Matthew Duca uh welcome. uh he is uniquely positioned to serve on the employee benefits trust board and and for those of you that are watching in the public uh they're one of our most important governing boardapp appointed committees. They make very very consequential decisions on behalf of of the almost 8,000 employees that we serve. Um for just a quick recap, TUSD is a self-funded organization for benefits. And really what that means is that we are entirely funded by what's deducted from our employees paychecks and what they opt into in terms of the tier of insurance that they select. And it is a huge responsibility to manage that pool of money. And I think tonight's recommendation, Mr. Duca is uniquely positioned

086uh in his almost 20 years of experience serving as a financial adviser for retirees. He's uniquely positioned uh to understand the needs of a self-funded organization. He his business is medical and dental and life insurance and really advising folks to make the best decisions they can with their retirement. So uh I think he's going to be a great addition uh governing board to this very very important uh committee. So uh tonight's recommendation uh new member is Matthew Duca for your consideration. or we have two items in this agenda item. Are we going to talk about um >> Oh, our second we don't want to forget about our um our continuing trustee. Uh it is custom uh since the inception of the employee benefits trust board um almost 15 20 years ago that the sitting TUSD

087human capital officer, human resources director serve on the employee benefits trust board. So with that, I'd like to recommend the continuation of uh John Fernandez, our chief human capital officer to serve continue to serve as a trustee. >> Thank you, Dr. Tio. Miss Aram, you are a board leazison to employee benefit. Any comments or anything you'd like to add? >> No, everyone is just excited to have this new member on the committee. So, thank you. >> You like to move the item? >> I will move the item. >> I will second. >> All right. Item moved by Miss Astrom, seconded by Miss Luna Rose to approve both the appointment of uh Mr. Duca and the reappoint of uh Mr. Fernandez. All those in favor say I. I. >> Item passes 50. Thank you, Mr. Fernandez,

088for your continued service. And Mr. Duca, thank you for your service on this important committee. I understand you're here on the Zoom to say a few words. >> He's on Zoom. >> Yep. >> He was on Zoom. >> I think he departed. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. He left. >> All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Luca. you are still listening at home. All right. And then um we're going to pause a moment for photos and uh congratulations of all of our appointees tonight. If we can have all of our newly appointed administrators up for a photo, that would be great. >> Sorry about that. I just had a power outage and it shut my computer off. >> All right. Go ahead, Mr. Luca. Hi, I'm sorry. I just literally the power just went out

089for like one second. It shut down my computer. So, um looking forward to working with you guys. >> Thank you for your service. >> Thank you. Anybody else? Here we go. Ready? Three, two, one. This is fair enough. Did I get approved? >> Okay. Like I could not believe that. It just like just went dead. So, >> yes, m Mr. They did approve you and they thanked you for your service. >> Oh, thank you. Okay. >> I'm sorry for your technical difficulties. >> Yeah. Just Well, timing couldn't have been any better, that's for sure. So, >> looks like looks like we're taking a break now. >> Okay. >> Thank you for being here. Two minute break people. Absolutely. with peanut butter. >> Apples and peanut butter. One of my favorite snacks. See if he gets

090points. They take a while. >> Guess he's 80. >> She was What? >> Please. All right, we're going to get started here in just a moment once we get our last board member back in here and we're going to go to the top of our agenda again to our consent calendar and I'll wait for Miss uh Shaw. All right, governing board members, no more breaks of we're going to be taking so much time. Keep them keep the more me keep the board agenda moving here. Dr. Turo, we have our consent agenda tonight. >> Yes. Uh Dr. Shaw, members of the board, I'd like to recommend approval of consent items 6.2 to 6.11 as arranged and presented uh this evening. Governing board member, are there any items that we want some clarifying questions or comments? >>

091Um, Dr. Sha. >> Yes. >> Uh, no questions, but um, for item 6.5, the approval of humanity 360, I know uh, Taya is over Zoom and so I hope we can give her the opportunity to talk briefly about the program. >> Absolutely. >> And thank you, Miss Papak, is it Pac for joining us and we'll give you an opportunity in a little bit to to talk about that program. >> Thank you, Mr. Romero. Anything? All right. I'll move item 6.2 to 6.14. >> So moved. >> I already moved it. You need a second. >> Oh, second. It's >> been a long day already, Miss Lunar Rose. Okay. Item moved by myself and seconded by Miss Lunar Rose. All those in favor say I. >> I. Item passes 50. Thank you everyone. And is it PCO?

092Is it How do you pronounce your name? I'm horrible with names today. >> Yeah, it's POCOK. Thank you. >> Okay, great. I got it right. Excellent. Thank you for joining us. and you have about a minute or two to speak about the program that we just approved tonight. >> Excellent. Thank you so much, President Sha and um dear board members and superintendent Dr. Trujill. I hope I got the addressing right. This is my first time doing this. I am so grateful for your approval this evening. Um I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with four of you um personally and I believe um I received some endorsement through Moses Thompson with the school garden workshop and basically my background is um as a cultural anthropologist. I was trained here in Tucson at the University of

093Arizona. I had the great fortune of traveling to 50 countries throughout my life and also growing up in Germany. So on a different continent with a different cultural perspective and really the purpose of humanity 360 is to provide perspective by um talking about issues that pertain to our common humanity through the lens of different individuals and organizations around the world. So my hope there is to really learn from um other people around the world and how um socioeconomic issues or in general issues that pertain to our humanity are tackled. Um the curriculum is secular. Um it really focuses on diverse perspectives and my whole goal is to create a sense of resilience um and greater compassion within young within our students and hopefully align the curriculum as best as we can to VC Mthy's triad

094of fulfillment. So an increased focus on relationships, purpose and service in combating the epidemic of loneliness that he addressed. um Vivec Mirththy being the US surgeon general, the former US surgeon general. And so as a part of the curriculum, it's not only learning about the lives of others around the world, but also finding access to becoming engaged in our community. May that be through um volunteerism at local nonprofits and just more awareness on these topics. So, thank you so much. I greatly appreciate the approval and I'm available for any further questions. Well, thank you for supporting our students in this uh amazing endeavor and I I think it'll make a big difference. So, thank you for being here tonight to talk about the program. >> Thank you. >> All right, we're going to move on

095to item 7.1 public hearing for re revised performancebased compensation plan Prop 301 for the school year 2526. >> Yes, President Shaw, members of the board, um proud to welcome in his debut as our uh director for employee relations, Mr. Freed, Jason Freed joining us along with our president for tea, Jim Burn, and handling some of the financials. Are >> you going to public hearing first or the presentation or how does this work? >> These are all three that will be involved with the public hearing. The presentation goes first and then there is public hearing. Correct. >> Right. >> So we we open with presentation, right, Yolanda? And then we open it up. Okay. And then assisting with financials as necessary is our chief uh financial officer, Mr. Hernandez. Mr. Freed. Thank you. Good evening, board

096members, uh, president, superintendent, general counsel. Um, Jason Frerieded. I am your new employee relations director here with the TEA president. Um, we have the PowerPoint um largely, no, not largely, it's the same plan um, as it's been approved through the 301 committee as well as through um, the teachers within TUSD reaching the 70% threshold. So, I'm not sure if you would like me to continue through the plan as it looks similar to last year's plan or if you would like to move to the um >> go ahead and go through the plan just briefly. I know there's only a few slides in this presentation. >> Absolutely. Yes, it is. >> Thank you for the brevity. >> Absolutely. >> Okay. So, you can see the 301 committee u spans uh TSD as well as um a

097number of of leaders within the district. This is the same formula that we've been using for a number of years um to create uh to create the payouts as it as uh and so you can see the balance. One of the pieces that we'll talk about is making sure that as much of the dollars are getting into the hands of our teachers. Uh and so you see the calculation any remaining funds then gets um divvied out later in the process as well. So you see the breakdown of the two/3s and the one-/3 um based uh on those uh those payments coming up if there's any questions. Do you want those questions at the end or >> whatever you prefer, Mr. Freedom? >> I will take questions as they come if anybody has any questions. >>

098Perfect. Next slide, please. >> Thank you. Um and this is how uh teachers are rated as a combination as you all know. And so um there's a payment that that has been negotiated in concert with um the level that the teacher attains distinguish effective developing and ineffective questions. >> Okay. TEA president said it's good question please. Yes. If a well if staff alleged that an evaluation didn't happen in the correct uh manner as prescribed in the consensus agreement. Um can you talk about what are the remedies for that? >> Yeah absolutely last year or currently. >> Yeah for the new one. >> Yeah we've done it a bunch of times and there's it's not a common uh situation that somebody has said that a evaluation hasn't happened appropriately. There has been um lots of times

099that somebody feels that they maybe their score was inaccurate. And so what we have encouraged is first having a conversation at the site level, working with your evaluator. If that for some reason is not working out well, there's a couple of different avenues. There's conversation working with employee relations, conversation working with the union, in this case TEA. Um and then there there could be conversation working with the assistant superintendent for that region. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um and so then you'll see actually staff has this has already been communicated through the employee relations office that people were going to be receiving their 301 uh payment. And so uh evaluators have turned in making verifying the hours that the teachers worked. Um it was six PLC's that they needed to attain. and um the

100the employee relations office has gone through the process of double-checking, verifying those and um started the first payment. Questions? >> Dr. Go ahead. >> Thank you. Um and so if if a employee is in the process of filing a grievance about the evaluation and it's you know they're in the process and it's past the March date like can money like can the evaluation be redone and can that money be paid out at a later date? >> The short answer is yes. Um the evaluation piece is a little bit it's a little bit trickier. Um because that means that truly that site admin missed a number of deadlines. Um I mean the evaluation should have been done in December and then they finish some of the other pieces later on but that should have been done.

101It should not be an issue. What we're in employee relations, what we're being confronted with has not been anybody um about their evaluation. That hasn't been something that's come through our office. There have been some people who have said they didn't meet the PLC requirement of six having six PLC's and we've worked with those individuals as to find some other ways um giving an extension to see okay is there some other ways that you could you know can you could get to those six PLC's >> thank you'll see the ratification vote um again the the threshold is 70% we exceeded that threshold um relatively quickly you'll the um really the the only reason that it's at 76% is just the number of people who did not respond. But if you look at the number of

102people who voted um it's a vast majority that voted in favor questions. All right. Oh, go ahead. Miss Len Rose. >> Thank you, Mr. Freed. Um, as you know, we've been sitting up here for the last couple years and I understand what 301 is, but for the audience member or the parent who may not know 301, can you briefly explain what that means? >> Yeah, you might have chosen the best person in the room to explain because I was part of the uh group of people with uh with a number of unions throughout the state that was moving what became Prop 301 signatures and so on. It it's essentially it's a tax to make sure that we're paying um staff in Arizona, specifically teachers and people who are um who have class rosters, right? Um

103to to try to increase salaries. Um it w it it existed for 20 years. So it started in 2000 2020 was when there was conversation about we need to reup this. What are we going to do? The state legislature decided that they were going to carry it forward. And so it's no longer really Prop 301. Um that's just kind of a the affectionate name that it's been given in most districts including TUSD. Uh and so right now it's housed at the state legislature. Um which is good and bad. It's good in that it does not have to come to the voters for approval. Um the challenge is that that it also gives the state legislature the ability to make changes to how that funding is given out which puts us in a precarious position as

104a as a school district. Thank you for the explanation. >> Thank you. >> All right. I don't see any further questions. Um Jim, do you have anything to add to the discussion here tonight? >> Uh this move quickly. I appreciate uh the staff members of the employee relations office chasing this one um to right after we completed a pretty busy fall semester with uh override and completing negotiations. Um, so everybody worked quickly and we're on the same page on on the plan as it was last year and just make sure that uh we got the accurate numbers from for Mr. Hernandez um and that they were going to look similar. So we stuck with that same amount. Um to continue on Miss Shaw's question in terms of like there there's an appeals process as well

105in terms of like if you don't if you feel like you've got more artifacts to share more documentation to show that your scores uh should be better in certain categories on your evaluation. Uh there is a team that gets together from the district and the union to review those things. U especially if somebody's on the cusp of getting to that next level to be able to to move from um into that distinguished category and then you can get some more money and things like that. So um that's that's also outlined in consensus that people know that stuff uh to avail themselves if necessary. >> Right. >> Thank you everyone. And now do we go to the public hearing? >> Okay. The governing board is now holding a public hearing on the 202526 performance-based compensation plan.

106Members of the public may speak during the performance-based compensation plan public hearing portion of the agenda. The board president shall be responsible for recognizing speakers and for maintaining proper order by setting such limitations as may be appropriate. Speakers during the public hearing should restrict their remarks to topics related to the performance-based compensation plan. Speakers are encouraged to be brief with a maximum time limit of 3 minutes. Individuals speaking before the board shall observe rules of propriety and good conduct and refrain from impertinent or slanderous remarks. Do we have any comments to be read or comments in person? No, we didn't receive any comments. >> All right, Kayla. Thank you. All right. Uh, and now I understand we go to agenda item which is on the action item 8.1. Review, approve, and adopt the revised performance-based

107compensation plan, Prop 301 for the school year 2526. Dr. Tri, any further comments or anything before we turn it back to the board? >> I just want to thank all of the members of the committee. We had high school teachers, principals, ELI representatives, our partners there at TEA. It's it's a good investment in work and time. So, I want to thank them for their service and fully support the team's recommendations. >> And thank the 2580 teachers who are serving our students and we'll uh hopefully be able to make use of this funds soon. Governing board members. Any further comments, questions, feedback? All right. I'll move the item. I'll second >> item moved by myself and second by Miss Luna Rose. All those in favor say I. >> I. Item passes 5-0. Thank you for all

108the great work everyone. >> Thank you. >> All right, we're going to move to item SE 8.7 approval of the budget reductions for the 2627 fiscal year. Dr. Trillo, >> President Sha, members of the governing board. Um, as noted at our last governing board meeting, uh, we wanted to make a commitment to secure, well, a couple of commitments. First and foremost, uh, we wanted to, uh, execute board direction to stay out of schools and to stay out of school facing, classroom facing positions uh, with our budget reduction goals this year. Secondly, we wanted to make sure that our recommendations were public and that the public would have an opportunity to look at all of our different budget reduction recommendations. And lastly, we also wanted to make sure that we added significantly more detail in terms

109of the nature of each uh budget reduction uh proposal and its specific impact that it would have on schools. Uh so over the last uh 3 weeks uh members of the public have had an opportunity to weigh in. I also know that in my conversations with all of you uh that transportation is weighing heavily as we certainly are looking at a significant investment in budget reductions with some vacant bus driving and monitor positions. So, I've prepared our transportation leadership team uh to uh present to you this evening the data uh that justifies letting go of these vacant positions based off of current writership numbers. So, built in uh will be Martha Samoa, our director for transportation. When we get to um some of those uh proposals, we'll make sure we'll give director Sam an opportunity

110uh to share her information with the board. With that, taking us through the bulk of the presentation will be our chief financial officer, Mr. Adam, on this. >> Good evening, board members. Um, I apologize. I will not be as brief as Mr. Freed. So, I just want to let everybody know that now. But before I get started, I do want to thank um department leadership for uh working diligently through this process. It's I know it's been difficult for our departments um and our leadership to to really sit down and try to figure out where we need to make the decisions to craft a plan that enables us to have some future sustainability. Um more importantly, I want to thank the 950 individuals who provided us feedback over those 12 days. Um there was a lot

111of great information. Um, we provided you and the public a copy of all 83 pages of uh of survey responses and the takeaways that are helpful not just for tonight but for the future. Um, and a special s shout out to the 60 plus students who actually answered the survey as well. Um, so we did have some student responses in the middle of spring break. So kudos to them for uh giving us some feedback. So this is you know what the board has already directed us to do. So, these are the actions that have previously been undertaken and approved by the board that are going to yield over $2.4 million in savings for next school year. Uh, this certainly uh meets the challenge for our stakeholder feedback. It provides long-term sustainability and not one-time or

112low impact solutions going forward. Um, so about $2.4 million in the pocket at this point. Now the next part is is addressing that structural deficit um through central departmental cuts. So departments were tasked with reducing $4.7 million in reductions and they've provided recommendations of about 4.4 million. So about 93% of everything um that we asked them to do. Some of these recommendations included eliminating positions where 70% of these are currently vacant and 30% of them have current individuals in them that will either be separating or not. Um some of these positions are held by leased employees as well. So not everybody on here is a permanent employee. Um and these reductions at this point have been incorporated in the initial process of budgeting for our departments. Now, the board uh asked us uh to provide

113uh to request stakeholder feedback. Um and the communications department supported finance in putting out this survey on a on our website for 12 days. You can see screenshots from our homepage, our parent square, and our TUSD social media, our finance social media. Um like I mentioned at the beginning, we had 950 responses. Um mostly coming from staff. um the next biggest chunk coming from our families and obviously a significant portion even if it's small from our students. Um but all told within these you know they reflect something that we've heard and not surprising. Um they want us to protect student facing services. They want us to start with central reductions. They want the process to ensure fairness and transparency. And they want us to focus on efficiency before focusing on cuts. So they want us

114to do better at doing the business of doing our business. So question number one really focused on what stakeholders noticed the most. So this really showed us you know what for them is most impacted to least impacted. When you kind of take a look at it that red dot for the for stakeholders are the most protected areas fine arts counseling xed and school safety. Um the takeaway for them is simple impact is defined by what students experience on a daily basis. And obviously all of these four really do go to the heart of our student experience at every one of our schools. Now this again focuses on the feedback um the feedback aligns with the prioritization and the decisions that have been made by department leaders. Um but one thing to note as you kind

115of go down the line and you know from the most protected to high to moderate impact is that this really shows what people see and feel. Um so this is really a perceptiondriven data set more than a systems efficiency data set right this is the focus on what my experiences whether as a student or as a family member or as a staff member. The next question we we wanted to know you know how stakeholders want to reduce you know what yes >> we have a board member question so yeah we'll stop you for a moment before you continue on for question one. Um, so I see that it was done for 12 days. Whose idea was it to do it during spring break? >> It was my idea. >> Okay. Um, I mean I think

116that's great. I don't think a lot of people were paying attention during spring break. >> So the only problem the only problem I will say is that the request for feedback came on March 10th. Um, in order for us to arrive to today, we we opened it as long as possible. um a 950 person response generally is about the average that we receive. Actually, it's probably greater than some of the surveys we receive even for policies. But I understand we we debated that as well, but we wanted to make sure that we got here to tonight. So, we focused on, you know, what stakeholders want to reduce um and overall their preferredo approach was streamline and reduce staff versus cutting services. When we asked how we should do that, people want leaner structures, but they

117don't want us to lose focus on the work that we have to do. Not surprising, people uh also identified central functions as the most acceptable areas of reductions. These are central areas that are critical, but stakeholders want us to weave our reductions carefully in the services we provide from schools to schools from central departments like technology services. So even though we're affecting areas that might be centralbased, it's really focusing on what are those centrally based positions and services that were affecting that potentially have a trickle down effect to the site level. Ultimately the takeaway is simple. Cut the system before cutting services. And that's frankly how we structured our plan. Um more than anything one of one of the points that I want to point out in this key insight is that you know obviously

118the evidence shows that this is very binary thinking. um the school-based studentf facing approach versus a lower value centralized administrative that even if it is a critical position. Uh the perception is unfortunately that overall these p that these positions are somewhat undervalued. As we kind of went through the responses, people had a focus on getting rid of people more than anything if they lived in a department. Um so again, not surprising. This is something that we've consistently heard. Um now what are they most concerned about? So the question tells us you know what will determine whether this plan is exe is acceptable or is resistant. Um people want not to talk just about cuts um but they want to talk about trust. They want to talk about fairness and they want to talk about student

119impact. The key takeaway is that acceptance depends more on how we implement than the plan itself. So they really want us to provide them the process. uh people also want to know more about transparency in our reduction process. So one thing for the board to consider is what kind of routine financial information do you want us to provide to you and the public moving forward so that we can build on this demand for transparency in addition to the tools that we already have in place and finally what stakeholders expect from us. The qu so the question provided them the ability to tell us not just you know what they expect um but what they think and the message was clear be efficient be transparent and protect students. People are not hesitant to change throughout this.

120We noticed that. But they want change to be smarter and strategic. They also want us to focus on long-term system redesigns versus just one-time fixes or even low impact ones. So as the board makes decisions, the shared accountability and transparency components will become more important as we move forward. So now that we've had that feedback, we'll talk about what alignment looks like based on our current plan. So the slide, this slide affirms what we've been doing and what we've heard from our stakeholders and how we will shape our future decisions. On the left is what stakeholders told us and this is what we heard. It's short. In short, stakeholders asked us to protect students and improve systems. On the right is how we've responded or what we've already done. We've prioritized central office reductions. We've

121preserved classroom and student supports and we focused on eliminating duplications and creating efficiencies. So, it's not a co coincidence that this is set up this way. It's really truly alignment. So, while stakeholder input guided our prioritization, there's still operational realities that we have to still consider around our long-term sustainability. So at its core, the plan exactly uh is exactly what our stakeholders ask are asking us to do to protect kids to protect prioritize efficiency and ensure fairness in how we implement our plan. This like quantifies something very important, how closely our plan actually aligns with those priorities. So if you look the first three categories are 94% of our overall reductions. They wanted more efficiency. They wanted us to focus on central reductions. They want us to to take a look at roles and services

122that are not school-f facing. So 94% of what is being proposed focuses on those three tenants alone. So these so the administration's reduction plan is not just grounded in stakeholder input, but it gives us the confidence that we are trying to make the least disruptive decisions while helping to achieve our financial goals. One comment asks us to provide a reduction using those functional categories that the auditor general puts together when developing classroom spending. So more importantly, it shows that we prioritized classroom instruction and support to our students. 75% of the reductions occur outside of direct classroom instruction while only 4% actually focus on direct classroom instruction. This is specifically notable in the exceptional education department though their reductions are through least employee reductions and not permanent employees. The largest areas that are impacted are certainly

123transportation and our plan operations but these represent operational efficiencies and not elimination of actual services. So while the categories appear operational the strategy is intentional to protect instruction first and then optimize the systems around it. Now, we know that not every decision aligns perfectly with the perceptions that we have in the community, but our proposals have to engage a delicate balance of both those priorities and our operational reality. Central departments targeted a 9% reduction, but we recognized that most of these studentfacing or school focused positions and departments had a more narrow target of 3% because of their specific focus. We also looked at operational efficiencies by protecting by focusing in at transportation in facilities without trying to impact direct school and student support. Now transportation as Miss Amura will talk about later focused on those

124efficiencies based on route adjustments and student writership not the elimination of access. Facilities was also targeted with efficiency while maintaining a safe and functional learning environment across the district. So the focus was to minimize those disruptions while achieving savings. However, the reality is that what we what we're going to require is more patience from our end users. In financial services and human resources, for example, payment processing will slow. Hiring will take longer. So we need to focus on doing it better together. The goal was not just to reduce, but to reduce responsibly. So the recommendation for action for you tonight is we're asking for approval for the proposals from our departments as presented. Now that we've completed school level budgeting though and based on our declining enrollment, you can see that there will be attrition

125in teacher positions. So the February our goal is $10 million. In February, you approved $2.4 million. If our proposal tonight, if approved, will generate about another 4.4 million based on the loss of enrollment that we had on the 100th day. And now that we've completed school level budgeting, we're estimating attrition, that's the elimination of essentially unnecessary vacant teacher positions of just about 2.5 million. All told, we will basically have achieved our goal. Um there'll be about $720,000 left that we can make up in future attrition and vacancy savings. But based on these three elements alone, we will have essentially achieved our $10 million target. However, when accounting for what the board has approved and the potential for 10 or or let me just start over. So not just only accounting for what the board has

126approved, but this attrition that attrition number will fluctuate. So, we just need to be mindful that although we have that 2.5 million, we still have another five months of enrollment coming through in the district. So, be mindful that that 2.5 million is as an estimate as of March 16th, which is when we completed school level budgeting. So, all while aligning everything that we've done with the community feedback, protecting our students, ensuring our financial responsibility, we're a little bit closer towards achieving our $27 million goal. And with that, I will take any questions. I would like to give transportation an opportunity just because I know that's the biggest thing you're voting on. And kind of in our conversations, there was some requests to hear from uh transportation in terms of the data that they're using to

127determine um the necessity of keeping the positions, both monitors and drivers that have been vacant all year. Um the necessity of of keeping them on the books. So, I'd like to introduce our director for transportation, uh Martha Samura. And I've also asked um uh director Samota to be prepared to give an update on route availability at district high schools. Uh TUSD transportation goes in and out of TUSD high schools specifically for PBLO High School and for Catalina. So that's also will be built in here. >> Thank you. Good evening governing board members, governing board president. Um let's see. Um so after reviewing um our FTEEs for drivers um we've listed that we were going to go ahead and reduce by 15 FTEEs for the drivers, 10 for the monitors and for this school year we

128have 171 FTEES. Reducing 15 for drivers drops us down to 156. Um many of our drivers are only 75 FT, so they only work about six hours a day. So when you do the math, 156 FTEES allows us to hire about 180 drivers. As of today, we have 166. The most we've been able to get this school year has been 173. So reducing the 15 is not impacting the current driver capacity that we have today. And we still have enough capacity to 180. So I wasn't necessarily concerned about that one. And then for monitors, we're reducing 10. That drops us from 107 FTEEs today to 97. Um same same thing for monitors. Their schedule tends to be about six hours a day. Um so uh 97 FTE gives us capacity for about 113. Um one

129of the things that we have been working on is route utilization. So now that we're able to collect students scanning their IDs on a daily basis, we were able to go back and review on a daily basis how many students are actually um riding our buses. Um and one of the things that we noticed is this school year as we created quite a bit of open enroll routes, they're not being utilized. Um we could see that we created a route and maybe you have one or two stops that are being utilized but not the rest of it. So, one of the things that we're working on is incorporating those particular stops into current routes. Whether it be one of the neighborhood routes that steps outside of their neighborhood and picks up an open enrollment stop,

130um maybe creating an exit route that allows has the time to pick up another open enroll. So, in being able to incorporate those, it allows us to reduce the number of routes and therefore being able to cover. Um this year we contracted out quite a bit of um exit students McKini Vento to make the uh to have the availability for the open enroll routes. So now we're starting to bring some of those back and incorporate them so that for next year we'll be there. Um this was bus utilization. So essentially today we have 158 routes on the road, 158 buses. Like I mentioned today I have 166 drivers. um we tend to have anywhere between 10 15% absence on a daily basis. So today with 166 I don't have enough drivers to cover absences. So

131our goal is to get back to like 170 175 to be able to cover this. But what I wanted to be able to show you here is that um when you look at the AM there for example, you have 18 drivers today that have one tier in the morning. They're able to do one route for one school and nothing before it or after. Then you have 107 drivers that are doing two tiers in the morning. They're picking up for school A and then picking up for school B. Same thing for the afternoon. And I wanted to show you that for like the efficiency of it. So like our goal would be to have every single one of our drivers have three routes in the morning, three routes in the afternoon, but we are unable to

132do that because of the way our bow schedules are are are done across the district. So, if we were ever looking at trying to fully utilize the staff that we have today, that would be another way that we can do make minor adjustments to bell schedules to be able to have more drivers have more routes, more coverage with the same number of drivers. And let me just give you the percentage that's at the very top there. Um, and that's my short presentation. Oh, I'm sorry. And I wanted to give you an update. So, as far as the high school routes, I know we've had some um uh I guess community concerns about us not having routes and only Sunrron availability in areas. I did review all of our schools and they all have routes available.

133So, I think it might be um misinterpretation that or or maybe if they call um customer service, we can go ahead and look at individual cases. Um, and we also have a few routes that have availability to increase another stop here and there, but for sure PBLO and Catalina have routes available. Every single one of our high schools had has at has at least four routes that go into their schools, whether it be the open enroll routes, the neighborhood routes, or exed and any of those if need be could make an additional stop to help in those scenarios that are concerns. >> Thank you, Mr. Mora. governing board members. Nisha, >> yes. >> Thank you for your presentation. Um, regarding those uh schools that you mentioned, the high schools, um, I wonder if we can

134put out some communication to those families just to notify them that routes do um, exist for that school and if they're interested in having their student take the bus uh, to reach out to transportation or whoever. >> Absolutely. I did reach out to the administration at two at PBLO High School in Catalina. Spoke to their principles and I made them aware that we had this available and if they let give us the name of the students that have come forward, we'll go ahead and help them. We can definitely put something out there. I will reach out to those schools and ask them to put something on their newsletter. >> Yeah. Or like a mass text or mass email or both. Um >> Perfect. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Mr. Romero. on those

135routes to PBLO and Catalina because I know you can document based on how many people use their card. Do we know how many students are using at PBLO and Catalina? >> Um, I can go back and review those. Um, and so that's basically what we have been doing as we review the routes. If we see that we have a route, let's say with five stops and two stops are being utilized and not the other three, that's where we're gaining capacity and then we'll go ahead and put stops in the areas that are needed. you figured today our open enroll routes were placed in areas with higher density of open enroll students. It didn't necessarily mean that um that was going to be the best fit for the school. Sometimes you have quite a bit of

136students and in open enrolled areas. So we'll put a stop offer the families they'll accept transportation and they never ride. So as we adjust I think we'll get to a happy medium that serves the community that needs it. >> Thank you. All right, thank you for your presentation tonight. >> Governing board members. So, Dr. Tree, are we heading back to governing board members for comments on the >> Yes, back to comments. As we wrap transportation, Martha gave like a a a screenshot of probably one of the most valuable tools that we have. I want to thank uh uh Robbie Hamadi and his IT team a few years ago. They put together a route util a route utilization analysis dashboard. We actually can see in real time by the route what the average wrership is. And

137just on the slide that you saw, you pretty much see what's driven the decision here. You have a lot of routes that are in the 30s. You have a lot of routes that are in the 20s and your buses hold like 50 60 students, right? So that's for we wanted you to see a snapshot of the data that we used to determine that yes, we do have the attrition necessary uh in terms of the 15 vacant driver positions that you're going to be asked to vote on. That's a real-time dashboard that's refreshed daily. >> So I I'll just quick comment on that. You know, about a year and a half ago, early on into the previous school year, I did a tour in the morning with uh with transportation and thank you Mr. Mora for

138in uh helping arrange that. I did a tour on a bus uh and went to some uh different stops and two schools that morning. There were zero students on that bus all morning long. There was a bus driver to monitor. So definitely a lot of efficiencies uh available in the system to make sure that our buses are are full at least have one if not 50 kids on them. >> Dr. Sha, >> go ahead. Mich, >> I wonder if we reach out to these families who have elected to uh take transportation or take the bus, excuse me. um but then don't show up. Like are we calling those families and being like, "Hey, you signed up, you're not showing up." Like, are you still interested so that we won't have uh the buses go to

139those stops? >> So, I've tried different strategies over the years. At this point, what I do is that we let them know that the stop has been removed and if in the future they need transportation to call us back. What happens quite a bit is that the families will say yes we need transportation >> just in case just in case maybe on the one time that I can't make it to pick up my student and that happens quite a bit and sometimes in the past we used to call and make sure that we would talk to the family the stop is not going to be there next week and they would tell us no no no I really want it I need it so then the following week the student would definitely would show up

140you would go another two three weeks and the student would not be there it was just to put a placeholder so the the strategy today is that we let you know the stop has been removed. Let us know if you need it in the future and then it takes, you know, anywhere about a week or so for it to be reinstated. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, governing board members, we have another, this wasn't in the presentation. I give another presentation, Ricky. I don't think I'm ever seeing one in here, but we have the document in our uh governing board uh agenda item here outlining the department level cuts and then item by item for a couple of pages of how we're getting to the 4 >> 4.6 >> well 4.4 get to four >>

141million dollar >> reductions. What comments, feedbacks, questions do we have? Governing board Miss Shaw. >> Um, Miss Fox at the call to the audience often uh brings up the fact that we spend more on uh watering the grass than we do on library books. And we do spend a significant amount of money on reclaimed water for our fields and also portable water. Um I know the reclaimed water is cheaper, right? But um not every school can have like has that pipeline. And so has the district done any analysis to save money uh via our utility payments not only with water um but with uh electricity. um with the 14% increase from TE coming I think next year like you know that's going to be a significant cost and so you know a lot of our

142schools have windows and perhaps don't need to turn on the lights but is there anyone doing analysis I know we're with like the green policy some of that stuff may be already taking place but is there a move to save with utilities >> that that's I mean that is one of the items in um the investment great audit that the bond program is doing, right? They're looking at how you can invest in infrastructure that reduces our reliance or our cost on electricity and water usage, right? So, trying to mitigate some of those things and we have accomplished some of those goals. You know, we've HVAC obviously the big the number one, you know, electricity sucker in this district is air conditioning, right? And just the mere fact that we're actually getting now to a place

143where we can upgrade systems that are more efficient and more energy efficient gives us the ability to spend less on electricity. The problem is is that our savings aren't quick aren't aren't growing fast enough because the rate increases are going fast are growing up faster, right? So a a 14% increase on T when we're trying to save money, I mean is going to eat into our savings probably pretty quickly. Tucson Water, for example, is just this the city council is just starting their process for I believe a three or fouryear multi-year increase on water rates. And as I've mentioned publicly before, school districts pay the same commercial rates that you know Caterpillar play pays and all of these major companies, corporations in Tucson plays. So I I mean I can't specifically tell you what those

144are but I can tell you that the work is being done in order to focus on where can we increase our reliance on efficiency both through water usage. I mean one of the biggest things is we're replacing all of those football fields. Now there is some water usage in that case but we're not necessarily having to set up entire irrigation systems like we had to in the past with natural turf as we do with artificial turf. So, a lot of that work is going to depend on capital infrastructure and capital investment, namely through the bond program, especially since they're really going to make some of the biggest impacts. >> And interested also like was it one or two meetings ago, we approved that in the action or study action item for us to do that

145analysis and come to some information. We also had that presentation by um our consultant for the uh sustainability who talked about electricity being one of the biggest u climate issues but also a cost issue as well. So hopefully we'll get some recommendations on how to address some of that as well from the consultant. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Well, I guess another question if I may, Dr. Shaw, if can you talk to the um furniture and equipment um number and how it's uh drastically uh increased from the last year? >> Sure. Um so just as a sidebar, if you're not following the TUSD finance Facebook, there's a whole video about it just today. Uh 13 minutes going item by item. Um but to provide you just a quick overview. So, yes, the budget

146book did include an $87 million budget for what's called furniture and equipment. Now, that category of furniture and equipment is misleading because that's the name of the title that we have to use from the chart of accounts from the auditor general, but it's an all-encompassing object code. So, it's not just buying desks and chairs. It's literally buying equipment. the equipment facilities uses. For example, everything from lawnmowers and saws, you know, everything from desks, musical instruments are considered furniture and equipment. So, there's a whole variety of items that fit into that. But the one thing to consider is that when you take a look at this, and this is a memo I sent to you on on March 13th, 71 million of that 87 million is furniture equipment purchases in the bond program. HVAC purchases, they're

147furniture and equipment, you know. So, I mean, and those those suckers ain't cheap, right? You know, we're spending north of half a million dollars on each one of those units, and we've put them up everywhere. So, there are that budget was 87 million. I also provided you with what was it on March 13th. So, there's a revised budget. It's now gone down to 11 million. And you can see that those purchases are scattered all over the district. schools, food services, transportation, facilities, and what have you. So even though it's budgeted at 87 million, the vast majority of that is bonding. The next biggest category is engineering, right? The Damon Baytos' department, they do building renewal grants. So they're buying, you know, heat pumps and coolers and chillers and gates and doors. All of that is

148furniture and equipment. So to lead the public and the board to believe that we're spending $87 million on furniture is unfortunately a myth. Right? We are spending 87 we didn't we actually aren't even spending $87 million under the category of furniture and equipment. As of the middle of March we've only spent $3.3 million within that specific category. Right? Because as now we're nine months into the school year. We've moved dollars around. So, if the bond program identified so many millions of dollars for furniture and equipment, but now they're going to do it for construction services, you just approved the construction of classrooms at Ringcon and at Davis, then those dollars are moving away from that. And we do budget adjustments and we can provide you a whole listing of how those adjustments work. So, I

149welcome people to look at those. We certainly will continue to provide, you know, my goal is to provide more and more information through some of this through our social media. Um, follow TUSD Finance. Um, if you want to watch that video, it's a great time to watch it if you want to go to sleep. You know, it's like right at bedtime. >> 13 minutes. >> It's 13 minutes. Dr. Shaw, you might want to read it to your kids. I mean, come on. So, but it's it, you know, we want to be able to to dispel some of these, you know, these questions and these issues. It's a it's a legitimate question, right? That $87 million is in that budget book, but we want to describe what it is. Um, and the most important part, even

150if it were $87 million, those are capital, bonds, and building renewal grants. All dollars we can't use to pay anybody. It's only to buy stuff. So, the dollars themselves are restricted on what we can do right now. >> Well, I appreciate you clarifying and I'm sure um it's probably um irritating to have to keep repeating this, but you know, because we do have uh folks that come out and then people who don't savor the entire meeting might walk away thinking that we are indeed spending that much money on furniture. I think it's important to reiterate and then for us to >> also internalize so that we can speak to that issue. um during that agenda item. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome, Mr. Romero. >> Yes. And um on that report of the

151950 people that did respond, um first of all, I wanted to say thank you to our community for doing that. And even if it was in that spring break period, again, like I said, time was of the essence of that. For as many of those people that did do that, I was actually fairly impressed myself. Um, I didn't go through every single one, but I did spend a good probably close to an hour going through a lot of those. Um, you know, and community members, whether it be mostly staff like you'd mentioned, um, and some families, uh, one of the things that I thought was, um, important that they felt that they had that opportunity to give feedback. And I think in that, like you said, we've got the huge 94% of kind of which

152is connecting with what we're wanting to do. Also in that, what I learned um kind of what we kind of discuss is like to go to the budget advisory committee when we start talking about consolidation schools and school closures because there was a lot of that on on that uh as well. And I don't know what uh where that is on the schedule as far as um the budget advisory to talk have that discussion and bring it back to the board. But I think based on a lot of what the feedback that I saw on that I think there is people want us to be financially responsible. they understand what we're up against and and that's what I noticed and like I said for that many people to take the time to do that. Um

153it it it is encouraging to me. So that just like I said one of the things is what of those other things that were mentioned how we can continue to look at those also. I >> I will tell you we got 200 responses within the first 24 hours. >> So people are paying people were paying attention. Um, we put it on social media on Parent Square multiple times. It was mobile enabled, you know, so we did our darnest to get it out there and we were just like you very impressed that we had we were 50 shy away from that thousand mark. But, you know, um, but yeah, 950 um 51% of those are staff, but the next biggest chunk are our families, right? Parents out there, grandparents, what have you. Um, and again, most

154impressively, 65 students. So they paid attention during that spring break. >> Thank you for doing >> I'll move the item tonight. >> I will second but I would I have a comment. >> Go ahead, Miss Lero. >> I just wanted to say thank you, Mr. Hernandez. I know this has been quite an undertaking and this is not something that people want to do. you know, I I' I've been um fighting about it, you know, but I know that these are the things that we've done and we were tasked to make the hard decisions up here on the dis. So, um I appreciate you and your staff. I know your staff has been working a lot really hard as well. Um, I I just know that it's not easy and so we're not walking away with

155this going, "Okay, we're, you know, it's it's one of many steps we have to do." So, I just wanted to thank your staff for for their work and sorry that they had to do a 13-minute video. >> Miss Kayla, can we have a roll call, please? Roll call on this one. All right. Miss Extramm, >> yes. >> Miss Luna Rose, >> yes. >> Mr. Romero, >> yes. >> Miss Shaw, >> yes. >> Dr. Robbie, >> yes. Item passes 5-0. I want to say a couple of comments before we move off of this topic. Uh, first of all, as you mentioned, uh, we're the next item is going to be about our bond, and we'd be very clear. A lot of this, the bond can't be used for salaries and staff. It was very clear legally

156what we can and can't use the bond for. I've asked Dr. Tio over the next couple of meetings to highlight the override because while we're making cuts on one side of the ledger, we will be making some really important uh expansions of programs and services for our students, staff, and family. And I'm really excited about what we're able to do thanks to the community voting in favor of our override a few months ago. And so I've asked Dr. Vio to put on the agenda some information items for us to understand what we can expect uh as we expand uh physical education programs, art and music programs, counseling services uh and more throughout our district thanks to the override money coming in place on addition to the 4% uh four-step raise we're able to give uh

157all of our staff. And one last comment uh Dr. Trillo, this feedback is to you. when I when I drove here this afternoon uh for this meeting uh this item was on the NPR uh Arizona piece uh after the main news story uh and so you know the public is looking uh the news is looking at this uh and they focused on our your comments about enrollment being the main issue. I think we need to definitely talk about enrollment and how this is affecting things, but we can't let our state state legislators off the hook. When inflation was increasing 8% a year and our budget was only going up 1 or 2%. The state is cutting our budget and that's a big piece of why we are where we are. Yes, enrollment is a big

158issue. We are losing students and that affects our budget, but the state is not is is cutting our budget as well and they are not taking care of our public education. And so we need to call out our state legislature as a big factor for why we're in this position we are tonight. >> Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. We'll move on to our next agenda item. 8.8's approval to procure goods and services for Q3 and Q4 of this fiscal year. Bond priority projects. Dr. Trillo. >> Yes. Dr. Carter, our bond program manager here with a new uh a fresh slate of uh projects recommended from bond oversight committee. We'll turn over to you. Good evening to the governing board president Dr. uh Sha and governing board members. I'm here with some additional projects for

159the bond. And I just also want to just thank you for all your support. We have now hit the $100 million mark of total spend of bond dollars, which is pretty incredible in 23 months. So, thank you. I am here today to present the approval to procure goods and services for quarter three and four. The bond oversight committee approved the project request and determine priorities for implementation. The upcoming priority bond projects include include the purchase of Safford K8 the purchase of Safford K8 summer summer renovations, the sun shade for renovations, the sun shade for playgrounds, Santaorita High School summer renovations, which is actually the campus weatherization. Uh the next security gates and fencing, as you guys remember, we had 32. We're wanting to do the next 21. We have active board panels and staff devices.

160The upcoming priority bond projects This will require procurement of goods and services which will need to be done in a timely manner to keep within the time frames established by the bond department. Vendor quotes are currently being collected to begin work and place these orders. Up on the screen you have the pro proposed project list. We have for Safford the sun shade for the playground and kind of how the these were determined for the upgrades. As you guys know that we're doing the domestic water line for the summer. And so since we have the sites where we don't have students and we don't have staff, we work with the principles to find out the projects that are most meaningful to them. And so this is what we came up with. So they would like the

161sun shades for the playground for Safford at $33,000. Santaorita the campus weatherization for 317,638. The security gates and fencing for additional 21 schools at $3.9 million. And then we have 62 active board panels for classrooms. And then we needed to get staff devices of which of those uh the majority are for teachers and then there are some for the district staff. And I have uh on this sheet a project description. Uh it even talks about the dimensions for the sun shade for the playground and also includes the installation and mobilization of the sun shade for the playground and they're very excited about the possibilities of getting that. And then with the Sanorita, the campus weatherization includes painting improvements of the exterior of the administration building, the auditorium building and the west elevation and also uh

162the decomposed granite in the parking lot which um also really supports what we're doing with our sustainability uh policies. Now, one thing I do want to mention for Sanorita, the uh principal wanted to take some options that were over the $225,000 which is for renovation. And so to do that, we would have to take $92,638 from the floor replacement. And so we did an evaluation with uh uh Santaorita to look at what their flooring overall would be. And so that's some of the money she wanted to repurpose. And so that's how we're able to cover that additional 92,000. The actual gates and fencing is the same as what we've been doing. It's just a continuation. And then as you guys have um already approved in the past, uh the active panels, one to get uh

163one in each classroom as well as making sure that we provide our teachers and staff with laptops, monitors, and docking stations. We can go to the detailed list. You could see the actual schools. So, we can bring that up. And uh I'll just kind of go through it this kind of quickly. Um but you can see um by region and by school the total amounts. Um and Sanorita those are kind of breaks break out the different options and the cost and then the security gates. And I will I do want to give kudos out to the safety department and project departments. We have been doing very well on um being under budget for the gates and fencing. In the bond book, we do have 185,000. And so we pretty much list that for all of

164them because that's what it has in the bond book. So we have a total over I'm having a hard time reading that myself. Is that three 3.9? Yeah, 3.9 million. And then we also list the schools for the technology. And I do want to note on the technology that this is where we initially are going to be putting those various um boards and then the laptops, monitors, and docking stations as they're needed out in the field. then they would be distributed. So the total for this proposal for uh this item is five 5.4 4 million. And so I would like to motion to grant authority to the purchase director in conjunction with the bond program manager, myself, to procure goods and services using the approved TUSD and cooperative contracts for the next wave of bond

165projects not to exceed 20% contingency where senior purchases may exceed 250,000 or for a cumulative purchases with the cooperative contracts in excess of 250,000. And that ends my presentation and any questions. >> Thank you, Dr. Carter. Governing board members. Miss Extramm. >> I'll move the item. Second >> item moved by Miss Extramm, seconded by Miss Shaw. Mr. Romeary, you have a question, comment, or feedback? >> Yeah, I've got uh I've got some concerns. Not feedback or pushing this right on through. My biggest concern is uh $317,000 to Sanorita and underperforming underperforming attendant school right now, especially with the discussions of looking at consolidations and possibly closures. Um not knowing what the future of Santaorita would be, I would I could vote for a lot of these other things, but that's a huge concern for me.

166My other one is on this $185,000 for fencing for TAP. And I know that's also a specific type of a school, but $185,000 on something that might be able to be reconsolidated on something else might uh also be a financial concern. Uh majority of the stuff I think is fine on these, but my biggest one is uh Sanorita. But something I did write, you know, that I could look at something on some of these other ones. If there's a stipulation, if any of these schools are considered for consolidation or closures that we can take this money back from those types of those schools. Um, but the biggest one right now, I have a hard time with Santaita. >> Dr. Shaw, >> go ahead, Miss Extra. >> I have a really It's really hard for me

167to sit here and listen to this because these have not been proposed to the public. And for us to continually say certain schools are on the chopping block is doing a disservice to our community. >> It's a reality, >> but we haven't talked specific schools. So, we are doing a disservice to our community. We're doing a disservice to Santaorita and to their principal and staff and students. So, we need to either bring it out in the open what we're going to do or quit bringing this up without public discussion and knowledge and transparency. >> And a disservice to those people that voted for the bond that we spent $317,000 on a school that we could potentially close. >> And we're not talking about closures. We haven't talked about closures. We haven't talked about consolidation. Again,

168we are doing a disservice to our community unless we're going to put this out in the open and talk about it, but we cannot continue to name schools that haven't been been brought up here before the governing board. >> That's all I'm going to say. >> Point of information, >> Dr. Drew, did did we not uh push to the budget advisory committee the discussion to start to look into consolidation of certain schools? I don't know if they were named, but >> we So, what we're we're proposing is just a a a refresher for the board on April 14th on what statutory requirements are and what your own governing board policy says about public input and public engagement for school closure and consolidation. So, the first thing is do an inservice for all five of you

169so you know what the statute requires because there's required public process and public engagement. Uh the internal uh our facilities team is putting together data points to give to the budget advisory committee to start using generically to look at the district as a whole without singling out a particular school. Data points such as birth rates, such as facilities utilization percentage, such as you know home buying trends, demographics, all of those types of things. The goal is for schools to be identified according to a transparently communicated set of data points. That way we're not in a situation where a school is guessing why are you discussing my school publicly? The best way to do that is to present that criteria to budget advisory. And then also the consolidation plan process has to also come through another

170committee which we'll talk about at the April 15th meeting. So, uh, like board member Ashram said, there's a lot of steps. There's a lot of like required public engagement that has to happen even before long before it gets to you and any kind of a vote. >> Right. Thank you. And, you know, I agree with Miss Extramm. I think you're kind of jumping the gun, Mr. Romero, because those things haven't been properly noticed or even uh provided to the committees that are going to start that process. And so, you know, it's no secret that some schools have low enrollment. Um, and it is in your purview to vote for or against any one item. But I do have a question in regards to um like some of these schools with the health security and safety

171security gates fencing. Um, it's all $185,000 and and correct me if I'm wrong, but that is that number can be significantly reduced depending on that school's footprint. Yes, that's that's correct. So, I just put what's in the bond book. So, that in general, you know, we kind of had a a a wide brush. It had everybody at 185,000. So, that's where I put the estimate as. But as I had mentioned before, the um safety department has and projects have done a really good job. They're under budget. That's one of the projects that we actually have overruns based off of um what was estimated and what the actual costs have been. what we do because as you guys know that inflation and the cost are going significantly up. We keep that money in the pot. So

172say for instance uh project Moore was a good example. I think their uh gates and fencing was 20,000. Well the bond book has 185,000 but we keep all that money money in the pot so we can ensure that all of the schools are being addressed if that makes sense. Right. >> Thank you. One more question. Um, and this might be more for security back there because I think a couple years back we had hired a firm to look at our facilities. I think it was like Massachusetts or something like that like some of the weak points we do have in our district with a lot of these things of the fencing. Are those things being taken into account for also depending like where we are putting maybe some of our chain link fans versus our

173rod iron fans or does that play a part in this at all? Um Mr. Hallum is at all with Dr. Carter. >> Hi, good evening and thank you for the question. Uh specifically I think you're referring to the hiring the consultant we did uh about 18 months ago. uh that was specific to the bond funds that'll be utilized for our security uh technology that's going to be coming very soon uh in front of you specifically additional security cameras management software associated with those and and access control. So that was the scope of work for that security consultant was just to look at those uh specific items because we have so many various systems out there because so many are antiquated we wanted to see what we could reutilize and try to be as efficient as

174possible with those funds. >> Okay. So then that part of it will be tied in a lot more towards the camera security, not necessarily the fencing that we have going on over here. Or is that a little bit in here with the fencing? >> No, it's not with the fencing at all. The fencing is done through a a cooperation between u my department, the school safety, uh the facilities department, and the uh projects department. They all work very closely to identify, you know, the list of of schools that need are needed and what prioritization is set. >> Okay. Thank you. You bet. >> Thank you. All right. So, we have an item uh motion made by Miss Extterm if I remember correctly and seconded by Miss Luna Rose. >> Miss Shaw. Second by Miss Shaw.

175Uh we'll do a roll call. >> Miss Extramm. >> Yes. >> Miss Luna Rose. >> Yes. >> Mr. Romero? >> No. >> Miss Shaw? >> Yes. >> Dr. Robbie? >> Yes. Item passes 41. Thank you, Dr. Carter. All right. Let's see. Where are we here? So, we're on study action items now. We have approval of capital projects budget for the 2627 fiscal year. Dr. Trujill. >> Yes. I know that our bond gets a lot of attention, but let us not forget we do get an a yearly allocation from the state uh for capital budget. That number this year is going to be $7 million more. Uh, as noted in the Auditor General's report, we have been transferring $10 million over from capital to help meet our maintenance and operations ongoing cost needs. But now with

176the runway that's been provided by the override, we're going to be able to restore 7 million of that 10 this fiscal year. And what we like to do every year is present the board with our plan, our vision on how our divisions uh will best utilize this capital budget. So here to take us through is our chief uh uh financial officer, Mr. Hernandez. >> Good evening Ed board members. So yes, as uh Dr. Thrujillo mentioned, uh this will be the first of uh two years that we will be reversing that $10 million transfer from M to capital. So $7 million will be returning down to the capital fund. So just giving you kind of an an overview of what we're currently expecting for fiscal year 27. Right now we are not expecting this is going

177to be another year of no permanent increase in the per pupil funding allocation for understated capital outlay for 2627. Um if you recall uh about four years ago the legislature had made a commitment to increase the fund by 2% per year that stopped after two years. Um and instead of that we've been receiving these one-time lump sums. Um so I'm providing you kind of what the current funding amounts are per ADM. um and they remain unchanged. However, because of obviously changes in our enrollment, um not receiving a permanent increase in the fact that we've got onetime funding that is expiring, we are still going to lose about $1.8 million in capacity in the fund. So, even though we're returning 7 million, we're really only returning about, you know, 5.3 million simply because we don't know

178if that one-time funding of $992,000 is coming back. Um, the legislature and the governor, as has kind of become tradition in the month of April, are at an impass with the legislative budget. Um, we are experiencing student enrollment loss that will cost us about $739,000. and then on a to a smaller degree uh uh fewer revenue from interest income. Um so all told about $1.8 million. Nevertheless, um this $19.4 million budget is still a significant increase compared to the prior year. Um so with that um our departments, our four major departments that essentially take up the majority of of our capital infrastructure dollars have done a a really great job in putting together some recommendations. Um curriculum, facilities, project management, technology, and transportation. Um they submitted requests of just under $28 million. Um we've been

179able to fund about 19 million. About 1.4 will go to other departments. the remaining balance will go to these five departments themselves. Um, and I just will briefly review them for you. Uh, so in curriculum and instruction, we've got two new textbook adoptions on the horizon. Um, tonight you adopted high school math. Uh, we will be paying that with next year's dollars. Um, and Spanish language arts as well. Uh, curriculum and instruction is also looking at upgrading the online learning platform for TUVA. Um, so that license is approximately $555,000 in addition to other instructional aids that they purchase. Um, and the current textbook adoptions that we have um that you have, uh, approved over the last couple of years. Um, CNI has done a really great job in putting together a five-year plan to upgrade

180all of our textbook adoptions, and we've been able to do a significant investment in textbook adoptions where Pluto is no longer a planet. So just, you know, that's just the thing. Um, facilities management investments. Uh, still doing a lot of HVAC, a lot of coolers. Um, particularly in our lurk plant and our transportation yards. Obviously, we've got a lot of great employees working um at our central plants and transportation yards. Um, and just as much as our students do, they need uh a safe working environment. So, uh, facilities management is requesting, uh, upgrades to cooling units, HVACs, um, in, uh, the various plant and transportation yards, upgrades to HVAC and EMCS control updates, um, to some schools, uh, leases. So, that $623,000, the majority is our annual lease payment to Puma Jed for Innovation Tech

181High School. Um, and there's other equipment and some software that is used in that department as well. project management. Uh this is a you know this is one of our largest uh investments. So uh infrastructure investments of just under $1.8 million. This is just coming from unrestricted capital outlay. Right. A lot of the work that they do also comes from building renewal grants, but you can see the rundown of the list right there. I won't go through the whole thing with you. A lot of stuff that we've spoken to you about um weatherization and gym flooring and restrooms and locker rooms. Um, obviously the Borman expansion continues. That is our share of of that Borman expansion. Um, and the replacement of the cooling tower at Lurk. So, we're able to do some infrastructure improvements that

182go beyond our schools that start focusing on some of our other facilities that unfortunately have been left behind just because of the limited dollars that we've had to invest in capital. Technology investments. Uh, the largest one, $4.9 million in software. We've got a lot of software, um, a lot of items that are out there, a lot of things that you've heard in the past that are part of our everyday business. Everything from parent square to synergy, which our student information system to our time clocks to our financial management system. Um, everything in between is is in there. Um, a lot of hardware. There's phone upgrades that are slated at 18 schools. Um there's a small allocation for instructional aids as we pay for the uh radio program license at PBLO High School. Um and there's

183a a lease there for a network data center for um for our facility. Um so they've got a significant investment um across our technology services. So, uh, I did want to provide a quick update on, um, if you recall, uh, we've had this going on for about a few years now, a school capital funding lawsuit, Glendale Elementary versus Arizona. Um, TUSD participated in this lawsuit against the state in regards to basically the unconstitutional funding formula for capital infrastructure at the at the school districts. Um, superior court in Phoenix found that basically the system is unconstitutional. And just this month, they uh issued an order to the legislature requiring them to implement a system. However, the court provided a 90-day stay of that order to allow the legislature to appeal. If they chose not to appeal,

184they would have eight months to implement. As you know, luck would have it, the legislature has decided to appeal. Um, so we are moving on to the court of appeals. This probably will take another couple of years before we actually see the end result. it will probably end up at the state supreme court. But what does that mean for us is that until this is resolved, we continue to operate with essentially no new state capital funding. There is no permanent solution from the legislature in terms of capital. We continue to rely on these building renewal grants that unfortunately run out of money by March on our capital outlay on our current bond program. The the risk though is that we continue to have pressure on deferred maintenance, right? we we can't get to everything because

185there just isn't enough to go around and it just creates that unfortunate push and pull between capital and operational. Um, you know, we're very fortunate that we're a district that had a very a successful very successful bond program. Um, but just as a reminder to everybody from, you know, 2009 to 2019 during the Brewer and Ducy years, um, we lost $165 million. Um it's probably, you know, when you add inflation to that, uh it's probably closer to, you know, $250 million today. Um we've never seen that come back. Um that became a permanent reduction across all school districts to balance the state's books. So on that happy note, um we have a recommendation uh requesting that you approve the capital budget for 2627 totaling $19.4 million. Any questions? I have a question first u Mr.

186Hernandez. So can you tell me how um the decision was made to fund some of these facilities upgrades through our annual capital versus the bond program. >> So some of them are like only like staff and like the some of the facilities are transportation or other kinds of like and I don't think we include them in the bond but some of the school ones. >> Yeah. So some of the school ones are because they are some of them are repairs. So when we talk about like weatherization, right, we're talking about literally like crumbling pieces of the wall, right? And so that really is not a kind of a good investment, if you will, of bond program when we're just kind of doing low-level kind of upgrades and fixes uh versus full-on capital investments as Dr.

187Carter has presented to you. So some of these really are complementing what some of the bond program is already doing or they're complenting other sources of funding. you know, if building renewal grants are giving us funding for a project, they may only be funding us at 80 or 90% and we have to cough up a match of some sort. Um, that's what's happening at Borman, for example, right? The legis the the state and the federal government are not funding 100% of the Borman expansion. So, we have to kick in some of our matching dollars. And so, these are mostly for programs that are more kind of upgrades and maintenance in general versus actual large infrastructure. And then obviously we want to keep dollars as bond dollars as much in our schools versus our central facilities

188like transportation. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Mr. Rose. >> Oh, I thought it was Miss >> me. Um when will these um projects start? Uh for example, Borman and the Myers Ganong Ringcon PBLO. >> So some of these have already started. Um, so Borman has been an ongoing uh project now for I think we're like into our third year with Borman and that's just as a result of having to partner with the federal government and essentially what they're going through. Um, and so some of these are already ongoing. So some of these are projects that have started either planning phases. There are components of the work that are just require architectural design. They require other kind of construction planning before we go into the full-blown project. So, some of these will start before the fiscal

189year ends in some fashion. Um, and some will start immediately following the fiscal year. Um, nevertheless, if the project is not completed, we do allow these to carry forward into the next fiscal year. The only issue is that that binds those dollars for any future years, but we've done that before because sometimes 12 months isn't enough. Well, I assume like well for Borman I was just there and it hasn't ex you know it hasn't started. So when are we when's that going to start? >> Is Damon here? There he is. Mr. Borman himself will answer. >> Yes. Uh good evening governing board president Shaw. Uh governing board members. So Borman uh we just met last month with the Department of Defense on the Borman campus. Um and we've been given approval uh to submit for

190our final proposal which has been uh 41 months uh coming but no you know who's counting and that's environmental planning which has been um task in itself. Um, and then going through, as Ricky mentioned, the state facilities department to get BRG funding for the existing building for HVAC and roofing. We anticipate submitting uh our final proposal next Tuesday. Uh, with approval, we can apply for funding within three weeks. The goal is at the end of May. We want to that's been the goal. and when we left the meeting at the end of May to start construction at Borman. >> Okay. And then I'm assuming like the gym flooring at PBLO and the varsity locker room renovation at RingCon, are are those easier uh projects to get done faster? >> Yes, most definitely. Because again, they

191don't involve as much planning. um the actual flooring at uh PBLO. We're looking at doing that during the summer as soon as that funding becomes available. We've already strategically planned with our vendors to go out and take a look. We we've taken a look at the different costs. So, we have a good idea there as far as RingCon. Uh we did meet with the site um to get a final uh design concept down. So, now they've approved that. Now once we get the funding we'll be able to complete the design on that and start construction immediately. >> Okay. So you're thinking by summer we should see some movement. >> Oh yes most definitely. The goal is again you know we have small windows uh to really do major construction on those sites and we try

192to take advantage of that whenever funding becomes available to try and expedite and get construction done uh during the summer. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Sure. Well, this is for the next school year, right? So, the funds won't be available until July. >> That's correct. >> Okay, Mr. Romero. >> So, on these proposed numbers, what it's going to cost, are these going to be more accurate than what we kind of did on our bonds? Sorry. Yes, they will be more. Yeah, because we know we know what the price of fuel is doing for example, we know what the interest is doing. We so we've a lot of this has already taken into account obviously our capital fund has a contingency side to it. So in the event that any of these obviously are much more

193significant by the time they get started. Um, but the goal I know in speaking to to Damon, um, as we were kind of planning through this is try to get a lot of these off the ground as quickly as possible before you know anything changes, right? Like these things happen on weekends for some reason. I don't I don't know. >> Yeah. Uh and and I think that's just again like a concern like you know um when we go in at something at a certain price and then it comes up a lot higher, it makes us a little difficult on our end to cover why we didn't I would like to see us be, you know, expect a little bit higher and come down to be great, but as long as they're more realistic than some

194of those other ones, I think that gives us and the community a little bit better peace of mind. >> Yeah. and and that we do build in a you know a certain level of cushion in these numbers. >> 10% you build. >> Yeah. So we so we may not necessarily spend 225,000 at CEOs but that's what we're projecting at this point just to provide us enough you know enough of that cushion to kind of weather what may come. >> I think a big difference is you know this is looking at a couple months down the road and not a couple years. You know the bond was is a 2023 bond. 2023 2022 was like when all this work was being done and this is now four years later we're trying to have predicted what the

195cost would be of some of these things. So a lot has changed since 2022 in terms of cost of items. I do have a question about um so I see that $28 million requested we're approving if approved we're asked to approve $19 million tonight. Uh what are things that are not being approved especially technology services is the biggest category we're not approving. Uh what are things that is that something that's going to be deferred? Something that we're just not going to do as an organization like what are we where are we at with that? >> So so no technology services is in here, >> right? But as the request was $12 million and we're approving. >> So yeah, some of those I mean I'll be honest. I mean I looked at these you know and

196Robbie can cover his ears. Some of these numbers were inflated. So So I you know I took a look at what the historical spend was for some of these because these are some of these are like ongoing requests, right? Some of these licenses aren't one-year things. These are things that have been happening over multiple years. And so I can certainly understand that departments want to build a certain level of cushion to some of these, but in finance, we're going to take a look at these with a fine tooth comb. Right? So it's not that something's not happening. Um, basically the majority of their licenses got funded. They did request a lot of hardware, laptops for example. Some of that like instructional technology for students is going to be taken care of by the bond, right?

197And so their plan was just in the event that the bond doesn't take care of it, we're going to take care of it in Capitol. Well, we need to take care of it in the bond. That was a commitment in the bond to buy instructional uh technology for students. Um so it's not that we're not doing something is that in a lot of these we took a look at their numbers and try to kind of put them into reality and some of them are things that are going to be happening in the bond technology for example. >> Right. Thank you. I'll move the item. I'll second, but I had a question. >> Go ahead, Miss Len Rose. >> Um, so, oh, thank you for the presentation. Um, have we I don't even know and I

198still don't know sometimes even after all this time on the board. Have this have these been looked at with any sort of SFB like lens? >> Uh, so the only ones that are SFB eligible are kind of the projects in project management. So the the work that Damon's uh department does, but even then it's still limited to schools only, right? So a lot of this work is never going to be BRG eligible because if there are no kids in those buildings, we can't touch them, which is why we've done some of these, you know, some of these projects out of our own pocket because we're not going to get any other state relief to do some of those things. >> Okay. That's unfortunate, but thank you. >> Yep. >> All right. Item moved by myself

199and seconded by Miss Lunar Rose. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose? Any abstensions? Item passes 5-0. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next, we are moving to a different topic, but talking about the override I mentioned earlier, we are going to talk about implementation override funds for preschool programs. Dr. Trillo. >> Yes. I kicks off sort of override implementation season to kind of celebrate uh all of the enhancements that the override is going to bring to our district. I'd like to introduce our director for community schools and early childhood education, Mrs. Ree Kitt, program coordinator, Andrea Hudson. And the goal tonight is how are we going to put the $800,000 of override allocated funding to our earliest learners? How are we going to put that to use? It's important

200to note that we've committed 600,000 uh to program access and $200,000 to supplies for our hardworking preschool and early childhood educators. So, here to take us through the proposal is our team. Take it away. >> Thank you. Uh good evening, governing board, President Sha, Dr. Trillo, Council Ross. My name is Andrea Hudson and I'm the program manager for community schools and Miss Cuban and I are here to talk about the preschool override. So, so we are very pleased that preschool was involved in the override. This initiative uh will bring $800,000 um that will be allocated for preschool expansion and supplies. Um 600,000 is designated for expansion efforts and 200,000 will be to support supplies for approximately 100 classrooms. This evening, we are presenting a proposal that expands access to preschool for families utilizing an approach

201that differs from the traditional expansion model. So, the original override proposal included funding to open five new preschool classrooms. This traditional expansion model requires fully equipping each classroom with all necessary resources which prevent which presents a cost challen challenging I'm sorry which presents cost challenges and eventually sustainability challenges once the override um concludes. So in opening a new preschool classroom, we have to consider more than the standard necessities of materials and staffing. We are also required to meet Arizona Department of Health Services child care licensing requirements as well as quality first standards for high quality early childhood programming. Because all our preschool sites participate in quality first assessment, it is essential that we ensure each classroom is fully equipped with to support high quality instruction and maintain strong star ratings. Based on our current guidance,

202override funds may only be used for staff salaries and supplies. As a result, these funds cannot be applied towards furniture, instructional materials, licensing costs, curriculum, playground equipment, or shade structures. Therefore, we will need support from the district to equip each classroom with these additional items. And that would cost approximately $90,300 per classroom, which would total $451,500 for all five classrooms. Um, we have also been actively working with sites that are interested in upgrading uh play structures and shade structures. And just to give you an estimate, the playground structures are actually coming in at almost $60,000. And depending on the amount of shading that we need for each of the playgrounds per licensing, um like Ericson, we're currently working and they have an estimated cost of $40,000 for their shade structure. So prices have increased. So

203our initial cost for this slide um may be more um because of those costs. So to eliminate the need for addictional district funding, we are proposing the creation of a scholarship program that would serve families earning up to the 500% of the federal poverty level. This scholarship model would expand access to preschool for families while avoiding the startup costs and staffing requirements associated with opening new classrooms. Under this approach, we would leverage existing tuitionbased preschools and preschool classrooms located in our infant and early learning centers, thereby providing families with access to fullday preschool services. Currently, we partner with the Arizona Department of Economic Security, dees child care, Quality First, and PEEPS to provide subsidies and scholarships to families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty level. While these programs effectively support many of our

204families, we have identified a gap for those whose incomes slightly exceed the 300% threshold. Despite not qualifying for existing assistance, these families often continue to experience financial challenges in accessing preschool. By establishing a scholarship program, we would be able to extend access to highquality preschool for what is often referred to as the missing middle. While our primary focus will remain to serve families with the highest levels of need, this model would allow us to broaden opportunities and ensure that more families can access and benefit from highquality early childhood education. I'm going to pass it over to Miss Keit so she can tell you a little bit more about our sliding scale. >> Thank you. Good evening. So, this is our proposed sliding fee scale. As you can see, um, there's the family income level, the

205amount the scholarship would cover, and how much the family would contribute through this model. It pri prioritizes highest need families. And it provides gradual tuition adjustments and avoids sudden affordability cliffs. Meaning as the family income increases, the amount they pay increases slowly and steadily rather than jumping dramatically at a single cutoff. Families contribute a little more at each income level, but the increase is meant to be more manageable since they would need to re-qualify each year. This is how FTF or first things first and quality first heads and head start operate to ensure scholarships continue to reach those who qualify. Here we have a sample of what our tuition rates are at our full day and extended preschool programs across um elementary schools in the district. So we we wanted to show you actual numbers

206and how that um is interpreted. This these tuition um amounts do not reflect the discounts that we provide to USD staff. They get a 10% discount on top of this tuition. The cost for full day or what we call bell-to-bell preschool in our tuition programs averages about $6,700 annually. By using this rate, it will allow us to offer scholarships to more than 89 students. However, if we look at the extended um tuition rates, those are preschool programs that go to five or six o'clock in the evening. Because those hours are later and longer, um the rate is um there's a difference of two about $2,000. We could have families either pay that difference or follow the proposed sliding fee regardless of the cost. Overall, the more families we have that fall within the 200 percentage

207uh bracket, the less slots we can offer. Ultimately, we're looking at expanding by anywhere between 50 to 90 students with the scholarships depending of course on our applicants socioeconomic statuses. Currently, we offer 27 scholarships through First Things First, and every single scholarship is in use. So, we know this model works. We wanted to also include the proposed cost for families that attend preschool programs at the ILC's. Um, tuition costs are figured by 12 months of operation. um and they are open 11 hours a day. So obviously the cost is a bit higher for these programs. Important considerations. So this slide makes my tummy hurt a little bit in full transparency because we've been kind of thinking about what are some unintended consequences and we want to be transparent and prepared. And one of the big

208things that my team and I are truly worried about is current families attending the program. I think that we might hear things like, "I've been a loyal family and customer here. I would like some help u with the override funds with tuition and how do we handle that?" And a lot of discussion and reflection around that. And so in the end it comes down to what the bond was proposed for and it is not to be used or it wasn't it wasn't recommended and sold to um voters as a tuition um um to help it with tuition or a subsidy in that way. it was it its intent is to um expand services and access for for families who don't currently have it. So I think we kind of have to stick to our guns

209there. What if family what if current families withdraw and reapply as new students? Well, students already enrolled will remain under their existing tuition agreements for that school year. So that won't be an option. Um, have we communicated this plan with our community? We have. Um, we've been we've met many times with our TEBA president, Jim Burn. Um, we've talked we have a TEA prek subcommittee who really we are here today because of their hard work and and a and advocacy. And then we've met with uh Bria and Shoemaker parent groups because those are the parent groups we facilitate and have access to and have have let them know um about our plans and we have also talked with the budget advisory committee who supported our recommendations. Okay. So this is just a summary of the

210benefits of the scholarship approach. This also provides flexibility to maximize the funding so that it goes directly to families and getting students in classrooms. We can modify and adjust based on the community and family needs in different areas. Having options through a sliding fee scale allows us to be responsive in the moment. So, we are ex requesting tonight approval to use override funds through a scholarship model and approval for our flexible and responsive sliding fee schedule. Please let me know what questions you have. Thank you. >> Thank you, Raymond. Thank you, Andrea, for the presentation. I have a lot of questions, but I'll uh turn to my board members if anybody wants to preempt me before I go into my sleeve of questions. Miss Extra Thank you Dr. Shaw. Thank you for the presentation. Um

211so this would increase at all preschools full day preschool. >> Yeah. So currently we have um >> a morning and an afternoon, >> right? So those are inclusive preschool programs and those programs are already free. So our families can access that right now at any time. So it doesn't really impact those programs. Then we have PEEPS which is already also funded completely for full day. So this really focuses on those tuition programs that are full day um and and families can't afford them because they come at a cost whereas we already have free programs so we don't we're already at capacity at let's say all of our PEEPS programs. um we're we've in we have just a few inclusive programs where we're not at capacity but um those programs are free so those families already

212have access to it. So it's really about expanding to those full day and extended day programs that come at a cost that families can't afford >> at Bria and Shaker. That's one that those two but we also have like Marshall Collier Soling Tom Henry >> Oyama Miles. So we have tuition preschool programs across the district. So it would include those as well. >> This is not just for Brickton shoemakers. It's for all tuition preschool programs. And how long do you think the tuition um using this formula would last with the funding that is available to you through the five years of the override? >> Yeah. So it's my understanding that any first of all any funds that don't get used um roll over uh but yes we would use it for the full amount of

213time until it goes back to the voters. And so at these schools, uh, what is the additional capacity for new students to be able to enroll? >> So, for example, Oyama, um, has extra space. Soling Tom, we have had three preschool programs, but they're super underenrolled. So, we would be able through the this um scholarship program to easily fill all slots, 80 80 kids. Um, obviously some sites have more space than others. Um, Oyama for instance, we the we have two teachers. We'd like to break it up and open up another CL like have our classroom in another classroom at Oyama. Um, so we have some furniture from a closed classroom that we can use if needed if there's a high need there. So, we have backup that way. But ultimately, we have lots of

214slots, unfortunately, that we can fill in our tuition programs. >> Okay. Because I'm just concerned if we have a program at Stling Tom that we can't fill even with this new tuition scholarship, are we going to be able to fill it because we don't have kids on the east side of town? >> Right. So right now we have quality first scholarships at all of these sites and they've all been used up and we have families that have we we that call us every week that they want to attend these programs but we don't have any more scholarships for them. Now will we fill all 80? I would like to hope that we will but we don't know for sure. >> Okay. >> Like I can't read the future. We we we believe it will, but

215>> time >> I understand that, but with the trends, you can tell Yeah. >> that if you you would be able to. >> Yeah. And >> it's not really reading the future. It's like reading the data. >> No, totally. And the data does say honestly that we we should be able to fill them. >> Okay. Thank you. Can I ask a follow question? Okay. Yeah. So, I I was a little confused on this whole proposal. So, from this extras line of questioning, >> do we have like weight lists for scholarships for some of these preschools right now? >> We do. >> How many students are on the wait list? Um, we probably have 28 students right now on the wait list. >> Okay. >> At different sites, including Soling Tom, including Oyama, and some of

216the others you've mentioned. >> Yeah. >> So, I think my biggest concern reading this proposal to begin with was that it was just going to transition some of our tuition based programs to scholarships. But you're saying this actually will expand by approximately 80 students is what you're forecasting. >> Yeah. I mean, it it's anywhere between 50 to 89. It really just depends on, you know, the applicants and how much of the funding they'll need to be able to attend the program. >> So, the goal is to expand with those students that um through the scholarship on space that we already have. >> Correct. >> Okay. And capacity we already have. >> Correct. >> As opposed to creating new classrooms and >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Miss Luna has some questions and I have some more questions

217as well, but I'll follow up on that one. >> Thank you. >> Well, maybe you answered it. I I wanted to know like how many families this affected would affect I guess >> and it would be between 50 to 90 um based on our numbers. It just depends again on um the family socioeconomic situation. if they if we have way more families who are in within the 200th percentile of the federal poverty level, then we're not going to have as much money to spread out to more people. So, it really depends on the applicants. I will tell you for the the 200 families that we currently have on scholarships, most of them fall in the lower range, which means we and Oh, yeah. and de and with our dees families and and there's a right

218now just so you guys know how many are on the wait list >> 1100 >> we have 11,000 students kids on the wait list for preschool in the state of Arizona >> um so we're hoping that because they need financial assistance to attend programs so we're hoping that we will be able to capture some of those families but again we might only be able to expand by 50 families. It just depends on their socioeconomics. >> One more quick of those families, do you know offh hand like is it just like one child or is it like multiple children in that family? >> So the so the dees weight list it had um I believe don't I this is from last week and it changes regularly. It had about 6 thou over 6,000 families on the

219list, but it was 11,000 children. >> Okay. >> Um, so that's it. It can be multiple kids. We I do also know that in some of our programs, parents fill out because they've filled out for the de to apply for dees, but they're weight listed. So, when we call them, they have to decline their spot because they don't have any support financially to pay for our services. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Before Michelle, one second. So I want to understand like so what we're doing tonight if we approve this. So our original proposal from the override was to expand by five classrooms and what we're doing instead is expanding with the capacity we already have and trying to drive more students into that capacity through a scholarship to make it more enticing for students that

220can't afford it otherwise. >> So we're still expanding by number of families and students. It's just instead of creating new class, we might create new classrooms if the capacity increases. Yeah. And we have the space to do that in some of our schools like Ayama or Solington without incurring the million dollars worth of cost in that one slide because we already have the shave structures and play spaces and all that and the furniture. So our goal is to use the capacity we that already exists and to drive students into that capacity through a scholarship. >> Okay, Miss Shaw. >> Um, thank you for your presentation. the information on uh slide six about the federal poverty limit and expanding the scholarships to those families who are 500%. Um that's for a family of four. So if

221they were a single family with one child, would they then not qualify for >> No, that was just one example to show you the numbers. So we have um single moms with one child and they qualify for the scholarships that we currently have. So anybody it it what they do is um they the family income and family size helps determine where they fall in the federal poverty level. And so this was just an example to kind of show you that. But you can be a family of two to a family of 10 or more, which we've had. So they would still qualify or could still have access if they financially qualify. >> So if a single parent with one child makes $160,000, they would still be eligible for%. >> No. >> Okay. >> No. >>

222Okay. Because Yeah. if I so I don't have all the numbers but we have charts that kind of um outline that for us so it doesn't automatically not everybody will automatically qualify >> okay because >> you know ideally I would like to >> okay say that again to them so thanks Ricky >> 78,520 for a family of one >> okay and then the numbers thank you for that then the numbers that like the amount I imagine that's for the entire school year $6,718. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. Yeah. I mean, I do know we are in hard times. Um I think that slide is a little misleading because it seems like we're giving a scholarship to someone with who makes a good amount of money. Although with four kids, I'm sure things get tougher. Um,

223ideally I would prefer to keep all of this funding for those who are the most need. Um, are we like saving spots for uh families who are in the most need and just like having like 20 or 10 spots for those who are able to pay uh more? like how are we doing this like first come first serve or are we allocating a certain amount per the federal poverty limit? >> That's a great question. We were doing first come first serve to get kids in classrooms. Um but it will really depend also on the applications. If we're inundated and we have a lot more families than we have scholarships, our goal is to focus on the families with the highest need. But if we're are doing this and it doesn't work out the way we

224had hoped, that's sort of why we want that flexibility of up to 500 because we would rather not turn families away who could still use the service and get them into TUSD and then that way still recruit and offer them placement in a preschool program. Right. >> But the kids with the highest needs, the families with the highest needs would remain our priority. >> Thank you. And then for those families who are paying upwards of 2,000 to 6,000 uh along with like some of the subsidies, does the tuition that uh these programs do in crew then go towards more scholarships or just like M to pay for the facility or for staff? >> So we don't get M. Um everything is tuition. So really this our preschool programs in the ILC's that um charge tuition

225is they're paid they pay mostly um payroll and benefits and then a teeny tiny bit for materials and supplies. Um and that's it. We're very skeletal. Um we're we don't aim to make a profit. Um we're we we charge probably not enough to keep us in survival mode right now. >> Okay. So the tuition that you people do pay out goes towards your bottom line basically. >> Exactly. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Can you speak a little bit more about the supplies? So it's a million dollars of supplies over five years. You said it's about a 100 classrooms that we have. So about 2,000 a year. Where are they getting supplies from now? What budget line? You have mentioned just kind of the money coming in coming out for the program. Is that

226too much over a course of five years? A million dollars of supplies for the classrooms? That seems like a lot to me. I'm not sure. >> So that 2,000 is going to be pretty limited and it'll be interesting to see. So some of the things that we purchase is Hillyard products for program. So, paper towels, um toilet paper, trash bags, copy paper, soap. Um and that adds up very quickly. Um one of the reasons we need to help out with that is that schools have a small allocation and in preschool there's a lot of handwashing and diaper changing and that kind of thing and so they go through those products very quickly. Um, so that 2000 won't even really help with instructional supplies like um blocks or we we can't use it for any of

227that stuff. So, it's really going to mostly go to those kinds of types of needs and I think they'll go through it very quickly. >> Okay. >> So, I'll say when I read the proposal first, I don't think the slides really made me understand what was going on. I was I was unhappy with it. But like hearing what we're doing, I think it really meets the intention of what we proposed. Our proposal was who the override funds to the voters that we'll be able to expand preschool, especially for those who are underserved in our community. And I think your proposal here really hits that really well and using the capacity we have to do so. So I'll happy to move the proposal tonight. >> Thank you. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. >> Any further

228discussion? All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Item passes 5. Good work. >> Thank you so much. Yeah. Have >> a great night. Thank you. >> And thank you voters for allowing us to do this tonight. >> Dr. Shock, >> Miss Extram, >> can I propose that we do this next item at our next meeting? It's late and I don't think with the late hour that we're allowing enough transparency to discuss this item. Well, we're getting into April tomorrow and if we're making some changes to departmental level functions, they need to happen sooner than later and get prepared for that. Dr. Tertio, what do you feel about moving this to another meeting? >> Well, I would propose that we could always just post. Not there's going to be no interviewing or anything.

229I mean, we could post so that we don't lose any time and then we can have the discussion uh at the next governing board meeting. That way, it's a win-win, right? We're building an applicant pool. Nobody's being called in for an interview. Um, and then before any of those interviews or or we take any formal steps to start looking at any screening of candidates, we're having the discussion on April 14th. >> Otherwise, we lose, like you said, Dr. Shre, we're going to lose some time. >> Yeah, because we we create new positions and other things. It's already getting into April. We're having >> That's fine. I We're not doing our due diligence by doing this at 9:30. I mean, >> we can go ahead and we can go ahead and do this. I just don't

230think that um people are listening at this late hour and so maybe I should have requested that this be one of the first items. So, that's my fault. >> Understand this should be done at like one o'clock in the morning than previous governing boards, >> right? But we're not a previous governing board. So, We're trying to be more transparent out there in the community, having people listen. It's 9:30. Um, it is what it is. It's not I I don't think we're doing this correctly, but I will go ahead and continue with this item. I I'm just want to voice my concern that I don't believe that we're doing this correctly. >> This is just a study information. We're not making any decisions tonight. That's okay. So, you heard you heard what I had to say

231and and that's where I'm going to leave it. >> Go ahead, Miss Lose. >> Um, I'm I'm fine with going through the item, but also I think it would have been probably prudent to put this a little bit ahead on the schedule just because this is a these are going to be one of many steps. Yes, I understand it's study information, but um and I don't want to make extra work for other people, but once we go through this, if if maybe we also have something open for people to give comment, maybe we can also hit it that way. So, we're doing both things. We make it another 900 comments, but you know, it it's it allows people to give their their voice. >> Well, I think people see the agenda item, right? and and

232so typically um the the superintendent does organize the administration. So it's nothing out of policy for me to propose a leaner model. I think it's a timing thing. I can see where, hey, it's 9:30 at night. We do want the general public knowing, right? Um I think a win-win proposal, I'll repeat, I think putting the positions out there causes no harm. Um allows us to build an applicant pool so we're not losing two weeks. Uh there's no harm, no foul. Nobody's going to be interviewed. We're not going to complete any cycles of interviewing or screening. And then we come back on April 14th. We move it forward um move it at the top of the agenda. And uh that way I think we we can meet the transparency goals here and without losing any any

233time here. >> Go ahead. That's fine. Okay. >> I mean I am hungry. >> But um you know we are here but if it's like a quick presentation then I'm okay to continue or I'm also okay to uh push this to the to the next meeting because it is only study information and we didn't see any call to the audience about this specific item. So, so you prefer to have it tonight? >> I can go either way, whatever is the pleasure of of the board, but I'm I'm also with Miss Extramm that, you know, it would be nice to have this closer to the top of the agenda. Um, and I don't know if if we need to take action at the next meeting on this, if we can delay the action and just have

234study and then action in in the month of April, um, that works for me. >> That's fine. I we can go through this. I just I you know we we'll talk about transparency. It's 9:37 and I don't think many people are listening. That's my only concern. But we can move forward. >> Okay. Let's move forward with the information item tonight. Is there any action we need to take on this? And this is your own leadership team reorganization. >> This is my own leadership team. Um the board doesn't take action on structure, but the board definitely takes action on the candidate and the recommendation. So ultimate action is the boards. it's just at the other end of it. Um we always want to show what we're doing from a leadership perspective and um if we're going

235through the item, we're going to start with curriculum and instruction. And really the charge is how do we operate leaner uh curriculum and instruction uh has been tasked with operating a leaner leadership structure while still maintaining continuity of services to schools while still absorbing some additional roles and responsibilities that will be coming from my portion of the program uh immediately after uh Dr. Huitt. Dr. Huitt, our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction here to take us through Thank you. Good evening, governing board members. Plenty of coffee here, so we we're ready to go. All right. Good evening, governing board members. President Sha, Dr. Trill, members of the Tucson community. I am Dr. Flory Huitt, and this evening, I'll be presenting the organizational redesign for the curriculum and instruction division. Tonight, I will cover three key areas.

236Number one, why a reorganization is needed now, the progress we've made over time, and how the proposed model really strengthens our support for schools and students. This represents the next phase of a multi-year effort that we've done in curriculum and instruction to strengthen our coherence and accountability across our system. As part of my role, I was asked to review our administrative structure to ensure that there is a more streamlined model and take additional responsibilities within the division, including oversight of additional additional divisions or departments such as the principal mentorship program, our leadership prep academy, our prek community schools, and alternative education. So this proposal reflects a balance between the structure, responsibility, and support for schools. So before discussing really quickly the reorganization, I do want to acknowledge the critical role that the governing board has

237played. Your support for curriculum, for instructional resources, and program investments has allowed our district to navigate our significant challenges while continuing to serve our schools and our students. The progress we're sharing today would not have been possible without your commitment. In 2019, when I when I started in the division, it was highly fragmented. Our departments were doing good, strong work, but largely in isolation. Our initial focus was to build trust, maintain continuity of services and begin aligning toward a shared vision. That foundation has allowed us to move forward more intentionally. Shortly after that work began, the co required an immediate pivot. So we shifted from long-term planning to rapid response, developing online instructional models, ensuring access to materials, launching the Tucson Unified virtual academy, supporting teachers in a new environment, and the period of COVID

238required more flexibility rather than system building. So, as schools reopened, we returned to strengthening instruction, conducted a district-wide curriculum audit, and we found that many materials were outdated. With your support, we have established a sustainable adoption cycle to ensure that our students consistently receive updated standards aligned materials. So, over the past few years, we have built the instructional infrastructure that the district needed. This includes making sure that we have a district instructional framework that's grounded on research, coaching systems to support our instruction, strengthen MTSS structures, job embedded professional learning, a unified walkthrough system in collaboration with multiple departments, a literacy framework that's aligned to the research. These systems are in place across the district. Where we do see the difference is in how consistently they are implemented from site to site. This ensures that our

239focus is not moving forward is not just on building systems but on ensuring that there's consistent practices across our schools. Okay. So getting a little more deep into the work of curriculum and instruction. Our curriculum and instruction division has become more focused and intentional over time particularly around delivering strong consistent instruction across all of our schools. Today, our work centers around three key areas. Number one, the instructional core, ensuring that curriculum, professional learning, and the systems that support teaching and learning in every classroom are there. Second, we also do specialized services and student supports, including exceptional education, language acquisition, and programs that ensure students have access to rigorous instruction. And the last piece that we focus on is our student opportunities and pathways such as our magnet program, our Tuo language, our CTE, fine arts,

240and advanced learning experiences. In addition, we are taking on additional responsibilities including, as I said earlier, our prek and community schools, alternative education, school improvement and accountability systems, and leadership development for building our district leaders and building leaders. This is not about expanding for expansion's sake. It's it reflects the work the division is now responsible for supporting and maintaining coherence across our entire system. But at the same time, we have experienced reductions in budgets and resources. So this does require us to be more intentional in how we organize our work to maintain quality across our system. So why a reorganization is needed? Now over the past several years, as I mentioned, our focus has been on building those systems that schools need, strong instructional materials, professional learning structures to build our teacher workforce in a

241clear instructional framework. Today, although that foundation is in place, the work in front of us now is different. It's about ensuring that those systems are implemented consistently across our schools, that we are monitoring their impact, and that we are holding ourselves accountable for results. We have used multiple data sources. We have lots of data to understand our student progress. But what has been missing in our department is a more coherent systemwide approach to monitoring the implementation across all of our sites. And this is a larger effort. This reorganization allows us to make that shift from building systems to ensuring that those systems are delivering outcomes for our students. This is not a reaction. It's a natural progression of the work we do in the curriculum and instruction. The redesign is grounded in four key principles

242that shape how the model was developed. First, strengthening the instructional core, ensuring that our curriculum, instruction, and professional learning are tightly aligned to support consistent classroom practice. Second, ensuring equitable access to materials and to appropriate supports for our students. Third, establishing accountability. This was a big part of this redesign by strengthening how we monitor implementation and use our data to ensure impact and make changes. And lastly, improving coordination across our systems so our departments are aligned and working together to support schools effectively. All of these principles directly informed how the roles are defined and how the work is carried out across our division. So looking ahead, our focus is going to be on those three key areas that are newer. So developing a district-wide school improvement and account accountability system, one that allows us to

243not only identify the needs but also respond strategically to improve outcomes, strengthening our professional learning system, moving toward more targeted job embedded learning aligned to classroom practice. And third, building leadership development pathways so that our principles and school leaders have a clear progression of learning that strengthens their ability to lead instruction at their campuses. Together, all these focus areas move us from support to sustain improvement across the system and accountability. So, I'm going to spend more time here. I know I rush I I went a little bit quickly through those, but I want to spend a little bit of time here. So, what you'll see is the redesign division is organized around four core functions. And I'm mentioning functions very intentionally, not positions, just functions that work together as a coherent system. These functions represent

244the heart of the work within curriculum and instruction. The department of curriculum, instruction and professional learning will strengthen the instructional core. Exceptional education ensure specialized support and compliance. We have the college career and specialized programs expand student opportunities and assessment and evaluation provides the data and accountability systems to guide improvement. Now, let's go into what the redesign means. As part of the redesign, I'm elevating the current position of senior director of curriculum and professional development to an executive director of curriculum instruction and professional learning. This reflects the ex expanded scope that our division is going to take, including oversight of programs like the two-way do language, fine and performing arts, prek community schools. That is expanded scope for our curriculum and instruction division. So, we're going to have an executive director overseeing that. In addition,

245because our professional learning work is expanding to include leadership development through our leadership prep academy and principal mentors, our current program manager position will be elevated to a director of professional learning and leadership development to reflect the added expansion. I want to be clear, these are elevations of positions, not individuals. that both roles will be posted and filled through an apply and compete process consistent with district practices. In the structure, the senior leadership team for curriculum and instruction includes a senior director overseeing exceptional education that is current, a senior director overseeing assessment and evaluation that is current, and one elevated executive director overseeing the instructional core. This is a realignment of leadership to match our division. The college career and specialized programs that will be directly overseen by me to ensure alignment with our district

246priorities. So, uh all of these functions are just organized into these highle clusters that ensure alignment across programs and services. I do want to acknowledge the leaders and teams currently serving in these roles because their work has been instrumental in building the strong foundation that we have in place. So this structure allows us to operate as a more aligned, leaner, efficient and accountable system that's focused on results. With that um I can go through this Dr. Trillo or this slide we can do you want me to? Okay. All right. We'll talk about the budget piece. >> So for the money um I think Dr. Huitt did a wonderful >> question. Any question about the concept before we get to like the dollars and the cents and and the budgetary impact. Thank you for your presentation.

247So, this is listed as study information, but I'm curious why it's not listed as an action since it involves the creation of new positions, especially administrative positions. >> Um, the superintendent per policy and then uh even the contractual language, the superintendent organizes uh redistributes, reassigns administrators, administrative departments. it's the board that approves salary compensation and ultimately the person coming forward. So it's common uh for me to to um restructure present something get governing board feedback. The goal here is obviously to get governing board feedback right in terms of the prospects of moving forward. So typically unless I'm bringing an individual forward it will always usually be an information or a study item. >> Yeah. because you know I thought that with the elimination of certain positions that would you know be a cost savings whereas

248we're the restructuring um and the additional creation of a deputy superintendent just seems kind of backwards and I'm not completely sold in whether um that is needed or not. I believe that's coming a little bit later in the presentation as well, right? >> Yes. I can start over here if you if you would like, Dr. Jill, with the current CNI leadership structure. So, what you see on the left hand column, it highlights the cost and savings associated with our proposed changes. On the left, you'll see the current senior leadership structure along with additional positions that have been or will be affected as part of this redesign. that is included as part of as part of the overall cost. So, uh you have their associated salary and benefit costs. In the middle, you see the proposed

249more streamlined senior leadership structure and its corresponding costs with the adjustments of the other positions that were affected. And on the right you'll see the administrative savings already approved by the board in February which contribute to the overall reduction of the the cost that we are proposing here. So when taken together there the current structure totals approximately 752,000 compared to a proposed cost for that core leadership team of 541,000. So um this reflects a net reduction in cost not a shift in spending while aligning our leadership to support the work of the division and the added scope. So, Gan, if I can get uh give me a second before we get my um my org chart. Uh what you can see here is we're doing exactly what was asked of us. We're examining efficiencies. We're

250looking at coming in at a cheaper cost. We're looking at covering additional responsibilities with fewer staff members. Um when you go over to my area, I want to start with this. We are about to head into what's going to be the most consequential year in the Tucson Unified School District in about 16 years since we took on the issue of school consolidations and school closures in 2010. One of the factors that contributed to that being such a difficult process back in 2010 and 2012 in my conversations with key decision makers that were involved in that process including including the former administration is that the superintendent wasn't directly involved wasn't directly out and engaged as much and that that a lot of that was delegated to the consultant and to the operations team. I know going

251into this because next week we're going to kick off with a study session on what the general statutory requirements are and what your own governing board policy says is required for public input for school consolidations, boundary reviews, and closures. This coming year is going to be an incredibly important year for me to be more externally focused than ever. When I say externally focused, when we're talking about the difficult conversation of our physical imprint and our geographical imprint that's going to affect schools, site councils, faculties, neighborhood associations, elected officials, I'm going to have to be on the ground the face of whatever talking about. So the need for more internal supervisory support is going to be there and that's the nexus for the discussion of why a deputy superintendent. The second is how can we meet

252that need and how can we do it cheaply and at cost and not create a brand new administrative position. And then third what are the specific deliverables? What are the hard and fast expectations that we would even ask of a deputy? Now knowing that my need more than ever is going to be more civic engagement, more community presence taking on these issues that will essentially kick off next week and it will be the predominant issue of the times for the next 16 to 18 months. And when we're looking at what we can do here, the toughest part of my job is to look at my team as a whole and say where can I meet this organizational's need with existing resources. So you see the absence of the assistant superintendent for leadership and student success,

253taking that existing salary line and utilizing it to create a deputy a deputy superintendent position with the goal of that deputy really exercising daily support, availability, visibility, and responsiveness to our regional assistant superintendent. direct supervision of them, helping to meet the needs of our school campuses, and then also partner with CNI on our soontobe developed internal school improvement process, resources, and accountability for our decision makers in our schools. also our deputy assuming supervisory responsibilities and support responsibilities for our equity departments, our Mexican-American, Native American, African-American student services departments, family and community engagement, making sure that they have uh executive leadership access and making sure that they are fulfilling the commitments that their departments have made for service uh to our families. What you heard in Dr. Huitt's presentation and why there's now added responsibilities over

254to curriculum and instruction is alternative education would be now moved over uh to curriculum and instruction. The professional development wing of the assistant superintendent for leadership and student success leadership prep academy, the training ground for principles coming into the principal ship that would move over to the curriculum and instruction department. the new teacher, the new mentors, the principal mentors that previously were overseen by leadership and student success. That also moves over into curriculum and instruction, which expanded responsibilities creates the need for a director for professional learning. So, this is a position that when I stand back and I see where we're about to go as an organization, what's going to be needed of me as the superintendent, I see this as an organizational need. And it's an organizational need that that we can meet at

255cost. We generated uh over $300,000 in administrative savings. When we eliminated region two, you can literally take 10 $13,000 of that $330,000, add it to the existing salary line of assistant superintendent for leadership and student success, have your deputy position at very minimal cost. And we want to make sure that this is an open process. We want to apply and compete process. we would be looking for a very seasoned administrator, a very seasoned executive level administrator to assume such an important responsibility. So that's a little bit more about this position and I'm certainly available to answer uh any questions and of course Dr. Hwitt any questions bridging back to CNI. >> Miss Sh asking about this deputy position. Do you have any follow questions? >> Yeah, I mean that was very helpful. Um, coming into

256these uh difficult times, I do see that your uh time will be stretched. Um, and so thank you for clarifying. >> Go ahead, Moses. >> Can we put up the slide about the actual current structure, proposed structure, net cost, final cost? >> Yeah, if we could go back into the CNI and just look at the costs. There we go. >> It'll be the next slide. >> The next one. Yeah. >> There we go. Yes. >> So, um, well, whether it's you, Dr. Trillo, or or Mr. Nandez kind of explain the >> the math. >> Yeah. >> Better word. >> So in the current it's so in the current structure um the when I was talking about the existing salary line for the assistant superintendent for leadership and student success the total out the door cost

257for base salary and er and for those of you watching out there u related expenses it's vision it's dental. It's medical. It's paid holidays. It's everything we wrap in that's a that is an added benefit along with the salary. So 36,000 you know plus the base you know you're looking at uh roughly uh 146 I believe that is I'm without my glasses here. Um and for roughly 12 or 13 more thousand more dollars um we could invest in a deputy uh to I think meet a more evolving organizational need. um seeing that the professional learning could move effectively over to curriculum and instruction, freeing time for a deputy really to dial in and support those regional assistant superintendent, really dial in and make sure that our equity departments have support and then also pitch in

258with uh administrative execution on ongoing district initiatives. So you can see the cost there. Um we again if you go back to the previous slide Jean um when you look over there in yellow um you generated quite a bit of savings there uh in the yellow when we did our um you did your administrative reductions on the 24th you can invest a minimal amount there and I think meet an organizational need here obviously nobody wants a second additional administrator uh that's not going to go over well so having to make the tough decision in saying based off of what our present circumstances demand, what's going to be asked of my position as we head into this consequential year, I see an evolving need more for a deputy at this moment uh than our current uh

259administrative uh assistant superintendent position. >> So going back to your org chart, Dr. T, I want to ask uh some followup. >> Sure. >> You remember one of our first meetings we ever had? I think it was shortly after my our first election in 2020. It was like this summer before I was even sworn in. I'm like looking we met and I you had sent me a lot of information including the the current organizational structure and I'm like >> Gabe, you have like 20 reports and like you cannot be functioning as an effective superintendent with that many reports. We made some changes that winter. >> Yes. >> With that feedback to move some departments around, put some more into the COO role and really expand that COO role with some of the positions that we're

260reporting to. Uh I think you know we have uh thanks to a lot of pushing from our governing board we have some really lofty goals for you in terms of academic achievement of our students. Yes. Enrollment issues uh budgetary issues and and potentially some school consolidations if that's where we end up going as a district. >> Uh for you to be able to do all of that and meet the expectations that we have set free as a governing board. You know, our job as a governing board in terms of our supervision of you is making sure you have the tools and resources you need to be successful with that and making sure you don't have too many reports that you can't really supervise effectively while trying to address the external needs as you mentioned in

261the district having a some a sound deputy superintendent. I think one concern that was raised is is that someone going to be just put into that position but you're saying it's going to be an open enrollment open for applications. >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> Um, and hopefully you'll find a good we'll find a good candidate as a district uh that can meet the needs and supervise not just the regional superintendence. I think that's what the structure shows, but really help support the new phase of our district of really holding our principles and school sites accountable for academic achievement, enrollment, culture, and climate in our sites. >> Absolutely. And I think having someone in that role focused on that, supporting our uh student services department, supporting our school sites, our 88 schools and maybe may potentially less

262in the future, but making sure that every school that we have is functioning to this highest capacity. And we know some schools are doing great work and some schools are struggling and um some principles need some additional help and support to be successful or finding other roles for them and bringing someone into the role that can really meet the needs of that community. But to be able to do that groundwork and support the regions uh effectively and the regional superintendent effectively to do that ground work, I think having someone strong and so being really judicious and who you put in that role is going to be really important if this is the direction of the district. >> You know, going from 15 direct reports to seven is really going to be the key to getting

263the out there and really publicly engaged. And also, it's not just the reimagination of our geographical and our physical footprint. It's also our ongoing deficit challenges. We saw with 952 comments in like basically seven or eight days. This community is hungry for engagement on all things financial and budget. So I see a future of a lot more focus groups, a lot more forums, a lot more where I'm directly engaged with our employees and our community regarding the next round of uh unfortunately another year probably of budget cuts alongside with the reimagination of of our school portfolios. >> Val, go ahead. So in this position the deputy um I understand kind of this transition you be forefront on all these things. This individual can take care of the a lot of these responsibilities. Is this this

264kind of looks like it's now a new permanent position when things change? Is that a position that can be dissolved and then you superintendent takes back up that role to co those or is this kind of an intent to grow off of this in this situation? >> Well, I think two things organizations always evolve and grow and change, right? So, there was a point four or five years ago after COVID where we had a tremendous influx of new principles. I mean we had back in I believe it was 2021 2122 we had brought in something like 24 or 25 new principles and so there was an organizational need to really dial in on professional development for retention and support and then also to have an executive level assistant superintendent administrator overseeing um student discipline and

265student the student support services. Now we're kind of headed into this new phase where with some expanded responsibilities over in CNI, we can now move curriculum instruction. We can now move the professional learning over there. I think we have a really strong student relations department that's come into its own. It's got great leadership that can probably now work in the legal department and work with Michael and Rob where where that leader does most of her work anyway getting ready for suspensions, expulsions. So I think the needs of the organization have changed and I can't say it won't change again where there might be a time where you know we can maybe look at the at the org chart one more time. It it's it's administration so all of our administrators know that it's always uh

266the org chart can change. You know we're executive level leadership. There's not the same guarantee of say the tea agreement and the classroom teacher. So our leaders have to be flexible and understand that when the model changes and the structure changes, we have to be prepared to go different direction. >> Miss, >> thank you. I guess I'm still concerned with the fact that we've taken away a region and we don't know how we're going to organize that into these other regions. Uh that's still concerning to me. I do understand your need for a deputy superintendent. Um, but I do have questions on the CNI leadership structure. So, how many people will be fighting for their job? >> So, at this point overall, two. And then how many other people in this department are being cut

267in the department? We made cuts from the February 24th administr uh date and that was the director of multicultural as well as the positions that were vacant for the senior director of magnet and equity departments >> and that's it. That's it. I mean our cost savings is only $210,000. Um you know when it was promised that it was going to be a whole lot more. I just That's concerning to me because we've eliminated important departments to only save $210,000. >> That was part of Oh, >> yeah. I think if Jane, you want to go back to the CNI? So, really, we want to make sure we have a total out the door. Um, so we're looking at the administration. We're looking at the central administration as a whole. That's like director level, assistant superintendent and

268department level. So you take what was done just internally with CNI with going to director's lighter. There's a cost savings there. Yes. Of you know 2001 $212,000. But then there's also what the board did to region 2 on February 24th. So you add in that $345,000. So >> no one understand that. >> Yeah. So yeah, but you're right. If it's just CNI, sure it's $200,000, but administration as a whole, uh, we're over half a million. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Miss Shaw. You look pensive. >> Yeah, I am pensive. I'm just as Miss Extramm just said trying to weigh the costs and the benefits and you know I'm not totally convinced that the elimination of the um or the merger of the multicultural department to CNI was the best decision. Um, any last comments or

269feedback or questions for the team? >> Yeah, I um well, when this comes back, Dr. Trillo in April. Will that be to hire new positions, hire the deputy director or what is going to happen in April? Exactly. >> Well, we want to go ahead and post the positions which we're not going to have any interviews done uh I don't think by our next governing board meeting. So, you know, by all means, if there's additional feedback or if there's additional thoughts, uh there's going to be time. It's going to take time to build an applicant pool. Well, I would like this item to come back um with additional information. I'd like to see a complete and accurate organizational chart. Um I'd like to see a clear breakdown of the actual cost changes uh separate from the

270reductions that the board already made. Um and then I would like staff to gather feedback um from principles, teachers and the CNI staff regarding these proposed changes. Um and really I I would like us to I I would like more information how these uh positions and the restructuring are actually going to improve uh student outcomes. I would like to just, you know, I'll go with the will of the board, but this is the first time like I would ever have to do that level of engagement for executive administration restructuring. That's very clearly in the superintendent's wheelhouse. So, understand the board has ultimate authority and that's fine. In my worldview, this isn't cutting a program where absolutely yes, you better go to a school if you're going to close a CTE program, if you're going to

271close teaching positions, if you're going to go close, we're talking the highest levels of executive administration. I'm not sure that that amount of stakeholders would have an intimate understanding of what a deputy is supposed to do or how it's supposed to impact schools or what an executive director for professional development or I'm sorry for curriculum instruction professional development happy to implement the board's will. Um, but it is not something that's that I've had to do in terms of this level of administration, which essentially is at the executive level. I think there's some questions that we can answer. I think following up with um the plan for region two how that's going to be divided up and what our organization plan is there on some of the CNI questions that we had. >> I think that

272actually or charts I think yes I think costs I think breaking up region two got a meeting with the regionals uh coming up next week you know their input is valuable they know the schools they know the landscape and I think maybe being able to see that uh will maybe put folks a little bit more at ease. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. And thank you for the late night presentation here tonight. Sorry. >> All right. Dr. Tri, I think we're on the last item, future meeting dates and agenda. >> Yes. So, October, I'm sorry, October. What am I in the fall? April 14th. Um, Mr. Ross and Mr. Arinoff will uh give an inservice to the board on uh statutory requirements and board policy requirements for closures, consolidations, and boundary reviews.

273uh with the goal of of discussing with the board a procedural timeline. Still again not naming anything a procedural timeline for which the board may want to engage. Secondly, uh we'll probably have a study information item first for Palaverie. It is done an incredible amount of of engagement with its community about doing something innovative with its school week and potentially moving towards a 4day school week. So, we're we're looking forward to um giving an information item there as well. So, uh we will be busy. We'll also have a new round of appointments uh for principles coming up and hopefully, keep your fingers crossed, we may for the first time in over a year may have a hiring recommendation for chief operations officer, which is a big position in the district. So, looking forward to our

274next meeting. >> Mos. >> Oh, Miss Sherry. >> Thank you. Um, I would like to add a couple items to a future agenda. Um, one being a discussion of the renaming of Sam Hughes and Miles. Um, per governing board policy FF and FF-R. I'm not sure if we can initiate that technically at the board level. I know we had folks who came to our call to the audience, but I don't think technically they they did the proper procedure. Um and then a a staff member from the health department reached out to me regarding uh menration equity work. Um they are seeing if we would join a coalition in the county to uh provide uh menration products at our schools um within our own budget. Uh though there are groups that um offer these uh supplies

275uh free of charge. So I was hoping we could have that on a future agenda. >> Anything else? governing board members. All right. Thank you. We'll see you on April 14th.