TUSD1-New Link February 10th 2026 Governing Board Meeting

001So when is Yeah. Thank you so much. Good to see you. All right. All right. Where are they? >> Where are the kids? Stand right here so the board can see it. Who's doing the pledge? >> These two. >> Just Just the two of them. >> Okay. >> Would you like to hold the microphone? >> Say test >> test. >> Me? No, you said >> test. >> Okay. So when when it's time to do the pledge, just come up and stand in front of your dad. He wouldn't mind holding the microphone >> in front of the podium. Okay. >> Do you is it you comfortable with that? >> Okay. Thank you. Is it on? You're holding it. >> I know you're holding it. >> You are. He said >> they're gonna have a performance. Are

002you going to go up there? >> Well, good afternoon everyone. My name is Dr. Ravi Sha, president of our governing board and I am happy to get this uh meeting in order tonight. Uh today is Tuesday, February 10, and on this day in 1967, the US ratified the 25th amendment to the US Constitution, and it has terms regarding presidential and vice presidential succession along with other items which may or may not be relevant in the in the near future. Uh, and as we ponder an AI takeover of the world, an important event on this path occurred on this day in 1996 when IBM's Deep Blue defeated chess champion Gary Kaser Kasparov. So, big uh leap forward in uh technology a few decades ago. And today we celebrate National Umbrella Day. So many an item that's

003very common but not very used in Tucson with our blue skies. and also National Cream Cheese Brownie Day. So that's an interesting combination, but a delicious one at that. Uh with that, Miss Bola, can we have roll call, please? >> Miss Extra >> here, Miss Una Rose >> here, Mr. Rometos >> here, >> Dr. Robbie >> here, >> Miss Shaw >> here, >> and next we'll have our land acknowledgement statement tonight read by Miss Shady uh Miss Satie Shaw. Thank you. On behalf of the governing board of the Tucson Unified School District, I Sadi Shaw acknowledge that the schools, buildings, and facilities of the Tucson Unified School District reside on the ancestral homeland of the Tahana Odon Nation and the federally recognized tribal land of the Pascoyaki tribe. >> Thank you, board member Sha. Uh,

004next we have our pledge of allegiance and we have for me some special guests here tonight. My, uh, two children. My oldest is actually here as well who'll be performing in the Alice Veil Jazz Band in a few moments. But for the pledge of allegiance, we have my twins Arya and Erjun Gravo Sha. They are both second grade students. Uh great students at Lime Giver Elementary School. Arya's favorite subjects in school are writing and PE. She enjoys playing outside, board games, and Minecraft. And her favorite activities include weekend movie nights and family game nights. She is active in Girl Scouts and enjoys playing on her soccer team. Erjun is favorite school subjects are reading and PE. He loves playing Mario and Zelda games and spending time outside on the playground. Some of his favorite activities

005are watching TV and having fun during family game nights. He also enjoys playing on his soccer team and participates in cross country. Everyone, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Go ahead. >> I pledge alce to the flag of United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation >> under God, >> indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Thank you. Good job. >> Right. Uh Dr. here. Next, we have agenda adjustments. Are there any agenda adjustment recommendations for tonight? >> Uh, President, members of the governing board, uh, I'd like to move up item 6.4, a very special moment for our community as the family of Oscar Romero will be requesting the board uh, on a very, very important request regarding Cherry Field. And then item 8.1, uh,

006probably tonight's item of most consequence, employee benefits. We have some guests from Valley Schools. Uh, we would like to move them up. both of these items 64 and 81 directly following the call to the audience. >> Okay. Any objection? All right. I'll take unanimous with consent for those agenda adjustments. Dr. Trio, back to you for superintendent report. >> As always, we love to begin every single board meeting with a celebration of student excellence. Whether that's academic excellence or its artistic and musical excellence, it's all part of the amazing story of the TUSD uh Tucson Unified School District student body. And tonight we begin the meeting with a performance by the Aliceville Middle School jazz band directed by Alan Honiker. This talented ensemble whose membership is earned through a very competitive audition process performs a diverse

007repertoire that includes swing, funk, Latin and rock styles. These students rehearse every single day as part of their class schedule. And they bring tremendous energy and musicianship to everything that they do. The jazz band has consistently earned excellent and superior ratings at the Arizona Band and Orchestra Directors Association Tucson Area Jazz Festival. Many of these young musicians also participate in Veil's Advanced Symphonic Band. This year, we're especially proud that three of the students were selected for the Arizona Allstate Band, an absolutely remarkable achievement. And tonight's selections are The Defibrillator by Adrien Ray and Orange Sherbet by Count Baisy, arranged by Sammy Nestico. On behalf of the Tucson Unified School District, I want to thank the students, Mr. Haniker, Principal Josh Peebles, the Bale Middle School staff, TUSD Fine Arts. You're about to see another amazing

008example as to why the Tucson Unified School District is the leader in Arizona when it comes to music and arts excellence for our students. Take it away, Alice Vale. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Hey, Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. All right, that one you rise for the month. Okay. Heat. Heat. Heat. How about another round of applause for the wonderful musicians from Alice Veil and the wonderful parents that support them. Absolutely. >> Dr. Tier, that was a senior almost adult band we just had. >> They were absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing. >> Eighth graders and seventh graders, right? >> That's right. >> It's amazing. It hurts. Okay. >> It's okay. I can read it. Okay, there's only one >> All right, moving on with our uh superintendent report. We kick

009off uh our first February meeting celebrating the beginning of Black History Month here in the Tucson Unified School District. February provides a meaningful opportunity for the thousands of students that we serve to reflect on and honor the significant contributions of African-Americans, not just here locally around our state, but nationally. Across our district, schools and departments have organized activities and learning experiences that connect students to black history, art, culture, and achievement. For example, our middle school students recently complete competed in the annual Black History Month brain bowl, demonstrating impressive knowledge about historical figures and events. Black History Month isn't just about celebration. It's about deepening understanding, lifting up voices, and inspiring our students to learn from the past to shape a more just and equitable future. I believe we've made available as a public attachment uh

010all of the different events that our African-American student services department have worked hard at commu at uh planning and putting together with our community partners throughout the month uh to celebrate Black History Month. had an opportunity to do some school visits. Had a great time visiting both Tuli and Robbins, two great school communities out there uh towards the southwest adjacent part of the Tucson Unified School District universe. Thank you to Sean Wilkins and principal uh Chandra Thomas uh Tully and Robins principles uh respectively. had a great time visiting both schools and had a really good time with the student uh leaders that welcomed me out there at Tully and showed me the garden and the first time I had been out there since they completed the garden. Now, it's a beautiful place. It's got all

011kinds of different types of vegetation and plants and they introduced me to their desert tortoise who is hibernating for the season. But always impressed to see our school gardens uh in full bloom. So had a wonderful visit out there at at Tuli. Had an opportunity to sit down at Robins with our wonderful employees uh for a focus group largely on the issues that matter to our employees. We had great discussions and actually a discussion that's probably pertinent tonight as our employees out at Robins talked to me about benefits and just how difficult the benis the benefits landscape is. We talked about facilities and some of the facilities challenges uh at the school and then a really productive discussion about the future of the Tucson Unified School District as we face some unprecedented challenges with economic

012flight and birth rates and demographic changes. And so very very productive and meaningful conversation with our employees out there at Robins. Uh in late January, I had an opportunity to stop by the spelling bee out at uh Howenstein. I want to thank uh governing board member uh Miss Extram. She served as sort of the celebrity judge uh and had the difficult difficult task of choosing amongst all those amazing students that so bravely competed uh for for their respective schools. So representative from schools across the district uh came together to compete to see who could be the best speller in the Tucson Unified School District. It was a close and exciting competition. We certainly want to congratulate Eleanor from Linew Weaver Elementary School. She placed first and then Ablade from Dodge uh who took second place

013and then Mar from Meyers Ganong Elementary placed third. But it is Eleanor and Adelaide that will represent the Tucson Unified School District at the upcoming Puma County Spelling Bee. We applaud all of our students for their hard work and their bravery and getting out there and competing and their dedication and poise under pressure. Also, uh, couple weeks ago, I had an opportunity to attend the University High School Senior Debate, one of the historic events that takes place uh, every single year on the University High School campus. Once again, our seniors demonstrated exceptional critical thinking, civic engagement, and respectful dialogue as they formed their own political parties and debated issues ranging from foreign policy to domestic priorities. These debates showcase their research, communication skills, and deep thinking about the future. It's inspiring to see our students

014engage in civil discourse and tackle complex topics with maturity. respect and of course a vision for the future. I also had an opportunity to meet with our parent advisory council uh hosted by the Mexican-American student services department. I want to thank all of our parents who came out for an evening of meaningful dialogue and shared their perspectives and engage in a very constructive conversation about how we can best support all of our students and families during this most difficult time. Not surprisingly, the dominant topic of discussion that evening was recent immigration enforcement actions by the federal government, concerns from our families about how the district and our schools can keep their kids safe, how we can keep them safe. Uh the insights from these discussions of course continue to shape our work uh and strengthen

015our partnerships with our families and our community members. I also was able to head down along with the Ringcon, the RUHS administrative teams to the Arizona Music Educators Association annual conference where the extremely talented Sabarro High School guitar orchestra and of course the world famous here in Arizona Ringcon University Jazz Band performed and distinguished themselves with absolutely excellent musicianship and artistry as they captivated the crowd there AMA. The MEA established in 1939 promotes music study, supports comprehensive music instruction, and champions widely accessible music education in every single public school here in Arizona. They recognize, as we do, that music education is a core part of curriculum because it builds creativity, critical thinking, teamwork, and even help students deepen their literacy, math, and science skills. Uh it is the Marquee Professional Association for Music Educators in

016the state of Arizona and to be asked to perform at their annual conference is one of the most meaningful accomplishments and honors that any district or school-based uh musical group or band could have the opportunity of um receiving. So, we want to thank the AMA for welcoming both Sawarro and the Ringcon University jazz groups to perform. It was a truly an honor to attend and and celebrate our student excellence. And lastly, uh last week I had the opportunity of attending our closing dinner with a to the Tucson Korea ambassador program. Uh this program of course provides our students with powerful opportunity to engage in global learning, cultural exchange and diplomacy while representing TUSD with pride. Uh the closing dinner was such a wonderful celebration of the students growth, reflection and shared experiences. It was a

017clear how meaningful and transformative this opportunity had been for our student participants as well as the team of educators that joined them from South Korea. I want to recommend I want to commend our students for being outstanding ambassadors for the district and extend my gratitude to the staff, the program coordinators and especially the host families who make this program possible. Experiences like TECAP remind us how impactful global education can be in preparing students to be thoughtful and engaged and interconnected global citizens. So, uh, another wonderful year of TECAP. She's not here right now, but I certainly want to extend a personal uh note of gratitude and thanks to our program coordinator uh that works in refugee student services, June Lee, who works very very hard uh to put that program together. And in closing the

018superintendence report tonight, I wanted to update our community, our external community, and of course our TUSD community on the training on our plan and protocol for federal immigration enforcement actions that we provided to all of our principles and all of our front office teams last week. Uh, our principles are working through all of their schools to extend that training to all of their staffs. uh to make sure that all of the teachers and all of their classified staff uh are fully trained on our plan and protocol for any potential situation where we could be facing a federal immigration enforcement action on our campus. So that training really covered some broad areas that I'll make sure and capture uh for all of you that are watching. First, it starts with our policies. I think uh we

019can never repeat enough that TUSD policy ACB is the official not only policy but is the official statement of our core value that all children are welcome in this district and every single school regardless of immigration status, national origin uh or any type of political or religious affiliation or background. And our policy supports federal law uh based on the landmark Supreme Court decision pllyier veto which prohibits schools from using immigration and immigration status as a criteria for enrollment or fore as a means to discontinue enrollment for students. That also applies to all of our parents. We do not uh enforce or collect immigration documentation on any of our parents as they bring their students to our schools or as they join us in celebrating the achievements of their students. Our school will continue to be

020a safe space and an immigration enforcement free zone for the students and the families that we serve. uh TUSD policy JIH does require law enforcement identification and a warrant. Uh I believe that what is different from a year ago when we did this training for our employees, uh we did this a year ago talking about these protocols, talking about the difference between a judicial warrant and a an administrative warrant. A year ago, we were assuming that we were going to be interacting with federal law enforcement officers that we're going to be upholding the same standards of professionalism and transparency that we've always seen with the Tucson Police Department or the Puma County Sheriff's Department or even the Phoenix Police Department when I used to work with them in my former role. U basic standards of

021professionalism that officers engage in every single day. identifying themselves, showing badges, presenting warrants, checking in at the front office. Disturbingly and sadly, a year later, we are no longer in that situation where we can make that assumption. So, we did give guidance to all of our principles that any individual presenting themselves on our campus that is refusing to identify themselves, that have masks, that are refusing to provide a badge or give a name, no matter what uniform they have on, no matter what paper they're waving around and claim to have, they are at that point an unidentified intruder. And we have given the guidance and the directive to principles in that situation to lock the campus down. It is at that point no different than dealing with an intruder. We don't know without a badge.

022We don't know without identification. We don't know if this is somebody who is falsely impersonating a law enforcement official. We don't know what the intentions are. So the protocol in that situation would be for our principles to lock the campus down for our students to go into that protocol and at that point we will be notifying law enforcement, local law enforcement immediately to request their assistance in dealing with that situation. Hopefully no principal, no school community will have to engage in that protocol. But sadly, we cannot take it off the table and have to make sure that every single uh principal and every single front office team understands very clearly what to do in that situation. We also talked about other areas of guidance. ICE access to student records is the same. We have the

023same expectation for access to student records as we would for physical presence on a campus. We need you to identify yourself. We need to see a badge. We need to see a judicial warrant in order to be able to release those records. We reviewed with our office managers and our front office teams as well as all of our principles. We provided them physical copies and actual copies of what a judicial warrant looks like and what an administrative warrant looks like. And now we're only honoring those judicial warrants. We provided guidance on school parking lots and field trips with the very clear understanding that we want all of our parents to know and all of our principles and all of our employees know. Once students step onto our buses, it's like stepping onto campus. You are

024now under the protection of the Tucson Unified School District. So any federal enforcement, any federal immigration enforcement action would require the same protocol that we would ask on a campus. We want to see your face. We want to see a badge. Identify yourself like any other law enforcement officer we deal with. And we want to see a judicial warrant. And so, as I mentioned before in the previous slide, when we do have potential for a federal law enforcement official refusing to show any type of ID, uh, we are going to be treating that as an unauthorized, unidentified campus intruder and exercising a campus lockdown and calling for local law enforcement immediately for assistance. So, we also, if we go to the next slide, I think that might be it. Okay, that's our slide. We're also

025working with the Tucson Education Association. I want to thank President Jim Burn, uh, who is taking the lead for the Tucson Education Association and our director for Mexican-American Student Services, Maria Federico Brummer, uh, representing not only her department, but sort of the administration in that partnership. They're working together to put together um what uh immigrant support teams would look like on each campus as well as what resources we can compile as a school district and make easily available for uh families who have been impacted by any kind of federal immigration enforcement action. So, uh with that I can turn it over to board members. This is an agendaized topic so it is open for question and comment. governing board members. Miss Sha, >> thank you for the information, Dr. Trujillo. I do want to follow

026up about the know your rights info that I requested at the last board meeting. Um, we are in the process of printing out about 15,000 of those red cards in English, Spanish, and Arabic. Uh, and we're working to get um um another handout or or mailer with all the other languages within our district to to everyone. So, not just the red cards, but hopefully um you know, paper for everyone to take home. Oh, thank you. Um and then uh just for your information, um Dr. Trio, I didn't notice the Black History Month events on as an attachment for this item, but uh you are able to find the calendar of events through the African-American Student Services Department uh website. And it looks like there's some contests coming up for um middle school students for a

027poem, art for our elementary school students, and then um interdisciplinary uh art call for high school students. So do check that out. Um thank you, >> Miss. >> Uh Dr. Dr. Tamil, I just wanted to make sure that we were going to get more information out to parents as far as emergency contacts and other items that they need to provide to district so that we can safely release a child in case they are unable to pick them up. >> Absolutely. >> All right. Uh I'll just finally say here I just want to thank uh TEA and all the folks who came to our last governing board meeting to uh really push on this issue and make sure this is something that our district was prioritizing uh on the communication on the education on the policy

028development. Uh timing was perfect with professional learning day just around the corner from uh from that meeting. So I'm glad we were able to use that effectively. Uh any other comments or Dr. T, anything else? >> Uh that concludes the superintendent's report. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Trillo. I'll turn over to my board colleague uh clerk Luna Rose to lead us in our uh call to the audience. >> Right. Thank you and good evening everybody. Thank you for joining us. Members of the public may speak during the call to 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 and complete a request to

029the address the board form before the meeting. Speakers who have not completed a request form are not permitted to address the board. The speaker must state their full name and a topic prior to addressing the board. Speakers are encouraged to be briefed for the maximum time of three 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

030from preschool through high school, speakers should be aware that there may be children present and listening. At the end of call of the audience, the governing board president will ask any board member if they wish to respond to a criticism. Ask staff to review a matter or ask that a matter be put on a future agenda. No more than two board members may address each topic. And our first speaker this evening is Andy Morales. Hello, my name is Andy Morales. Um, I'm I'm here to speak on behalf of renaming Cherryfield to Oscar Merrillfield. I'm not a citizen of TUSD, but I'm a citizen of a community having delivered thousands of tennis shoes to your elementary schools and and I and I honor your high school athletes almost every night. And hopefully soon America Kazarus will

031break the southern Arizona scoring record which is great for a Latina from the southside and that's from your district. But I'm here to talk uh in case some we have a rash of people get upset because we've been renaming things. Cherryfield is not really named at well Cherryfield is named after the original Cherry Field which is on the UVA property which is where the Mirror Lab is where the old baseball stadium is. That was Cherry Field in the 1920s up to the 1930s. When you built Cherry when you built this uh um a place for your athletes to practice in 1947, you just adopted the name Cherryfield. So there really is no it's not named after anybody. It's named after a street. Um so that's important to know. And there's president here, precedent here because

032in in 2000 you renamed Rand Gidley um Badger football stadium to Rand Gidley field and that was appropriate and and my friend Oscar um and uh I I don't want to get emotional, but his 488 wins are roughly one-third of all the wins ever in Tucson High history in 1,516 victories. He he um he present himself with honor. He taught his players respect the game and a lot of stuff has happened to that field. Interesting. 1948 the city want to take it away to put a basin and that came back in 2008. You guys worked together and uh I believe 1995 the city took away six six acres of that field. Um, that's with stood the test of time and I think Oscar is going to withtood the test of time and we were robbed

033of having Oscar standing in the stands with gray hair watching future kids play and I think it's very appropriate to uh rename it to uh Oscar Romero Field and I I think you were going to add Cherry Field on there but um there should be no controversy. It should be it should be an easy thing to do. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Par Adan. Thank you. My name is Paratian and the topic is renaming Davis Romero School. Distinguished members of the board, Dr. Gabriel Trujillo. On June 17, 2025, during the TUSD board meeting, the Davis Romero committee requested your vote to approve Davis school's name change. And pres here with us, we have Dr. Mario Salate, Dr. Guerrero, and Dr. Valenuela's members of the Davis committee. And we also have Judy Romero, Dr. Romero's

034daughter. Thanks to your vote, on June 17th, Davis School proudly became Davis Romero Bilingual Elementary Magnet School, honoring the legacy of Dr. Auadalupe Guerrero Romero, a visionary leader in bilingual education. We want to express our gratitude to each one of you for voting yes in recognizing the impact Dr. Romero had in our school and community. Thank you, Dr. Trujillo, for your time, guidance, and support during the renaming process. We felt encouraged and energized every time we met with you. Gracias, Al Seor, Nicolola Roman. You were our guiding light along the path. Your support, motivation, and encouragement uplifted our spirits. The renaming process started with a cis ped feeling thanks to seenora Marisella Campio former Davis principal and seenor Cruz Silva parent of a Davis student now Davis Romero school their support time and actions were

035monumental in the renaming process and allowed us to start continue and end with positive results. We thank Mr. Mark Alvarez for making it possible to contact Seora Campio and start the renaming process. On November 14, we had a ceremony to celebrate the renaming of the school. That day, November the 14 was also Dr. Romero's birthday, making this a very special day to remember. The David Romero committee wants to present a talking of appreciation to each one of you who made this historic event possible. So each one of you members of the board, Dr. Trujillo will receive a certificate with your name thanking you for everything you did. The vote yes vote was monumental, too. And on the back you'll see an invitation and also the program to this wonderful event. So I want to present

036Marisella Campo our former principal, the certificate and seenor the parent from Davis who was a key to have all this done. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and um Miss Boroa will have each one of for a certificate for each one of you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. >> Okay, next is Cameron Rodriguez. Thank you, board members. I'm Cameron Rodriguez, a teacher at Brinkcon High School, and I will speak on discret concealment, compliance, and finances. Eight days ago, I notified administration of two ongoing state investigations into clear violations of Arizona law that involved TUSD and its insurer. But no brief on these investigations was placed on tonight's executive session agenda. Admin had 8 days notice of pending investigations, but no brief for the board. Is this kind

037of material concealment normal? From now on, we'll know. In the last week alone, the state of Arizona has documented TUST breaking the law three separate times. Countless open meeting law violations going back years, currently being frantically backfilled, casually blowing workers compensation deadlines with an air of reckless incompetence. and then several glaring statutory reporting failures confirmed by the industrial commission. One claim, two investigations, same people. After the auditor general's report last meeting, I took the liberty of reviewing to USD's municipal bond disclosures in Emma and have taken note of emissions that place the district's A+ fifth rating at real risk. MSRB rule 15C212 requires certain disclosures of material events to bond holders that TUSD is not keeping up with. Not great. The bottom line is you can't protect students from ICE if you can't keep the

038district out of receiverhip. I will end with some questions. Is loyalty to this particular administration worth higher insurance premiums, a lower credit rating, and the collapse of public trust? Is it worth making TUSD's already fragile financial position worse? Can this district really afford litigation costs fighting a disabled prosay teacher trying to get an MRI? How is this helpful? I actually do love TUSD for all of its faults. Is it too much to ask that our administration demonstrate the same love and care for the district? Is it too much to ask that it puts the district before egos? that taxpayer money not be spent shielding lazy, expensive incompetence from oversight. I do not expect any answers, obviously, not even one. But I am more than open to being wrong and admitting it. I found that it

039is a useful skill personally. Thank you. >> Thank you. The next is Lillian Fox. Yeah, I kind of agree with what he said. My name is Lillian Fox, Superintendent Trillo, uh, Pres Chairman, President Shaw, members of the board, and Yolanda Borbboa. Okay, here's where we are. TUSD sucks. We are the next to the worst dis district academically in this area. We are the next to the worst big district. A lot of it is because we have a 34% chronic truency. I know you've heard this before, but he doesn't hear it. He doesn't have a strategy for doing anything about the chronic absenteeism. Until you do something about that, you're going to be awful. Your enrollment is declining because you're uncompetitive. The west side, the east side schools are hurt the most because they're up against

040three outstanding school districts. People don't buy houses in East Tucson if they can get one in one of the good districts. People who live in Tucson on the east side send their kids to those school districts because they are so much better than TOSD is. There is no excuse for TOSD being so bad. Our kids are at least as smart as those good school district kids are. It's nothing to do with the kids intelligence. It's everything to do with the incompetence of this district. Um, we're uncompetitive for multiple reasons. I won't run through them, but they're all pretty obvious. Um, they're either based on the student and teacher surveys that say your schools are filthy, bullying rates are very high, and classroom disruption is a real problem. Um, you have no strategy to do anything

041about the chronic truency and no strategy whatsoever to improve educational outcomes. How in the world could you renew for three years a superintendent has no strategy to deal with major problems this district has? It is unbelievable to me. Um furthermore, you don't have the expertise you need in your CFO. He has no training, no experience that qualifies him to be the CFO of an organization that has a budget of almost $800 million and something like 70 thou 7,000 employees. You are extremely high risk. Out of the 270 districts in Arizona, you're in the top nine for financial risk. That is going to cost you millions of dollars in additional costs to get those bonds out. You've got, I don't remember, it's in one of the handouts here, $454 million of bonds you want to put

042out. You've only done like 40 million of them. You are going to pay through the nose and it's you don't have the expertise you need in leadership here. Thank you. Oh, one more thing. This is your um bond committee um agenda that you're approving tonight. There is no plan to do anything about academic >> time is up. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Next is Jade Sims. Good evening to you all. Um, I don't have any special labels. I'm just a parent. Um, don't know how much that means to you all, but my son attends Tulsen Elementary. Um, so because I can get emotional over this, I'm going to just read it from my phone if that's okay with you all. A little bit more. Better. Okay. So, good evening. My name is Jade Sims and

043I'm the parent of a student at Tulsa Tulsen Elementary and I'm here because on February 5th, my son was physically assaulted by his teacher during class resulting in a head injury in which case he hit his head on the base of a dry erase board metal brace um bar that's at the base of that board. He was evaluated by the school nurse after this took place. While a head injury report was issued, it did not accurately document how the injury occurred, the time the injury occurred occurred, and the district's response has raised serious concerns regarding student safety, documentation, accuracy, and accountability. Since this is incident, my son has experienced fear and anxiety related to school and authority figures, missed important school activities, his first um elementary school dance, Valentine's dance, he didn't attend, um and

044now requires ongoing support to restore his sense of safety in the learning environment. My concern extends beyond the conduct of one teacher to the institutional response that followed, including incomplete documentation um and a lack of transparent communication which places students at risk and exposes the district to liability. I am respect respectfully requesting an independent review of this incident and the document process confirmation of corrective action taken to ensure student safety and a written response outlining the steps the district will implement to prevent a similar incident from occurring in the future. Um after this took place on February 5th, the teacher was removed, suspended, put on home leave while they I guess reviewed what took place um because it wasn't an investigation. Um he was then placed back in the classroom today without me being notified

045with the same teacher. Um as someone who's been um molested as a child, the last thing you want to do is send your kid back to the uncle that molested them. Um I've visited the district. I've filed complaints. And um needless to say, whether my son is doing fine and resilient today, a month from now, a year from now, he could suffer neurological disorders. Um, not to mention his trauma that he'll have to now be therapeutically, you know, resuscitated from. Um, and I I just I desire justice. Um, and I think this is just as important as ICE coming into the schools because you got teachers in there acting like ICE. Thank you. Um, next is Edgar Sto. Good evening, chair, Dr. Sha, members of the board, superintendent through first of all, I want to

046thank you all for the amazing tod education I did get. I went to Tucson High School and um one of the best experience I've ever had in in TOSD and currently I work at Puma Community College. I'm a vice president but was also in other capacities and we always really appreciate our students from the Tucified School District and and how um the ones that we've had are really prepared and and doing well. But but I'm here tonight to speak um of my former high school baseball coach, Oscar Romero. And I want to respectfully encourage a yes vote on naming the baseball field after Oscar Romero, who dedicated over 30 years at Tucson High, not just as a student because he graduated from there. Um but he also left a lasting impact not just on the

047players, but on the community. And for me personally, he was far more than a coach. He was a mentor, a steady presence, and someone I could always count on. He's the reason I became a coach. He actually gave me my first job in 1992 as his JV baseball coach. And the lessons he taught about discipline, character, accountability, and caring for people I've carried with me my entire life and pass on to my own children and every athlete I've coached. Naming this field in his honor would be a powerful and fitting tribute to to his legacy and a meaningful honor for his family and generations of students to come. Thank you your for your consideration. >> Thank you. And uh Dr. Shaw, we have one letter to be read. Good evening board members. I am writing

048today to express my concerns and request assistance in the planning and preparation for receiving students with visual and hearing impairments within TUSD as we lose a valuable and essential community resource within the Arizona State School for the Deaf and Blind. As ASDB is planning to move out of Tucson and dissolve some of its services for our students that are blind and have significant support needs, TUSD's exit and vision services in particular will be strained beyond sustainability with an influx in case loads. a reduced budget for materials and infosition insufficient staffing as teachers of visually impaired and itinerant providers for TUSD. There's been no communication or transparency from exceptional education leadership or ASDB in order to sufficiency plan prepare train staff equip classrooms or school sites with appropriate tools and technology and the best meet and

049best meet the needs of students with visual and hearing impairments and their families. We need to bring all parties to the table and develop a transition plan in response to losing such a large resource resource. Please extend resources, funding, staffing, and communications efforts to our exceptional education department and vision and hearing services in particular. I appreciate your guidance, consideration, and continued support of our students with diverse needs. Thank you for your time. Erin Tmaine, teacher of students with visual impairments to TUSD exceptional education. And that concludes call the audience. Dr. Shaw. >> Thank you, Clerk. Uh, Luna Rose. Now, our governing board has the opportunity to respond to criticism, ask staff to review a matter, or ask that a matter be put on a future future agenda. Reminder that no more than two members may

050legally address each topic. Miss Shaw and Miss Lose. Good evening everyone. Thank you for all those who came to speak today. Um, to Mr. Rodriguez, we are briefed outside of exec individually. Um and but thank you for coming to the board meeting and and debriefing us. Um as well uh for the comments from Miss Fox, I would like to ask that staff um come to the board um board meeting with uh their strategy for chronic truency. Um, as you know, we do have a serious issue with that and we are losing um some years up to $15 million uh due to this uh truncy issue. Um I appreciate everyone coming to speak um for Oscar Romero and the renaming of that field. I will certainly be voting yes on that item. Um for Miss Sims,

051I sincerely apologize to what happened to your son. I'm sorry that we um sounds like we mishandled the situation and I'm sorry you had to even come here today to um put us on notice about that. Um I would like to ask staff to give us a full um report on this incident. Um, I would also like to see an independent review um of how this incident was handled and why um the disciplinary actions or lack thereof for these this teacher um is not as severe as it should be. Um with that, uh thank you Rose. >> Thank you and thank you everybody for coming this evening. Um I would like to um bounce off Miss Shaw um Dr. Trillo and looking into the issue with Miss Sims and her son um if we can

052get um a report to the board um and on what that outcome will be. So u Miss Sims, thank you. I know it's not always easy to come to a full room. Um you can always tell when people are shaking and they're coming up and I know this is a very emotional issue for you. So thank you for coming this evening. Um, also Dr. Trillo, um, if we can also get on a future agenda. Um, I know that there's a lot of, um, moving parts concerning ASDB and what is happening with the elimination of that, um, facility. Uh, and I know it's thrown a lot of parents um, lives upside down for their children. So, if we could get a I I I know it's not necessarily always all of what's going on with TUSD,

053but more of what's coming from the state if we can get an update on that. Um, and just as a personal note, um, and I do appreciate everybody coming to give comment, but um, I too attended, um, TUSD schools and I'm a graduate of Raycon High School and I had a great education and I don't particularly and I if I thought TUSD sucked, I wouldn't have sent my daughter here. So, um don't particularly appreciate those type of comments because I think they're hurtful and divisive and um can bring people down when they're trying to not only bring their children to our schools, but the employees who are working hard. We do have our problems as any other large entity, but those uh type of comments don't help. And um lastly, thank you all the speakers

054for u Mr. uh Romero and looking forward to um voting on that this evening. Thank you, >> Mr. Romero. >> Um, just one thing. Well, I was going to do two things, but now I can only do one thing. Thanks, Natalie. Um, chronic frequency. Um, I think again, I want to second Miss Shaw's uh, uh, you know, take on that one. Also revisiting chronic absenteeism because I know they do go hand in hand. So maybe coming up with a new study session or another opportunity to relook into that as far as strategy I think would be great for us um as a district. Thank you, Dr. Ch. Any other comments? I'll just conclude by saying we have four parents here who choose to for our schools and we do not think schools suck. Uh next

055on the agenda, we'll be going to item 6.4 I believe. Dr. Ho, let me get that pulled up here. Sorry, with a new diligence system, it's not as easy. So, approval to rename Cherryfield complex to Oscar Romero ballpark at Cherry Field. Yeah. Um, this is a very special moment uh for us here uh at the governing board meeting. I know in a moment we're going to we're going to welcome uh Principal John Lanso to kind of introduce this item, but uh the Tucson Unified School District is one of Arizona's oldest uh school districts. It originally was a territorial school district uh created in 1867. And throughout the last, you know, 140 or 50 years, it's been filled with amazing educators, exceptional personalities that have influenced thousands of students uh through their service as principles, as

056teachers, as counselors, as coaches, as art directors, theater directors. But in the history of Tucson High, uh there are few names that loom larger in its history, not just with baseball, but in its history of championing not only athletic excellence, but academic excellence and and personal excellence. There are few names that loom larger than coach Oscar Romero. And it's it's not about the 488 wins. That's that's one of the best records in the state. It's not about how many games he won, but it was his love for the students. It was his belief in every student athlete that he coached, not that they were going to go on and play in the majors, but that they were going to live their best lives and that while they were under his care, they were going to

057learn how to be disciplined, how to be organized, how to be prepared, how to be professional, how to be respectful, how to be young men and women and go out and make an impact in the world. Uh sadly I my first year uh as a superintendent I had an opportunity uh to visit coach and to go to one of his games. It was one of his last years coaching. I only regret that I didn't spend more time um uh visiting with him uh through the years. But uh we have an opportunity here tonight uh to honor him and his legacy to to what he meant to Badger Nation. So to get things started, I want to bring on our interim principal, Mr. John Lansa to introduce this item and of course we have his family

058here this evening uh who will also make their request. Mr. Lansa. >> Thank you Dr. Trujillo. Governing board president Shaw governing board members superintendent Trillo Council Ross and community members. I'm here tonight to request that the governing board consider renaming the Cherryfield baseball field to the Oscar Romero ballpark at Cherry Field in honor of Coach Oscar Romero. Coach Romero passed away on September 6 of last year and this renaming aims to recognize Coach Romero's profound and enduring impact over four decades on Arizona's athletic community and specifically to Tucson High School. An alumnest of Tucson High School, Coach Romero earned all city, all state, and all district honors in 1978 and then returned to his alma mater, Tucson High to teach from 1985 to 2018, 34 full years. Coach Romero served as the head baseball coach

059from 1990 to 2018. And his coaching achievements included holding an overall record of 488 wins, 300 losses, and three ties, winning two state championships, one in 1987 and the next in 1988. He also led three more teams to the AIA state baseball finals, so appearing five finals in total. He was named the statewide AA AIA coach of the year award on four different occasions. and he served as a head coach for three 5A Arizona State All-Star games. Coach Romero was inducted in Puma County Sports Hall of Fame to the Tucson High Alumni Tea Club to the Tucson High Badger Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2015 was recognized in the Arizona Daily Star Greg Hansen top 100 sports figures as number 58. Beyond his coaching statistics, Coach Romero's legacy is defined by his extensive mentorship

060and positive influence. He consistently organized clinics and offered comprehensive support to his students, emphasizing their academic and personal growth. He acted as a mentor, role model, and father figure, shaping the character of hundreds of players. Naming the baseball field in his honor would be a meaningful and enduring tribute to his outstanding contributions and a continual reminder of his significant impact. Members of his family and the Tucson community are here to say a few words. And I'd like to begin by introducing Joanne Romero, his widow. Hello. Um, my name is Joanne Romero and Oscar is my husband. Oscar and I met at Tucson High where we were high school sweethearts. Um, these early years shaped so so much of who we became and Tucson High has always held a special place in our hearts. From a

061young age, Oscar loved baseball. It was never just a game to him. It was a teacher, a passion, a way to connect with others. His dream was always to play baseball first and then later in life to coach. He became the head baseball coach at Tucson High in 1990. He believed deeply in this school, in its students, and the lessons that could be learned both on and off the field. Oscar poured his heart into the game. But even more than that, he poured his heart into people, his students, their parents. He believed that baseball could teach discipline, respect, teamwork, and perseverance. Values that carried for for be values that carried for beyond the field. He cared about he cared about who his parents were. Sorry. He he he cared about who his players were becoming,

062not just how they performed. If this field is named after him, we will feel truly humbled. I just lost I just lost my voice. Um um if this field is named after him, we will feel truly humbled and deeply honored. To our family, this field rep this field represents not only his love for baseball, but his lifelong commitment to community, mentorship, and giving back to the place that gave him so much. My hope is that this field continues to be a place where people grow, not just as athletes, but as individuals. A place where young people learn what it means to work hard, to lift one another up, and to show up for each other in both victory and in defeat. May this field always reflect his spirit. Oscar lived by passion, kindness, dedication, and

063love for the game and for people. Thank you. Next, I'd like to invite Becky Romero Watson, his sister. Good evening, Dr. Shaw, Dr. Trill, and the current USC board members. My name is Becky Romero Watson. I am Oscar Romero's youngest sister. On behalf of Oscar's family, extended family, and friends, I would like to express our deepest gratitude for accepting the proposal to rename Cherryfield to include Oscar Romero's name. The designation of Oscar Romero Ballpark at Cherryfield is deeply meaningful to our family and serves a lasting tribute to a life dedicated to education, student development, community service, and athletics. Your thoughtful consideration and support mean more than we can adequately express. It will be a privilege to see Oscar's name alongside our historic Cherryfield, home of the champions of Tucson High Badgers. Oscar's connection to Cherryfield

064spanned decades. He played there as a student athlete, later served on the committee during its most recent renovations, devoted countless hours to maintaining the field during times when budget constraints eliminated dedicating dedicated staffing. While serving as head coach at Tucson High School, he volunteered voluntarily assumed additional responsibilities to ensure the field met the highest standards. He carried out his work without complaint, motivated solely by his commitment to students and the program he loved. Cherryfield was truly Oscar's second home. His presence there, often marked by his red truck parked nearby, was a testament to his dedication as a husband, father, educator, coach, and mentor. Following his passing, our family was deeply moved by the endless stories shared by former students and athletes. These stories reflected only not only his excellence as a coach and a teacher,

065but also his profound impact as a mentor who supported young people through academic, personal, and family challenges. His influence extended far beyond the field, shaping lives in lasting and meaningful ways. We hope, excuse me, this dedication inspires all who pass through the gates of Cherryfield to carry forward the same values you have chosen to honor. Seeing Oscar's name became part of a place where young people learn teamwork, perseverance, and community meaning more to us than we can truly fully express. Ballfields are a place of growth, connection, and lifelong memories. And is incredibly meaningful to know that this legacy will live on in a space that brings people together so positively. Thank you again for your time, your leadership, your commitment to preserving the legacy of Oscar Romero, who made a lasting impact on the Tucson

066community and beyond. Your decision not only honors his memory but also affirms the values of dedication, service, and community that defined his life. With sincere appreciation, the entire Oscar Romero family. Thank you. Next, I'd like to invite uh one of Oscar's former players and coaches, Marcos Beerano. Good evening, TUSD board, and thank you for allowing me to speak tonight on uh Oscar's behalf. Um, I've known Oscar probably since I was 10 years old. and I got the opportunity to become the bat boy for the 1987 and 1988 state championship baseball teams for Tucson High. Um, it was an opportunity that I couldn't think of wanting to be at any other high school. And that's where I graduated from in 1992 along with my my parents who graduated 1958 1959. Two of my sons in 2019,

0672022, and one to be in 2027 along with my wife in 1996. So, the tradition of being along Oscar's side, not only as a student, but as a young man, as his teachers aid, uh, in high school at Tucson High, goes a long way with a lot of the life lessons that Oscar taught us and taught me. Um, Badger Pride, I'm proud to be TUSD. I'm proud to be a TUSD teacher. Um, and I've been a longtime coach in the district for the passing of Oscar. Very difficult for me because I spent a lot of time with Coach Romero. Matter of fact, I wish I could get that Saturday night phone call. Marcos, what are you doing, Oscar? You know I'm in Hawaii, dude? No, you're not, Oscar. What time did I meet you at

068Cherry Field? We spent endless hours working on that beautiful field, which is what the district has as a premier baseball field in the state of Arizona. Countless hours that I spent with O. I also became a colleague of his, a teacher. Countless lunches, hanging out with Oscar, him mentoring me, guiding me, not only as a young man. but as an adult, as a husband, as a father. So, I was honored when Becky and Joanne called me last night and told me, "Hey, can you come in honor of Oscar?" It would mean the world to not only me but to several several young men that he touched their lives. And why not? Choya High School is named after Rudy Ggo. Ringcon is named after Gary Greybos. Sarro is named after Hal Eustace. They don't have nearly

069the state titles that Tucson I has. We have a national record of 29. And Oscar Romero was part of that. And by the way, I was a freshman in 1989 when he started his coaching career as a head coach at Tucson High. What an honor it would be for my son, my youngest now, to graduate from Tucson High next year in 2027 to be playing at a field named after my mentor. Thank you for your time. And finally, a lifelong friend, Charlie Resco. Thank you, Dr. Trill, Dr. Sha, the rest of the board. Uh, I have known Oscar since uh, I was seven years old. He was eight years old. And the most fortunate guy in the world is me because I got to be on the same team as our team captain being Oscar

070Romero from that age all the way through little league, pony league, Colt league, Legion, and all through high school and junior high where we won championships. And I'll I'll tell you that uh the one thing about Oscar Romero, he never changed from the age of I would say 12 to his current age before he died. He's the same person he always was. The character that he had, you know, when Joanne mentioned uh they were high school sweethearts, I referred to him in a comedic way, but it was truthful. You know, Oscar was the uh Hispanic version of Opie Taylor on Mayberry, okay? He was pure. This guy was pure and there was no question about it. It's was right or it was wrong. There was no middle ground with him. Keep in mind the players

071that he coached in Tucson High for all those years. Tucson High is not going to have the most affluent families providing for these kids. A lot of these children, Oscar was their father. He was the adult that they were asking questions to about being an adult. It was not just about coaching. And when you think about baseball, there's going to be 25, 30 players on that team. Nine get to play on that team, which means you're going to have parents of the others that aren't in that game. Well, they're not real happy. So, he has to deal with those just as every other coach has to deal with it. Teachers, we all know they're underpaid. They work so many hours and not enough pay. Well, Oscar did two things. He taught and then he coached.

072The coaching goes into the weekends. It goes into the evenings. And it continues through the summers where nobody pays attention because he wants to keep the guys together to make them a better team the following year. That's why he was so successful. He put in all that time. And keep in mind again, we're talking about the players that don't have the funds to do that. And being his one of his friends that just loved him dearly, um I've been in business now for about 36 years, um it was not unusual to get that phone call from Oscar. And of course, I could never say no when he said uh you know, we need a little bit of a little bit of cash to help us out on uh on something. We're we're going to travel

073to play a team uh for a championship. It was always for championships. It was never just for a practice or anything like that. Rarely did I get that call, but occasionally someone needed equipment that is required. And this is something that when we played high school, we were provided with three sets of uniforms, hats, practice, practice uniforms. Today, these players uh in every sport are asked to pay a fee because I'm still doing that with in the high school uh area to to help out with some coaches that just because there's an east side high school that, you know, I'm near, it doesn't mean they're they have money. They don't. There's a lot of them. There's a lot of single moms out there with with kids and these coaches right now when you put into

074the hours that they're they're putting into the coaching. I was joking with Oscar one time with the hours and when I did that with the years I think the hourly pay for his coaching might have come to almost $2 an hour. And that's that's just the real truth right there. They're not gonna get overpaid being a coach. He coached because he loved the game, but he loved the fact that the discipline he instilled in these kids, not just about the sport, it was about their future. It was about their lives. And he, you know, the conversations that we had, the the confidence that they had with the discipline, he knew they had a chance. And I've seen a lot of these baseball players that he has coached. You look at Edgar Sodto, one of them,

075highly successful after after high school. We have uh Mr. Morales right here talking about sports. No one distributes more information about what's going on with sports than this guy right here. If it was not for him, we all know the newspaper is not what it used to be. That guy is is making it for a lot of kids that people don't know about. So, I I credit him. I credit Edgar and all the others that spoke right here about the discipline that that's required here about what the courage was to actually do this. Not spending dinners with your families. I know pizzas, burgers, whatever it took with his family. And that is one tight knit that kept together with that father being a coach and Joanne. There's no better bigger de uh ambassador for a

076husband than that woman back there. She went through it all and stayed like this together with that husband the entire way. And I'm sorry I had to be there with him uh the night before. But I'm also uh glad and I I I feel just blessed that I was able to, you know, say a prayer with him that he asked me to do and knowing that he was on his deathbed. This guy is not asking to put his name on a field. This guy's way too humble. Never did he want to be in the spotlight for his family. I've reminded his son of the legacy that he's probably not aware of until we were at the services. If anybody was there, I I reminded people just just asked them, "Stand up if you've ever coached

077with this guy." And people stood up. Stand up if he ever coached you. People stood up. Stand up if you ever played with this gentleman right here. And I'm telling you, I I just my heart was falling down when I looked at all the people out there where I asked his son, "Turn around." That's what I was telling you when I met there's a legacy behind this guy. And to leave this legacy on on the rise and just at the the tip of this is naming that field after this gentleman right here. And he is a gentleman. I I promise you that. Talk to anybody that knows him and you're not going to find a bad word about this gentleman right here. Do this. Vote for it. Encourage this because he truly deserves it whether

078he didn't want it or not. Do it for his family. Do it for the team players that have played for him through all these 36 years. And do it for his family. I thank you all. Thank you all for speaking. So on behalf of the Tucson High School and Romero family, I respectfully ask that the TUSD governing board renamed Cherry Field have as the Oscar Romero ballpark. >> Dr. Sha. >> Uh thank you, Principal uh Lansa, Miss Extra. >> Uh thank you to all who came and spoke today. Um it's really moving to hear all of your stories and what a great person um Oscar Romero was. Um I had cousins who were able to learn from him and move on and really hone in on their baseball skills and just thinking about that it

079it makes me smile because I realize what an impact he had on, you know, my cousins and family. Um, and in TUSD we do a lot of great things, but today is a day that we're able to cement a legacy for a father, for a husband, for a brother, for a coach, and a friend. And I'm so honored to be able to do that today. So, with that, I would like to move to approve the renaming of Cherry Baseball Field to Oscar Rometo Ballpark at Cherry Field. >> Thank you. Uh, Miss Extraman, as a soon to be a father of a Badger student, I will second that. Any further comments, Mr. Romero? Um, again, very, uh, moving. Um, wish I knew the guy. Um, there's a lot of beautiful Romero in this room, obviously. Um,

080and I didn't want the conspiracy theory to start. I did not have anything to do with Davis Romero or Oscar Romero field. It was not my intent. But no, um it was great to hear from the families today. I just wanted to say I uh I think we have a great great opportunity to remember him on a daily basis for those that drive by that field and uh uh lace up and play. Thank you, Mr. Romero. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? It passes unanimously. 5-0. Thank you very much. Thank you. Are we in a mood for a quick break? Seeing some nods. All right, we'll break for f five minutes. F five minutes, please. And we'll get back to the meeting. Thank you. I know. Thank you so much. Get there

081too. Awesome. >> Thank you for the recommendation. >> Yeah, I don't think we've met John Lanza. I think I uh my job last year was fed overseeing federal programs for PSD >> and I think I reached out to you because you're with Yaki, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. Yeah. Doing their educational >> I would always hit up the consult or the consultations. >> Oh, perfect. >> So, we got somebody else. >> Yeah. Yeah, it sure is. Good to see you. >> Appreciate it. >> Hey, thank you guys. Great job. >> What's up, big dude? >> How are you, man? Yeah, I think you already had your >> Thank you for being here tonight. Got it. I got it. Governing board members, one minute warning. >> One more minute. Governing board members, we're ready to get

082reconvened for our meeting. They're getting food. >> Everybody's hungry. Hello. And then he goes. been there. >> We're hungry. >> All right. >> Jesus, I lost I told her. All right. We're going to get started with item 8.2, I believe. >> 8.1. All right. 8.1. This is a study information item, renewal of employee benefits for the 202627 fiscal year. And again, this is just a study information item. No decisions or votes are being made today. >> Uh President Shaw, members of the governing board, um you know, benefits always a difficult conversation and we're excited to have the opportunity to share uh some of the recommendations, the thoughts, and the strategies that were discussed and shared uh with the employee benefits trust board. I probably will not surprise anybody out there in the viewing public to

083know that the cost of health care in general has just skyrocketed uh for employees and providers across the nation. Uh I will remind everybody that this board has done an exceptional job uh protecting employees from any increases uh over the last 5 years and and our employment benefits trust board has done a wonderful job releasing monies from the trust to be able to protect the employees from those increases hitting premiums. But this year we face a daunting challenge. Uh the cost the overall cost of of providing benefits to our employees has gone up by 13%. uh with our employees uh potentially looking at an increase, a substantial increase. And so that was a challenge laid forth uh before employee benefits trust board. And Mr. Fernandez, our chief human capital officer, will kind of take us

084through this evening uh that discussion and ultimately what was the recommendation uh for employee benefits trust to bring before the board before consideration. Mr. Fernandez. >> All right. Thank you. Good evening, U President Shaw and members of the board. Uh before I get started, if I could just uh quickly introduce the the folks who are here today. So I joined by Ricky Hernandez, our CFO, uh representatives from Valley Schools uh who we partner with around benefits. I have Mr. Ken Hicks, Mr. Alves Bera, and Miss Sarah Viegas, and then also Rosie Ledma behind me who is our benefits uh manager in within our HR department. Um so thank you for allowing me the opportunity to review the proposed benefits renewal uh for next school year. Dr. Trillo, I kind of gave you a little a

085teaser as to what it the the presentation's about today, but I wanted to kind of walk through it to make sure that for the general public, kind of an understanding of what uh was approved by the benefits trust and what is before the board for its consideration, not for action this evening, but hopefully in a uh in a coming meeting. So, just as uh just to sum up for our general uh renewal information, uh as you know, the employee benefits trust is the entity created by the governing board uh to manage the employee benefits for the district. And TUSD works with Valley Schools uh to to do this. Valley Schools is an Arizona nonprofit corporation established by state law to assist districts uh with health insurance plans for employees. and we've been working with Valley

086to access um medical and pharmaceutical benefits through United Healthcare and Caremark, otherwise known as CVS. Um I think in summary, when we get to the end of of the presentation, you'll see that the EBT, the employee benefits trust, approved a renewal of our existing health plan with three plan options. That's our PO and our two high deductible plans. Uh and this renewal cost at the bottom, you know, the bottom line will be an increase of 12.3% over prior years, uh an additional $5.8 million. I wanted to and again for public consumption because I know that employees are very interested in understanding the what what's happening uh talk a little bit about the medical cost trends um that we are encountering um over the past couple of years. what we've seen uh really an increase in

087uh postcoid contract renewals. So you know during COVID we saw some of these contract rates kind of held flat. We're now seeing the renewal uh period resulting in higher costs as these contracts are renegotiated. We also see our high-cost claims coming in. uh you'll see that in in like in the last 2024 2025 period 138 high-cost claim claimments which is about 2.3% of the population accounted for 42.7% of total costs. It's about $18 million. So we're seeing a lot of those high-cost claims coming in. Um and you know again we we have a population that is undergoing many challenges in terms of our health uh conditions circulatory cancer um you know um a lot of a lot of healthcare situations that require specialty care and high cost treatment. So I think the the health of

088our population combined with these claims and those contract renewals are contributing to these higher costs and we're not the only ones uh facing these challenges. Same thing on the pharmaceutical side. um just high cost new drugs that are coming on the market whether it's specialty drugs for cancer, arthritis, seizures, multiple sclerosis or these GOP ones that everybody's raving about. Uh these cost money um and they're driving up costs. Uh they do we we do hope that and and do see that they provide better health outcomes, but again as a new drug comes on the market, we're seeing those those costs um you know go higher. And while we benefit from pharmaceutical rebates, um you know, this is obviously predicated on a growing utilization of these medications and it's also a moving target trying to predict

089and trying to understand uh how these rebates will come into play when we as we try to manage our our plans. Um so with the higher medical pharmaceutical trends, um we also are in a in a changing benefits financial landscape and so as Dr. Trillo said and thanks to the board, we've been able to subsidize and keep employee premiums flat, employ uh employee premiums flat for the past four fiscal years. Uh this was funded by federal dollars as well as draw downs from our trust reserves. So those were the esser dollars that were here initially and then uh looking at any excess from the trust uh beyond the minimally required uh trust reserve amounts which is about six months of anticipated claims. Um those funds however are no longer available. So federal funds as everyone

090knows have expired and reserves uh projected for the end of this year are going to be close to that minimum that minimally minimally required six month of claims uh level which is around 20 u million. So in in this context the employee benefits trust came together to uh look at the next school year's uh plan. Uh there was some there had been some questions about looking at different uh plan design. So, the trust did work to um to get those different design, you know, to get different designs um costed out uh through Valley Schools and ultimately after after reviewing the the tradeoffs um that that were involved opted to stay with the current three plans uh that we currently offer, which are again the PO and the two high deductibles. So, uh, with that said,

091as I summarized before, that cost is is an additional 12.3% growth, $5.8 million. And like I said, uh, not anticipating that there will be sufficient subsidy for sufficient reserve amounts to fund another subsidy. Um, and so here's a kind of the layout of the three different strategies. We looked at our current plan, which is the recommended plan that currently costs TUSD $4 million. uh I mean of the increase to to maintain that plan going to next school year it would be an additional $4 million that TUSD as a district as the employer would fund um the the employee share would be an additional 1.8 8 million. We looked at uh maintaining the high deductible plans of no PO. That amount would be an additional it looks additional $8 million to the district um and $88

092million increase to employees. So this the district would have an anticipated you know twice the amount uh to fund that program. uh no high deductible plan which would be a negative u you know would not be any growth to the district but employees would face an $ 8.5 million increase. So looking at all the options, the trust opted to stick stick with our current three plans. I part of the discussion was about who bears the cost of these design options, but also uh considering u any of the disruption that might be involved uh to require employees to switch from one plan to another um you know from this school year to next school year. So ultimately um this is what the proposed premium strategies uh looks like for next school year. Um I'll just lay

093it out straight. I mean it looks like uh we're projecting an a premium increase of approximately 30% for employees based on uh what they were paying this year versus the coming school year. And again for the coming school year because there is no subsidy involved. uh what's what's happening is that premiums are being paid at the at the level that would normally be be paid without any contribution from the reserves or other funding sources. So while this is a significant jump, I think it does merit mentioning that again the board has helped to offset uh those increase over the last four years. So now it's almost like chewing up the cost of employ of the employee side. uh the district will continue to pay the twothirds, you know, of of the of the the costs,

094but the employee share will be the biggest uh challenge and adjustment for the coming school year. Um this is just a summary again of the financial projections based on the recommendation from the EBT. Uh you'll see that the subsidies uh looking back over the last three years totaled about $2.2 million. Now for FY27 the coming year that amount is is from EBT is not uh is not recommended to be another subsidy. We look at the reserves we try to project to the end of the year. The uh year-end projection is 20.6 million uh whereas we're calculating six month minimum required reserve at 20.2 million. So there's kind of $400,000 in excess of that um minimum required level but certainly not sufficient to uh support the subsidies that we've done in the past. So that was

095really the the main gist of this presentation. Those are the and I I'm going to mention the fact that we do have other benefits that are provided uh to our employees and you'll see some of the the changes uh for the dental plans where we see a decrease in the delta dental u plan versus and the HMO where you see a 5% increase. Uh additionally no changes in the other uh plans as as we see it today which are v include vision some of our uh disability life critical illness accident plans uh legal our legal plan support. So no changes in those areas but of course you know the major uh the major issue and focus here is to really to inform you of the the change to the medical plan um approach in terms

096of subsidies and the impact on employee premiums. So with that um we know that this is study information. We know that um you know you will be waiting for a future board meeting for potential action and we thank you for your consideration and approval. Uh we do want to get to a decision by the end of February if possible because our open enrollment happens around happens in April. So we're going to need some direction and guidance so we can make sure open enrollment is you know um runs smoothly this year. So with that said, um I think that's the end of the presentation. Happy to take any questions. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Fernandez, and thank you everyone for Valley Schools for being here in Tucson for this. Mr. Nose is our board leazison

097to employee benefits trust. You want to talk more about what discussion the meetings and and some of the decisions that were made? >> Um thank you Dr. Shaw. So I excuse me. Um was able to kind of just go off a lot of notes that Mr. Fernandez would give me because sometimes my schedule precluded me from going to the meetings. But I do know that there was a lot of back and forth on this um and a lot of kind of heart-wrenching discussion on whether you know having to raise up the the rates for these and I and I know that um nobody liked doing that. So uh it's it's I think it really weighs on the mind of everybody in the EBT. So, I want to thank them for all this work that they've

098done because um this is not an easy process and I think um that's kind of where we are. I think not just here in TUSD but I think across the board like across the country people are seeing outrageous rates. Um and until this nation gets its act together and put together like a universal health care plan or something like that, we have to figure it out on our own. Um so um again commend EBT for all their work. Mr. Fernandez, thank you so much for everything that you know leading those discussions um and uh knowing that this might make some changes for some of our employees and their families. So and and trying to keep them in mind. I know it's like I said they were difficult discussions. So um I'll open it up back

099up to my colleagues for any comment. >> Thank you Miss Luna Rose. I want to ask a quick question about um how we as a district support the HSA uh accounts. Do we how we contri do we contribute to those right now and how much are we contributing to those accounts? >> So right now we contribute about 60 well not about we contribute $60 to every health savings account comes out to about $100 a month. Um so that is our currently our contribution. Uh >> so 1,200 a year. >> So $1,200 a year. um to all of the employees who are participants in the high deductible health plans. >> Okay. And that's no there's no changes recommended on that. >> There were no changes recommended to the HSAs. No. >> Okay. Miss Extra, are you

100moving because you have a comment? Okay. So, I think this is really weighty. I know there's not a lot of comments on this really important issue. I think we're just trying to digest a lot of this information. I've been really uh happy that over the last five years since our first term for most three of us at least on this board uh we have been able to uh have these cost increases without having to move any of these cost increases onto our employees. At first it was the co relief esester funds. we were able to move some of these costs uh for health insurance premium increases uh into the ESR funds and when the ESR funds finished in 2024 uh we were able to use the extra funds that were available in the trust itself

101and so as we know we need to have a six-month uh of funds available at any given time. So the trust needs to have six months of our projected costs in the bank and we had more than those six months and we were able to use that extra money in the bank that we had to subsidize the premium increases for the last couple of years since the co relief money uh went away. Uh and that's being exhausted as well. So we should be almost break even on that six-month window come end of this uh academic year. Um, and I'm glad we were able to use that money in the EBT and was able to approve that and coming to the board with that uh the last couple of years. And now we need to figure

102out what to do moving forward because from what I understand the the trust is still going to subsidize the previous cost is the 12% increase that we're that we're talking about or no >> no the the the entire so we're passing back on to the employee the 2 million that we've been subsidizing plus the increase in the 12% from the yeartoyear over in the plan. So it's essentially as as John mentioned catching everybody up to where they should be had no subsidized ever exist a subsidy had ever existed. >> Okay. So there's no more funds available for any kind of subsidy. >> Correct. >> Keep that six month. That's a requirement that we have. That's a legal requirement. >> That is in that is in the trust charter. >> The trust charter. Okay. >> So

103I think we'll continue to digest this over the weeks ahead. Um I believe this is going to be coming back to us on March 10th for for more. >> Yeah, Dr. Trillo. >> Yeah, just >> a quick point of clarification. So when we look at the proposed premium adjustments, um my understanding is that the employee benefits trust board, they actually did consider maybe looking at two other potential options. What would it look like costwise if we went with absolutely no PO and then everybody just had two HDHT plans and we maybe possibly adjusted HSA or we got rid of the HDHD plans and everybody just went PO. So in a nutshell, are we saying that EBTB all things considered this one is probably the least of all evils, keeping the all of the three tiers

104and that we're passing on the 1.8 increase to the employees, >> right? From a financial perspective, yeah, it so ultimately it's you're exactly right. It's picking the lesser of all evils, right? Um, the PO essentially benefits employees more in terms of out-of- pocket premium costs. It obviously changes the way that they manage their insurance considering that, you know, they won't have that same PO kind of co-pay type structure that they currently have. Whereas the high deductible health plan, you know, by eliminating that, it saves the district more money because we are no longer contributing to health savings account, which is the largest, you know, kind of savings, but employees end up picking up the picks up the price because it's the most because it's the most it's the richest plan. It's also the most expensive

105one. You know, the other item to note is out of out of, you know, more than 4,000, you know, lives that are covered, half of the people here are employee only PO. Under every employee agreement we have with our bargaining units, we're required to cover 85% of their premium. So, if it goes up 12% for those individuals who have employee only PO coverage, we are required to cover 85% of that increase. So that prevents us from using anything to mitigate the increases in the other coverage levels for the other plans. >> Right. My other question is when you go to the slide for the proposed premium adjustments, which I think might be the slide all of our employees are going to immediately go to when they look at this presentation. Um, and certainly when you

106look at what's in blue obviously, which would be the impact, I want to be absolutely clear for everybody watching this. Those adjusted premium rates reflect the employees $1.8 million cost sharing burden. Correct. Okay. It's not that we're going to take the $2 million that was subsidized and throw it on top of the $1.8 million and create a $3.8 million cost sharing burden in a single year. This right here represents the $1.8 8 million 36% share of the increase for for next year. >> It it is it is that but it is also having to catch up. So an exam so for what I'm saying is that in that orange box had there no not been subsidies that $49.63 that that employee pays per might have been $55. So their increase would have been only $10.

107But because we subsidized those $10, they are now not only jumping the subsidy that we've kind of been holding back from them, but also that 12%. So, in a way, yeah, we are stacking on top the cost of the current year plus all of the subsidies because we've been holding them harmless. >> So, it does represent the $1.8 million, 36% share of the $5.8 million increase. Plus, we're starting to take back the subsidy that was previously funded by the um employee benefits trust board. >> That's correct. >> Okay. And that was an employee benefits trust recommendation. >> That was that's we we provided all three of them. Ultimately they this is this is the conclusion they drew is that this is kind of the lesser of the three, you know, to to pick. And just

108to add on, I think the the decision was also based on in terms of the subsidy was based on the projection for the reserves at the end of the year, which in prior years had had there was a lot there's additional funding in there that could have been used and was approved to be used for the subsidy for the following year. In this case, we're looking at about $400,000 as a projected kind of excess over the minimum amount, which is not sufficient to cover that level of subsidy that uh is needed. Jean, can you go to back to slide nine or you're controlling it? Sorry. >> The premium strategy differences. CS1 here. So, uh, if I'm understanding this, so the $5.8 million of total increases that includes a subsidy plus a 12% increase is in

109there. Why would the cost for the district go up if we had no PO? >> Uh, or would it be more? So the so based on the the recommendations and the calculations from Valley, the pre the monthly premiums do change because now we're actually putting people into a new type of health coverage plan and they can talk about how those rates would change, but the rates wouldn't stay the same, right? If we eliminated PO and moved everybody to a high deductible health plan, they won't pay the same rate. So the expense does go up in addition to the fact that we also have to contribute health savings contributions to a new batch of employees that that currently don't we don't contribute to. So that's why that 8 million is there. Also the the monthly expense

110does change uh for only providing a high deductible health plan. >> All right. So, as a as a family physician, I've been doing this for 20 years before the ACA and and a lot of it after the ACA and um like our I I'll use that sword. Our our our healthcare system sucks that we decrieded earlier and I'll say that without any equivocation and you know this really sucks here. Uh the costs are going up so much. Uh and for employees listening tonight, uh a week from tonight, uh from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. On Tuesday, February 17th, uh the unions are are holding uh a healthc care forum to talk about health insurance and to talk about some potential options uh that we've been vetting for the last couple of years because right now all

111this is stuck in a fee for service model where every doctor, hospital, every lab, every everyone gets paid a fee for service model where we do more we do more things for patients, we get paid more and we don't get paid to actually take care of patients and keep them healthy And that's the just the really sucky system that we have here in America right now. And so we are looking at some other options. And we'd love for uh employees, members of unions, not members of unions, all employees and staff to join us at Howenstein uh on a week from tonight 5:00 p.m. to just be there, listen to like where these numbers come from, look at the options, and really help support with your opinions on where you want to see our district going

112uh in terms of some some options that we've been thinking about and looking at for the last couple of years. So please please join us uh next Tuesday night for that. >> All right. Thank you everyone. Thank you gentlemen. >> Secret without happy topic. I happy topic. I understand we go back to our consent agenda next. And so we're on items um five point two to 514 extra hill. >> Yes. President Shaw, members of the governing board, uh the administration does recommend passage of the uh consent agenda as arranged, 5.2 to 5.14. >> Governing board members, are any items that require more clarification? Are any items like to be pulled for a separate vote? Mr. Romero? >> Uh 5.10. I'd like more information, please. >> More information on 5.10. Any others? All right, we have

113um 5.10 for more information. Dr. Trillo. >> Yes. I'd like to invite the team uh uh to speak and answer any questions related to both procurement uh or the actual um operations team talking about installation related concerns uh for item 5.10. So we've got Demon Y >> uh for any concerns about the system or the equipment or the installation or timeline. We've got our purchasing director Diana Kurfoot to answer any questions about the procurement process. Mr. Romero, I'll turn it back over to you. And this is item 510, approval for cooperative contract on HVAC solutions for Korea Elementary School and Central Plant Retrofit Project. Mr. Romero. >> Yeah. So, I just wanted to I guess find out exactly what we've got going on uh with this on the HVAC systems on the whole school. Is

114this kind of more like on a chiller type of aspect that we're working on this one? Just kind of by looking at all the line items, what's going on? It's different than a standard HVAC system from what it looks like to me. >> Yes, that is correct. So, it's the entire central plant. So, we basically um presented to the Arizona State Facilities Department to basically retrofit the entire piece all at once as opposed to go in individual pieces with a chiller first and then the air handlers and then controls. Uh based on discussions with the state, we made our presentation for the entire system and that is a full redesign of the actual yard and includes the chiller, the tower as well as the controls. So it's a full red. >> So it's a full

115redo and I guess that was my biggest concern because I know we've had some different situations like at Sam Hughes where we're using old technology with new parts. We have Ghalo where they have similar type of things, old Doug work with new type of systems where we're having continued issues on that. And I guess my concern is with this whole thing, are we going to alleviate having those or am I going to have a school visit? We go back out and said, well, we're having these other issues. I guess how much other work has been done to make sure that all these things are going to be Again, I know there's no 100%. So, as part of the IGA, we used um Veric Techch did their initial assessments just before us submitting them to the

116Arizona State Facilities Department. and the assessments and the controls piece as well as the uh air handlers and the chillers are all going to be upgraded as opposed to what we normally uh do with the state is present individual pieces uh air handler chiller controls uh our presentation as I mentioned earlier was the entire piece uh and at that point it was they can say yes or no let's just go for >> go for it all And we had the data that supported us in the IGA document through the assessments uh with the age of the controls the unit the age of the central plant the chiller and the tower and all of that provided in the presentation the documentation the state needed to say please move forward >> and what's been the timeline that

117this has been in with facilities boards out of curious >> that's a great question it's been with the Arizona state facilities department for about 20 months. >> 20 months. >> Almost two years. >> And then I also know like up in that second level where you have the sun or the windows facing to the west over there and they have just a couple of those little wall units there at Creo. And anytime in a warm uh months that hallway is pretty unbearable. Is this system going to also kind of help in that area? Do you know? >> Yes. So the system is going to be designed such as you're going to have um t stats along the hallway and in the room so that they can take a look at the temperatures uh again as

118part of the overall uh energy efficiency model that we're looking at. So, as the temperatures rise in certain rooms, depending on which windows are facing west, the temp the TAT's going to read that and be able to drop the temperatures in those rooms so that we don't have that issue that we have now because there's no way of doing that now uh except for manually, >> right? And I know you know I guess it gets beyond that point now just as there are other considerations and I'm not talking bond or anything like that or other money that comes to facilities or schools cuz this doesn't sound like it's in the privy of what the state's facility is but I know probably tint on those windows in that area would help with the efficiency to achieve

119those types of things. Has this been given a consideration also for that area? Yes, as a matter of fact, we are reviewing right now a grant with the Department of Energy uh where they have funding available for these types of um opportunities where we can show uh with the installation of a UV uh tent. We can reduce the interior temperatures which then reduces the temps and the constant cooling that needs to take place. If we provide that initial vapor barrier on the window, it'll it'll lower the usage of the electricity as well as the cooling tower and everything else by constantly turning on by reducing that one piece. So, we were actually uh Diana Keroot and myself, we're just looking at that uh grant literally in the back room. So we are looking at those

120opportunities because there is federal dollars for us to uh chase exactly that and it meets you know our sustainability plan uh and it looks you know at a bigger picture you know throughout our school districts because that eventually is going to reduce our energy consumption you know as a whole. So we are going to definitely take a look at that. >> Okay. I just I guess my biggest thing is we want to make sure that some of these different things are taken in uh to concern on that. Again, from my my background, those are things that I see when I walk a school facility uh that I notice that maybe not everybody else notices. So, I just want to make sure we're spending good money or the state is assisting us on this and we're

121we're doing a service to not just our staff, but our students and doing our due diligence to uh uh cross the tees and dot the eyes as as always. I appreciate the guy the job you guys both do. So, thank you again very much. >> Thank you. >> All right. With that, I will move consent agenda items 5.2 to 5.14. >> I'll second >> item moved by myself and seconded by Miss Lunar Rose. All those in favor say I. Any opposed? Seeing none, item passes 5-0. >> All right. Next on the agenda, we have some feelgood items and some happy items. 6.1 administrative appointments, reassignments, and transfers. Director of Exceptional Education. Looks like you have all cheering squad ready to go. >> Yeah. No, we're very excited to bring forward tonight's hiring recommendation, uh, who

122is one of our most outstanding administrators. Uh, and and very rarely, if you're lucky, as a superintendent, can you match a leader that has the exact u perfect combination of leadership style, presence, personality, and compassion to an area of the district's greatest need. Um, as as everybody knows, Tucson Unified School District, we are home to one of the largest populations of students with disabilities in the state. And for all the the uh sometimes highly publicized complaints or criticisms of the district with regard to its program for exceptional education, we are large because we are so good. We have students that come to us every single day that do not have the appropriate resources at charter schools and private schools and they're referred to us or they seek us out. We see families that have these

123empowerment scholarship accounts figure out very quickly how difficult it is to go out on their own and educate a child with disabilities and they come back. We're very good at what we do with exceptional education. But within that work, we understand that it is a very very uh passionate uh part of the work that we do here that parents advocate for their kids fiercely uh and that our students needs are very very pronounced. And I couldn't think of a person, a leader better equipped to go into those situations and work with our parents and demonstrate that compassion, that understanding, um that belief that our district is really here to work for their children and care for their children than tonight's recommendation. And I think that that is most what is needed in our exceptional education

124leadership team is that bridge out to parents, that bridge out to our teachers and our educators that can say, "Hey, I've been here. I've done this work on a on a on a campus. I've had these programs on my campus. I understand the needs of these students. I love these kids. We love these kids. And you're here because you love your kids. Let's work together." And so I'm proud tonight to recommend the proud principal of Whitmore Elementary, Jennifer Figueroa, uh to serve as director for exceptional education. >> Governing board members, >> Dr. Shaw, >> Miss Lar Rose, and Mr. Romero. >> Um I would like to move the item. >> So I actually have some questions real quick. Dr. Trio, um on this exceptional education. >> So I'll I'll second the item and go ahead,

125Mr. Romero. All right. Um, the exceptional education director, do we did we have somebody currently? Is this a new position? This position has been vacant for a while. So, uh, we had it filled temporarily with an interim, uh, Elaine House was carrying out the duties and continues to carry out the duties on a on an interim basis. So, yeah, we've had it. We couldn't fill it last year. It's very hard to position to fill. Um so Miss House of course upon a successful appointment this evening uh would turn over the reigns at the end of the school year to the incoming director. >> Fantastic. Um uh within also within this not to put our candidate on uh on the podium over here. Do you mind if I just hear a little bit from her on

126how she feels she can be successful on this? >> Absolutely. I'd like to welcome uh Mrs. Feroa. Thank you, Jen, for allowing me to bring you on up. But, but I know if anybody is in capable hands on this, I know it's you from uh, you know, visiting you at your schools. Um, I know we all want to see you succeed in this and we want and we want to hear from you, you know, how you're going to hold yourself accountable, the expectations and uh, your vision. >> All right. Well, thank you first of all. I really appreciate it. I haven't done the official road doing questions, but I think if you look at the audience, this is my current community right now. And I'm going to tell you, they don't suck. They're amazing. Um,

127they show up every day. And to have relationships like that, I've been a part of Whitmore since 2003 on and off. Um, when I went to Miller as the principal there, um, same thing. You know, they would have been here as well. So is Gail. And I can't say enough great things. They show up every day and I'm their I'm their biggest fan. I'm their biggest cheerleader. I do everything for them and we always try to work out a win-win situation. They will tell you I'm in classrooms. I'm the person that you're going to see out. I don't stay in my office. You know, kids are in my office more than I am. So, um and and teachers are. So, um I kind of I wrote something. Um I don't know if I want to

128say >> why don't you say those written comments for a moment. Let's have a vote on this. Any other further questions, Mr. Romero? >> But I'm just going to work. You know, I'm here. You've been on my campus. I think everybody here has been on my campus and I really Satie, no you haven't. I'm sorry. You got to come. You got to come before I'm out. All right. So, it's a really great place to be. And um like again, I can't say enough. Great. They're my family. And um I think I can't wait to like be able to extend that to like the whole district, you know? That's why I became a principal because I saw what I did in the classroom and it was awesome. And when I became a principal, I did that

129at the school level. So now if I have, you know, the district at my hands, at my fingertips, man, you guys are we're going to rock it. Lillian, it's a promise. All right, we're we're there. >> Because I know, you know, we as a board have gotten um emails regards, you know, to education from time to time and things of that nature. And and I think one of the biggest things is to make sure we have somebody that can be that first line of defense to grab those things before it gets up to the board and they can get addressed and the concerns you know are are taken um you know not that they're not taken seriously but addressed in a in a timely fashion. um I guess you know knowing that or like said

130accountability on your end to give us that uh reassurance on that if there's anything other special talent that you or skills that you think you have that's going to accomplish that too. >> Yeah, I'm I'm very old school. I'm from West Virginia and it's all about communication. You know, I love to talk. I never meet a stranger and um not just talk, but I show up to work and if there's a problem, I call people back immediately like before the school day is over. I can't go to sleep at night because I'm thinking if that was my kid, I want somebody to return my call. Like that's the most important person, you know, that's that we're dealing with. So, we need to return the call. Not just the parents, but I'm talking about from staff,

131you know, our program coordinators, Dr. Sammon, like this is everybody, right? And they are super knowledgeable. We have a really strong team. It's just getting it out there and be able to communicate with our families. Um, and our staff, you know, our staff, they really need to be supported. Know that we are because we're all here for the same reason. We do support them. And, uh, we just need to put resources in the right place and make some really good decisions to support all that. So, yeah, when you call me, I'm going to be on the other line. They text me all the time. And I know it's on a bigger scale, but that's we got to be there. We got to answer the phone. I can't thank Miss Rodriguez enough. every time I call

132her. We're not like personal friends, but man, she picks up that phone. And it's like, you think about it, when you're in crisis, if you could call your family, that's the first person you call. So, that's that's really what I bring. You know, I'm there. So, we need somebody to listen and kind of work through these things and support our campuses. >> Thank you. That's what I needed. Appreciate it. >> You're welcome, sir. >> Thank you, Mr. I'll say before we vote that this is this our most vulnerable populations that we're serving and we've struggled a lot of ways. We've had a lot of successes. Um, we do some great work for a lot of students. Um, but you know, communication is is you mentioned something that we really need to work on. And I'm

133glad that not only do we have a principal, but a principal of your caliber coming into this role. And Dr. Sammon will hopefully have the support as she needs for this department to be even more successful serving our vulnerable students. And uh, all those in favor for this vote say I. I. I. Any opposed? Item passes 5-0. Congratulations. >> Thank you so much. >> Now it's official. Please go ahead with your >> All right. Thank you, man. I really So, I got to take my glasses off. All right. So, to the board, you President Shaw, Dr. Trillo, thank you all so much. And Miss Rodriguez, I know she's back there. Thank you all so much, first of all, for putting your trust and faith in me. Um, I know it's the position has been vacant

134for a while, so I'm really looking forward to stepping into this role, and it's an honor. Um, while this appointment marks a new chapter, the last 22 here in CUSD that has truly prepared me for this moment. You know, every challenge, every success, and every relationship, I mean, I can't stress that enough. Um, has really shaped how I lead and how deeply I love this district and want the best for it. So, to the Whitmore community, I know I've bragged on you enough, but man, you guys are so much more than my colleagues or neighbors, but you are my family. So yeah, um I've had the privilege of watching my family grow. My kids are here. They are Whitmore Wildcats and Froot Tendler Firebirds and yeah, UHS graduates, too. So yes, um very proud of

135my kids and I can't thank their teachers enough, man. And TUSD. Um but I've had the privilege of watching all of our families grow. old students actually returning, you know, with their kids and old students returning to actually, you know, teach on my campus. That really says a lot. Um, and just a school culture that is truly special. And what makes Whitmore exceptional isn't just our programs or practices. It's that heart. It's that collaboration and the unwavering commitment of the people who show up every day for kids. And that's what it's about. They we all show up. That spirit, that dedication, it's just really worth celebrating. So, I appreciate that we do a lot of that. And more importantly though, um it's something this is something that can be cultivated like across the district. Um

136and I'm excited to help elevate that and share that across the district as well. So, while this transition is very bittersweet, I'm leaving a place where I, my own family, and so many others have grown up with this district. I'm incredibly energized about what lies ahead. I look forward to advocating for all students and staff and showing up for educators, the support staff, the administrators who hold our campuses together. We cannot say that enough, man. They're amazing people that work for us and uh work with us and make our successes possible. So, I'm really eager to collaborate with our program coordinators and Dr. understand as we build on what's working, improve our proactive communication, um, and ensure every student and staff member across TUSD has the support that they need. So, that's why I'm in

137it, and I really appreciate all the approval. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Fore. You have a whole line of people waiting to shake your hand behind you there. So once you're done hugging all of your cheerleading squad, please make your way to the back. Dr. Terish, we move on to 6.2 while she's doing that. >> Yes. 6.2. I want to welcome our program coordinator for career technical education. And I think do we have a guest CTE teacher that's going to read our proclamation? It is um February is career technical education month in the Tucson Unified School District and I'd like to present our uh program coordinator, Mr. Chuck McCollum to coordinate the reading of this proclamation. >> Okay. Um good evening everybody. Um as you know CTE is very uh much a big part

138of our district and and things that our students really love and our teachers do a outstanding job of of instructing. Um, February is CTE month and tonight I'd like to introduce Dr. Maria Bnell. She's the marketing teacher and department head at PBLO High School and she will say a few words and then also read the proclamation for you. So, Dr. Bnell, >> thank you. Um, I am honored to be here and I am honored to to be representing CTE TUSD CTE. um 43 years I've been in the classroom >> at PBLO High School in CTE. So >> um this is this is an amazing thing that we can do is the proclamation and I am here to read it. Uh whereas February 2026 is designated as Career and Technical Education Month by the Association for

139Career and Technical Education of Arizona and the National Association for Career Technical Education, highlighting the transformative impact of career and technical education on individuals and communities. And whereas career and technical education offer students the opportunity to gain the academic, technical, and employability skills necessary for true career readiness. And whereas career and technical education provide students with career exploration opportunities early in their educational experience which enables them to make informed and beneficial decisions about their academic coursework and pursue established programs of study and career pathways. And whereas the collaboration between career and technical educators, business and industry drives local and national economic growth by preparing students for in demand careers and strengthening Arizona's workforce. And whereas career and technical education equips students with essential technical and professional skills through practical meaningful applications of core subjects like

140reading, writing and mathematics, fostering academic success, leadership and community engagement. And whereas career and technical education provide lifelong learning opportunities enabling individuals to adapt to evolving workforce needs, achieve career satisfaction, and secure economic independence. And therefore, the governing board of the Tucson Unified District does hereby proclaim February 2026 as Career and Technical Education Month. Thank you. Governing board members, >> I'll move the item >> moved by Miss Shaw and seconded by Miss Extramm. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Passes 5-0. Thank you very much for being here tonight and thank you for all your work you're doing in CTE. >> Thank you. >> So meaningful for all so many of our kids. >> Thank you very much. >> Next on agenda, Dr. T, we have 6.3. Approval of proclamation of National

141School Counseling Week, February 2 to 6. >> Yes. I believe in our uh program coordinators both for uh secondary uh counseling services and also for our elementary school counselors. Um we have Rebecca, thank you for joining us here this evening. Are you going to be reading or are we going to pass to Vanessa? >> We're going to share the reading. >> Right. Right. Vanessa's gonna Vanessa's going to read and I'm just going to say a couple words. Thank you Dr. Trillo, President Sha, and ladies and gentlemen of the board. During National School Counseling Week, we recognize the input of TUSD school counselors whose work is aligned with the national as the ASKA national model and grounded in data informed practice. Counselors support academic achievement, college and career readiness, and student well-being with effects that extend

142far beyond the classroom and individual students and strengthen entire school communities. We appreciate their professionalism, expertise, and commitment to student success. All right, good evening. So, National School Council Week proclamation. This was for February 2nd uh through the 6th uh 2026. Whereas school counselors are employed in public and private schools to help students reach their full potential. And whereas school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities, strengths, interests, and talents as these traits relate to career awareness and development. And whereas school counselors help families focus focus on ways to further the academic I'm sorry. Yes, further the academic career and social emotional development of their children. And whereas school counselors work with teachers and other educators to help students explore their potential and set realistic goals for themselves. And whereas school counselors

143seek to identify and utilize community resources that can enhance and comp complement comprehensive school counseling programs and help students become productive members of society. And whereas comprehensive development school counseling programs are considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school. Therefore, the governing board of the Tucson Unified School District does hereby proclaim February 2nd through the 6, 2026 as school counseling n as school um national school counseling week. Thank you. >> Thank you. Governing board members. >> I'll move the item. >> I'll second. Item is moved by Miss Extterm and seconded by Miss Lun Rose. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. Any oppose? Item passes 5-0. Thank you so much for being here tonight. And I'm I'm proud that not just the governing board,

144but our whole entire Tucson community supported school counselors with our passage of the override last November going into the next school year. Not only are we able to maintain uh the school counselors that we have, we're able to expand that as well, which is going to make a big impact for our students. Thank you for being here tonight and thank you community for your support. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right. Next, we'll go to 6.5 of approval to renew members of the bond oversight committee to an additional two-year term. Dr. Ter, I'm going straight to you. We're going to our um I believe we're going to sex room, our uh bond oversight committee board liaison, >> the sex room. >> Let's see. Okay, it's reloading. Um yes. So uh a majority of our

145bond oversight committee members are up for renewal uh for their um next two um two-year term. Four-year term. Sorry, I'm still reloading. Sorry. >> Yep. It's three two-year terms. >> Yes. So, um, the ones that had let us know, um, who wanted to return are in the Sorry, I'm still Okay, here we go. So, it's Katherine Arvisu, Sophia Blue, Cindy Coleman, Luis Gonzalez, Erica Miranda Carter, Red Morrow, Peter Norquist, and Tiffany Rogers. Um so and then that will leave um three openings on the bond oversight committee. >> So moved. >> I'll second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> All those opposed. Item passes 5. Miss you. You probably don't have the names of the ones that are leaving. >> Um >> that's I didn't think you would. I'm sorry I put

146you on the spot. it. It's Don Bell, Rau Nandon, and don't tell me, Jeffrey Anthony. >> Yes. Thank you. I want to thank all those members for all their service, and thank you for them. And thank you for the members who are going to be continuing on as it makes a huge difference to our district, having all that input into how we're going to spend that $470 million uh bond to improve our schools and make an impact for our students. So, thank you everyone and thank you Miss Extramm for your service as our board leazison. All right. So, now we're going on to 7.1, our study action item, review and approval of budget advisory committee priority area recommendations for implementation in the 2627 school year. >> Yes. Uh, I'd like to turn the item over

147to our governing board liaison, uh, Miss Natalie Luna Rose. Uh, I don't believe you have any other co-presenters or >> do I have PCO? Um well not Miss PCO but >> we have Monsan Cavaya who's on on our Zoom also who will be joining us. >> Okay thank you Dr. Trillo. Um so uh the budget advisory committee um over several meetings discussed what uh the recommendations we gave them and coming back to us um their thoughts. Um, and uh, I know that we all see it here. I'll just read him briefly and then I'll have um, Miss Capero uh, speak. Um, and I do believe she's home tonight with the with uh, the flu. So, I appreciate her uh zooming in, but um the uh recommendations from the the uh BAC, the title one recentralization

148and resource deployment for the 22 26 27 school year. They would like to see continuing the current structure for title one central and school site allocations. Um and I I'll just kind of briefly summarize uh CTE technical education. I'd like to see prior prioritizing expanding programs, which I think ties in nicely um to uh the uh proclamation that uh we just a vote that we just did. No changes in attendance and initiative funding. Uh early child education before and after school programs um to recommend to um an expansion plan, establishing a school garden um was studied only, no action taken. um a priority was added concerning summer school funding which there was um quite a bit of discussion. So with that I will turn that over to Monsarat if she is there. >> Hi. Can

149everybody hear me? >> Yes ma'am. >> Okay. I'm going to Thank you. I'm so sorry. I really wanted to be there in person, but um we are a a house full of flu right now. Um so, thank you so much for allowing me to zoom in. Um and uh thank you, uh Miss Luna Rose. Um I don't know if there are any, uh questions about the recommendations that we put forward. Uh but just a little bit about um our process. If we can go to the next slide please. Um so first this is our committee this uh turnaround. So, I really want to thank all of the committee members, many of whom are returning. Um, and we added several new ones and are having more join us. Um, and I also really want to thank

150Tanya and Yolanda and Ricky um, for all of their support as staff and all of the presenters who came to talk to us about these items. um really good and robust and and thoughtful discussion and conversation. So, just very much appreciate all of the effort uh that goes into running this this committee all around. Um so, as Miss Luna Rose said, I'm just going to go through Can we go to the next slide, please? Um and go ahead, next slide. Um so as was mentioned um these are our recommendations. Um I think that um this was one of our most uh fruitful conversations. I think I think we learned a lot about um title one and that is our our recommendation is is continuing the the current structure as Miss Lunar Rose said. Um, and

151we just really appreciate having such a robust understanding of the importance of Title One and um if there's anything we can do in terms of um spreading that knowledge around, I guess I'll I'll put it that way. Um, next slide, please. um CTE as Miss Luna Rose mentioned, we just heard that wonderful proclamation. So, just in line with what we heard from the staff that came and talked to us, just really recommending prioritizing and expanding programs that align to the career paths that are going to make it so our kiddos have a career path in our community. and not just a career path, but something that's um family sustaining wages as we like to call it. We have some very high profile areas in in Puma County and it would be great to be able

152to have the district align itself to to those industries knowing that those are the high growth industries. Um and uh we s we added the second part. Um the committee felt very strongly that really advocating at the state level for the getting that full funding back to the ninth grade um so we can get our kiddos in and interested as early as possible. and then uh also going down even to the the eighth letter sorry the eighth grade um trying to create some sort of funding stream to to expand that. So overall with this recommendation it it really was based on the recommendations of of the outstanding staff that came and and talked to us. Next slide please. Um, with regards to the attendance initiative, we um, no action was taken as Miss Luna Rose

153mentioned. Um, we had a lot of questions and some of the conversation uh, led us to asking questions um, primarily around transportation. So, we are going to start our new committee next uh in the new school year talking about transportation and seeing if there's if there's any connection at all to uh the attendance initiative. Next slide, please. And uh again with regards to the early childhood education and the before and after school programs, the committee recommends that we follow the expansion plan as it was presented to us. Um and that includes scholarship expansion and the tuition increases that were presented to us for the next two school years. Um this is an area that we know that early childhood education is is is a key uh particularly in ending generational poverty. So the committee really

154is interested in making sure that the TUSD programs continue to stay strong and robust and that we assist as many kiddos as we can in our community. We know that this is one of the biggest gaps out there. So this was um an easy one to to to recommend. Next slide please. Um and then number five uh the school gardening and composting. Again we had a wonderful presentation and no action was taken. Next slide. And the committee did add uh a recommendation as it stated to recommend uh focusing um so sorry I'm sorry I apologize uh that the governing board um focus on the required funding for LDL EL students apologies um at all high schools. So this was a a recommendation added by the committee to look at next iteration and I believe that's

155it for my presentation. I don't know if there are any questions. >> Thank you manat. Um >> Mr. Romero. >> Yeah. >> Did you want to go ahead? >> Oh no. Um well I just wanted to say um before um we open questions um because I did not say it before. Thank you to all the U members of the budget advisory committee that we had a a lot of discussion. Um and there was a a lot of I think really good um uh ideas and questions brought up. Uh and I you know if we could if they could they would have uh done every single one of these but we know where we are in our budget. So, uh, again, I just want to thank them because, uh, you know, they're they're freely doing this

156on their own time, their volunteers, their parents, their teachers, their community members, and they could be doing something else, but they want to see our district succeed. So, um, I'm just grateful for um, for all the work they've done on this committee. >> Go ahead, Mr. Romero. So, just uh, thank you again. Um in the number two career and technical education you know bullet point one mentions as budget allows and it talks about prioritizing expanding programs um in aligned to advancing career paths. What type of items were discussed or as far as prioritizing expanding programs? Were there ideas thought processes? What was the uh the idea behind this? Um it was really based on the presentation by staff and how they align and expand programs. Um it's my understanding that they do look at the

157data for our county. they participate in the workforce investment board um and look at things like you know what are the the fastest growing and the highest paying areas and um I also you know we also heard that you want to make it so that even within the district you're not necessarily providing every single program at every single campus. you may want to have areas of focus at at various campuses. And so it's not necessarily put every program on every campus the exact same thing. It it's more nuanced than that and really looking at where it makes sense to expand and align. So it sounds like specializing certain uh uh careers at certain schools again that helps I think would help uh sustain enrollment on that also because if somebody wants to be a diesel

158technician they're going to go to Sanorita High School you know because of that that program over there. Now, as far as sustainable enrollment, was there talk on that presentation on uh plans on how to do that? >> You know, um I I don't believe so. I I do know that that is, you know, one of the biggest um I don't want to say it is a it was a factor. It is a factor that is considered when it comes to starting a program or expanding a program is is enrollment. And so you do have to look at the numbers. If there's, you know, 50 kids interested in X program over here and there's only four, for example, maybe interested in this program over here. That's the kind of conversation that you have to have. Can

159you run a program with four kids? >> How do you perhaps expand it? Um, so that's where their plan is is is is really looking to see, okay, what's working? We've got that program at Sanorita. What do they have at PBLO? What are they running at Tucson High? And, you know, etc. And where does it make sense? Um, the sustained enrollment. Um we really actually I'm remembering that in the attendance conversation this particular item also came up and and yes we didn't take any action on the attendance but it was a question that we had to potentially explore if um do kids who are enrolled in CTE programs for example have better attendance than kids who are not that was one question that we're going to explore. Um, I think in our new iteration of

160the of the committee, it was a piece of data that we had requested. Not sure that answered your question. >> No, no, no. You you you're you know, you're kind of touching actually on more things that I might have questions on. So, you're doing a phenomenal job. So, I appreciate that. I want to still stay on the uh career and technical, but just kind of going through some of these other things. There's a lot of recommendations and some of the other bullet points here under 22. You guys actually have an ask request that the governing board develop a plan that advocates for reinstating full funding etc etc you know at the state level for uh you know but you guys requested that we develop something. Was there ideas stop processes again on this uh what

161guidance or the reason why you guys came up with that statement there? >> Yeah. Um well, we know that at one point it was and we know that CTE is successful. Um and when kids have career exploration opportunities at younger and younger grades, it can certainly impact things like attendance. It can absolutely impact uh enrollment if there are things that we can offer and attract uh younger kids for example at that eighth grade level like I mentioned and with that ninth grade level it's that continuity and so again back to that those ever elusive questions around enrollment and attendance could having full 9th grade CTE play a role in We certainly felt that it did. And so I think the ask is can uh and I I am pleading ignorance on this, but I'm going

162to make the assumption that you have somebody up in at in Phoenix uh speaking and advocative session. >> We do. Yes. >> Okay. And so that's the ask is working with that team of people to see if there is any interest uh in uh somebody from our southern Arizona delegation to put forth, you know, funding for for this or it begin to have those conversations at that level. That was the ask. >> Okay. And I think that's something on a deeper level, Dr. Trill, I'm guessing as far as on that what we need to do um for that. Now, one more quick question, and this probably isn't for you, but maybe for Ricky or um Dr. Carter here. You know, they talked about, you know, some of the budget things on here, and I know

163recently CTE under the bond gifted some money. that doesn't have anything to implement any of these programs, does it? No. >> No, it does not. The expansion that uh Miss Kedo was talking about was really programmatic to then focus on what investment would it look like to expand on other programs. So, right now that the bond program and the investments from the bond NCT are not implicated. >> Okay, perfect. I just want to make sure there was no mystery string attached. Um again, thank you very much for uh taking the time and answering my questions. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Mr. Romero. Miss Lunar Rose, >> Mr. Romero, um Mr. McCullum gave a wonderful presentation to the committee. So, um I think maybe some of your questions if you wanted to follow up

164or maybe he can send the board the presentation what he he gave the committee if you're interested on uh what that looks like. >> Or set up an appointment. >> Yeah. Or set up an appointment. Chuck, we might be calling you. >> Why are you giving an email? >> Go ahead, Michelle. >> Thank you, Miss Cavayto, for being here uh considering your illness. Um I'm really happy to see a lot of these recommendations, especially the career and technical education recommendations. That's something I've been uh pushing for uh since being a governing board member. Um my question is for item five, establishing a school garden and composting program at every TUSD school. Um when the I think it was the school or the community gardens program came to us with a presentation uh some time ago

165and I mentioned having a you know composting um program at every school. They were um you know they were nodding their heads in agreement. Um and I wonder what were the reasons for taking no action on this specific item. >> Yeah, thank you. Um the way the discussion really came about uh one of the obstacles that was identified was sustainability. Um and also the fact that these are these programs Well, step I'll take a step back. The macro reason was obvious uh well maybe not obviously but the macro reason was the financial situation of of the district and then drilling down it was issues around sustainability. Maybe there is someone at a site that is interested and they take it on and then that person moves on. that that was identified as as a as

166a factor. It's voluntary. So, not every teacher at every site at every grade is potentially going to want to incorporate um you know maybe attaching some sort of academics to it. Um and then it was really explained to us how much support, for example, the sort of flagship program at Monzo gets from outside sources and how um how the costs can really add up. So I think those were the main reasons why at this time we chose not to take any action. Okay, thank you for uh that clarification. Um I would hope that the board uh could consider also approving uh item five being that it aligns with our climate action policy. Um I do understand the uh the reasoning that you know it's it's going to take some effort. Um but seems to me

167that the cost could be minimal. I mean, I've tried composting in my house and it was a failure. But, you know, if you fail, just throw it away and I didn't have a good teacher, just just a bucket. Um, but I have high hopes for myself and for each of our schools to have a composting program. I think, you know, it can be tied into the curriculum. It can help keep um things out of our landfill and then can also hopefully um you know go back and um be fuel for a school community garden or gardens throughout uh the city of Tucson. Um so I guess I would I would move to add item five as a a recommendation. to this packet. >> So, I'm not sure we need action tonight. So, this is a

168study action item. You know, we have recommendations from the back. I think the staff has a lot of um just direction that we've gotten from the back in terms of trying to implement like I I don't think I'm ready to vote for a summer school program tonight uh with the information that we have. But I think the staff uh you know, we've given some feedback and I think the staff has some good direction from the back to try to see how to implement this. It might come back, some of these individual items might come back to us. So I'm not sure unless Dr. Trio disagrees I I or Miss Lar Rose if the board leagged. I'm not sure if we that's you know we want action and the board decides to action that's the board's

169prerogative but I think for tonight's purposes I think just getting some feedback and then you know the staff needs to continue working on some of these issues. I don't think any of these are ready for final decisions tonight. >> Yeah thank you for for mentioning that Dr. Sh because I was wondering like why there's not any um you know dollar amount attached to any of these. So, if this can come back and we can get some more information about each of these items, including how much it would cost the district to implement, uh, that would be helpful. >> Yeah, I think, you know, all as an individual, like as we as we talk about summer school, we talk about CTE programs, we're going to be expanding CTE programs with the override funds going into next

170year. So, this is more kind of the direction uh for staff to take. Yeah. Yeah, and hopefully this some of these items will come back to us as they they work on getting approval to implement some of these in the future. Miss Lunar Rose. >> Um, yeah, and thank you for saying that and thank you, Michelle. I mean, but I think this was I know we put it as, you know, steady action, but I think it it's to um obviously get the uh communic, you know, conversation between us trying to figure out what's going to best move us forward for the next upcoming school year. Um, so would like to see, you know, uh, a dollar amount to those things. Um, as well as, um, um, Mr. Nandez, if you could speak on, um, summer

171school funding because that was something that was not, um, given by the board to the committee and the committee wanted to did have plenty of discussion. So, I wanted to um ask if you could um kind of talk to my colleagues here on um what would that look like given where we are budget-wise? >> Yeah. So, um thank you. Uh the in regards to the ELD funding, there was there was conversation uh with the committee me the committee in regards to are we providing funding in order to put support language acquisition programs for ELD students in the high schools during summer. Um and the short answer is yes. I mean this is something that has been provided in the past. This has generally been funded by the language acquisition department. It is part of their

172budget for this year. Um the language acquisition department actually received additional funds from the federal government in their title three which is specifically for language acquisition and for English language instruction. And so one of the things that we're looking at is using those dollars specifically in order to address this recommendation. Um, but overall there is funding already that's been designated uh as part of the planning process for ELDs and for language acquisition um to provide some sort of funding to support a program in whatever that looks like for for summer school. So some of these we're already doing. Um if you recall in a prior meeting uh in the fall we brought title one to you. That is something that was already approved by the board. We've already implement that now that we're going through

173budget development. Uh CTE, as Dr. Ravi mentioned, you know, the override is doing the expansion of CTE and and and doing some of what the what the budget advisory committee has talked about. So, some of these things have already been activated in the sense that there funding sources have already been dedicated prior to this. Um, so you know, if if we if the board certainly wants it sounds like you want more information in regards to costs, uh, we can certainly try to put some dollars and cents to that. Um, a lot of this is is already kind of in motion in action just because as part of the normal process of planning summer school, planning title one funding for next school year, um, some of these things have already been put into place uh, as

174part of our normal course of operations. We love to see like as we're talking about, you know, how to fund ECE next year and expansion with the override and CTE, you bringing in like some of that information from the presentations and back so that the board is getting some of that background information too like on on the wise. I think one of the big reasons for the back is to really vet those wise and making sure that we're in the right direction with some of this expansion and programmatic stuff. So, I hope that in the months ahead, we're approving the budget, improving these different things in the override and and just in our general budget as well, that we'll get some of that background information. >> Yeah. From the back as well. >> Sure. >>

175Governor Morman, anything else on this on Miss Extra? >> Uh, yes. I would actually like to see the presentations that were given to um the budget advisory committee. That way I can get more information on what information was giving uh given in regards to the after school programs, the gardens. I want to see everything if that's possible. >> Yeah, we'll we'll provide the links to Yolanda. They're all living in board docs right now. So all the presentations and the video recordings are are available for for public consumption. We'll make sure that those get to you directly. Um and then uh also for the composting in school garden um they don't think it's going to take a lot to compost and um for example at my daughter's school uh PTO is actively funding a school garden.

176So I mean there's other options I think um we just need to look above and beyond um what we can do as governing board. But if I think a school really wants it I think there's other ways to do that. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We're going to move on to item 7.2, request for >> Thank you, Monserat. >> Oh, thank you, Monserat. Thank you for being here tonight. Yes. Hope you you and family feel better. >> Thank you. Good night. >> Good night. >> Thank you. A 7.2 request for governing board review and approval of contract language for the 2627 school year for all certified and administrative employees. Dr. Trillo. >> Yeah. Um, as we do every single year, we bring you contract form language. Uh, of course, tonight we're not

177bringing forward any employees. These are just the contracts. Uh, and I'm going to turn it over to John in a moment. Uh, with possible assistance with Rob. I think Mr. Ross did help with some of the language. I think what's new is that we we're going to have uh portions of compensation are going to now be handled by what could be considered a temporary funding source. And then we're also going to have whole positions that could also be funded uh with a temporary funding source which would be override money which is a difference in contract language as you saw last year. So I'll ask John to make sure that you highlight that. Obviously for time purposes we're not going to read all of the different contracts but we do want to hit the highlights and

178answer of course any governing board questions. Mr. Fernandez, >> good evening again. Um these are the cont these are seven uh contract templates really that we use uh for our uh superintendent leadership team, our TEA continuing probationary and temporary employees, our ELI members who are principal psychologists, research pro research project managers and our return to work uh employees. And so we come to the board around this time every year to get you to review the language uh and approve the you know approve the language and then on March 10th we anticipate coming back with the names of those uh employees who will be offered contracts for the coming year once you approve that in March. Then by March 15th we'll be able to move those contracts out and make those you know get those to

179the employees to sign for the coming school year. So, the biggest change, which is basically in every one of the contract templates, is uh you'll see the specific language uh highlighted in red that you have. Um and I can read that out, but this really has to do with providing notice to employees of the the the impact of override funding on their compensation and really just to provide them notice. uh so that you know over the next five years as we head towards uh the fifth year if an override is is not renewed the board does reserve its right um to make adjustments uh to SC salary schedules and positions. So if you wouldn't mind I'll just read it really quickly. Um employee acknowledges that all or a portion of their compensation reflected in the

180current salary schedule is funded through a voter approved budget override. Unless renewed by the voters, the first phase down will begin in the 2030 to 30 2031 school year. The governing board reserves the right to adjust salary schedules or reduce positions to align with available recurring revenue. The district remains committed to providing notice of any such adjustment no later than March one of the budget overrides expiration year. So that standard language is on each of these contracts that are coming to you coming before you today. Um I did share uh the language both with Eli as well as the TEA um for their review. The only question we had was really about the date for notifying employees that March 1 date um and whether we could move that any earlier. Uh in our discussion we

181I my response was uh the language says no later than March 1st. uh if possible, we would love to always notify employees as soon as possible if there is going to be an impact. But March 1 really aligns with the budget process that we go through and usually in January and February. We're working through those budgetary decisions and recommendations with school sites and departments. So, we wanted to give until March 1st because it really is around January and February where we start to get a clear picture of what the adjustments will be. So, uh with that said, that was the only uh feedback I got. Um, otherwise it's before you for your consideration and approval hopefully. >> Right. Thank you, Mr. Fernandez. Governing board members, any questions, comments, feedback, any motions? I'll move the item.

182>> Moved by myself and seconded by Miss Rose. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Seeing none, item passes 5-0. >> All right. Thank you. >> Have good evening. >> All right. Next we have 7.3 approval to purchase and implement second phase of the investment grade audit IGA. Dr. Trillo. >> Yes. Uh I'll turn this over to our bond manager Dr. Charlotte Carter. >> Okay. Good. Well, good evening. Um I am here to present or and also let me say start with this uh to the governing board president Dr. Shaw and governing board members. I am here to um discuss the approval to purchase and implement the second phase of the four of the investment grade audit. So the investment grade uh audit is to help determine the potential energy

183and water saving opportunities for the district. We have 21 schools which I won't read all of them and if we could put up on the screen the uh document. What I really do want to on the second of the 12 pages want to talk about what the scope is of this uh second phase of the investment grade audit. And so the coordination, you can go down to the second page. Um is the coordination and management TUSD designer to provide the following. The mechanical engineering, structural engineering, electrical engineering, the HVAC large equipment design development, the energy engineering and model and savings, the building automation and system design, gas metering and code compliance, water conservation measures, irrigation system development and conservation upgrades, energy and climate education, uh career technical education programs, installation and building envelope, support TE

184application for rebates and additional incentives, and then to design development support for get the load out glow. I do want to remind everybody that the investment grade audit is not funded by the bond program, but the baseline facilities assessment data can be used to maximize the bond funds through increasing energy efficiency, reducing maintenance costs, and prolonging the equipment life cycle. So, what I would uh love is a motion to approve the purchase and implementation of the second phase of the investment grade audit to determine energy and water saving opportunities across the district. >> Thank you, Dr. Carter. >> Governing board, >> I'll move the item. >> I'll second >> item moved by Miss Shaw and seconded by Miss Lunar Rose. I have some questions before we um vote on this. So, can you tell me

185how this relates to I I know uh some of our operations folks aren't here, but um how this relates to the consultant that we hired uh to look at energy efficiency in our district and to implement our climate sustainability uh plan. Are they involved in this process at all? And did they make recommendations to this? >> I'm going to let the SME Damon val. >> Yes. Uh good evening. Um so yeah so what we took a look at with the investment great audit um you have two components. This is really a boots on the ground effort with the bond and the partnership. the um the overarching uh climate and sustainability plan is a long range uh planning doc that looks at you know 5 10 year and the the advantages that we have with our

186bond that we passed is we're able to implement these uh facility improvement measures much sooner and provide that data that we need so that we can really target those small and short-term goals that meet the overarching uh sustainability plan. So, we are a part of there's been multiple dis uh discussions with uh TINA and that group looking at what their long range plan is and how we can take advantage of the long range plan to provide uh short-term goals that meet that ultimate sustainability plan. Any other questions or comments from the governing board? All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Item passes 5-0. Thank you. >> All right, Dr. Trillia, we have one more study item left on our agenda. TUSD K6 initiative and planning updates. >> Yeah. Um, President

187Shaw, members of the governing board, uh, though we're probably going to take a pause this year and not recommend adding to K6. Uh, we want to concentrate on working out the bugs with our current K6 uh, slate of schools. Wanted to provide the governing board with an update on uh, number not just enrollment, but uh, what have been some of the strengths and challenges so far uh, with the K6 initiative and then of course throw it open to the board uh, for question, comments, and suggestions. Uh joining us is our regional assistant superintendent uh Mr. Richard Sanchez uh to handle some of the questions. We also have uh Dr. Freighus here to answer any other related questions. Well, good evening board president Shaw, governing board members, Dr. Trujillo. Just want to thank you so much

188for allowing us uh the opportunity to provide you an update on the K6 initiative that you are all very familiar with. Just for a little bit of the context to the public, just wanted to remind everybody of the 13 K6 schools that we have throughout our district, they are represented by throughout our region. Um, the majority or the original 10 of them began in school year 2425 and then of course this academic year we added three more schools which was Borton, uh, Kelland and Wright. And so just to give the public a little bit of context, we know that, you know, the K5 middle school or K8 initiative instructional model has been around for, you know, multiple decades. And this K6 initiative has been um underway for about a year and a half now. And

189so I do want to take a a moment to thank the board to thank the board for thinking outside the box, for providing our families with an opportunity to have a different kind of student experience, especially for their fifth graders who are metriculating to sixth grade and knowing that, you know, we have to do things nowadays to try to customize that educational experience. And so I really do want to thank the board. I also want to thank our principles and in particular our teachers who are implementing this program. We know that you know one of the things being a former STEM principal myself and sort of that iterative process of trying to make sure that you plan and then design and then you implement and you test and then you reflect. Those things are thing

190the attributes we really want in our students. And so these schools are really modeling that because there have been some great strengths from the program, but also some growing pains as we know that we're in the infasy of it. You know, one of the things that we're really trying to do in district leadership is to to interface with our principles, our teachers, and our families and really determine what's working and then also what can we do to hopefully make it a better student experience. knowing that not every single instructional model is going to equate to, for example, the middle school model. Um, there are going to be some distinct differences between the two, but what we're hoping for families is that they get to have choice and an opportunity to make the best choice for

191their child uh through this particular initiative. So what you're going to see uh throughout this presentation really is just a reminder of what the instructional framework is and then what are the lessons that we've learned over the last year and a half. What are some of the instructional strengths? What are some of the feedback that we've received from families from site administrators and teachers uh regarding the instructional strengths? Of course, what are the challenges? What are the things that we have to try to close the gap on? And then are we having any refinements going into the next uh school year that we can uh present to the board and of course the general public. So just uh just to recall there is a distinct difference between the the K5 and the sixth grade middle

192school model. And so this slide really just designates the difference between the two. The one thing that I want to really share with the board and the public is that they're funded very differently. by the way, they're not it's not a uniform funding system when it comes to elementary and to middle school. Those are two different like sort of funding uh categories. And so you're going to see distinct differences when students do get into sixth grade even though they still are on the elementary school. So a couple things that you see there in the K5 that many of you are familiar with being parents of course is you know the daily attendance an instructional schedule that really is not periodbased. It's it's wholebased school. Uh so maybe in the morning you have ELA and then

193after lunch you have math for an extended period of time. Um it's broken up into more of an instructional schedule than instructional periodbased kind of model. Um there are certain state daily minutes that are required not content minutes. So there are instructional minutes for the day but not necessary for the content. Um and then of course specials. Specials are what we call at the secondary level electives, but the specials at elementary school really are funded very differently than they are at an elective uh through the secondary model. So specials and they vary from school to school. You've had the Tao drums here performing for you from Kat, right? That comes from MA and then being an MA school and of course being able to receive some some funds from there. We've had the fine arts

194department provide funding for all of our elementary schools uh throughout uh the district. Now, that varies in whether they have band or orchestra. We've seen some of those performances here. When you go to schools like Sam Hughes, you'll see an ecology program. Well, that's funded through tax credit dollars that they have available to them. If you, you know, I know naturally some of you are parents from line readers, so you know they have a PE program there and that's naturally funded through M. So every school of 66 elementaryaries are funded a little bit differently and therefore the specials that they have that students engage with vary from school to school. Whereas at the secondary model in sixth grade you're required to have electives. Now electives are prescribed within the instructional day of the sixth period

195day model. And so those are electives are based on what we can afford based on the student enrollment within that grade level and the opportunities that we have. As you know from the board um from the other uh presentations about K6, we have a sixth period day at the sixth grade level. Four of those are required academics that have to be instructional minutes bound and that of course is math, science, social studies, and English. And then we have the two electives. The two electives that we've been able to offer our sixth graders is fine arts. We've been able to extend the elementary fine arts to the sixth graders by having them participate in band and orchestra and then we chose AVID as the other elective so that way they could be better prepared as they

196transitioned into um seventh grade. So, you know, those are just really the two models that we have. We know that we've been experimenting this year with having some of our K6 schools that have these specials and having the sixth graders actually participate in those specials. The only difficulty with that is we can't take away the instructional minutes from the four academic core classes in order to do that. And so we're trying to experiment with some of the elective choices to maybe have them engage with some of those other specials as well. So some of the strengths that you'll see here uh on the screen are things from anecdotal data to school quality survey data to you know me reaching out to the principles on my visits or my colleagues uh that go and visit these

197particular schools and ask how the program is going interfacing with the teachers and some of these things I think we knew were going to be positive once uh the board had approved the KEX initiative and that is the first one being familiar with and supportive learning environ ments. We've heard a lot from our parents on why they decided to stay at their local elementary school because they knew the staff there. They knew that there was relationship capacity already built. Maybe they had younger siblings already attending and it was easier for the parent to go ahead and keep both of their children at the same location as well. So, those are just things that we've heard um that is a strength about this particular program. the deep knowledge of students uh and families. Of course, when

198you are there from kinder all the way now through sixth grade, you do build that relational capacity and you have sort of the needs of the student and the parents in mind. the students are very familiar with the routines and the procedures of that particular school especially around like PBIS and different things that are occurring uh at the site level that really helps them understand uh the school and of course more importantly that the teachers and the staff understand the student and the family so you get much more parent engagement in that context the lower studenttoteer ratios are really important um from school to school if you walk into those sixth grade classrooms there is a smaller studenttoteer ratio uh than maybe you would traditionally see at the middle school level. We really think that

199has helped in regards to the teachers being able to deliver that tier one instruction especially since they have to deliver multiple contents to the students. It allows them to sort of engage with that whole group and small group opportunity uh at a much more uh reduced ratio than they may uh the student may engage with at the middle school level. individualized student learning and supports. Um, just to let the board know, when we look at the enrollment data, one-third of the students who attend sixth grade uh are exceptional ed students. And so, this really does help us in the regards of making sure that we are following that IEP, that we are making sure that we are following that plan, that if students have an MTSS plan, that we are following the academic and behavioral

200plan that was established maybe in the previous years as well. And then of course stronger relationships within the building. Of course students are more familiar with one another. They have sort of metriculated with one another from cohort to cohort. And so that bonding experience is well established for the the students as well. But of course there are challenges, right? It's hard to replicate the middle school environment at a K6. And so some of these uh are things that we're really trying to wrap our mind around and how can we sort of uh make the student experience a little bit better as well as the teacher and the administrative experience. And so we know that there's limited access to specialized instruction. If your child goes to a middle school, they're going to get a dedicated math,

201science, social studies, ELA teacher who's sort of that singleton who is that content expert in there. And so that is the difference between going off to a middle school and of course staying behind at the elementary and having that uh teacher have to teach those multiple contents. We know that the depth of knowledge because of that really is something that we have to help try to support our K6 teachers on so that way the students are getting robust rigorous curriculum uh as they're delivering those kind of content strands as well. We know that there's quite frankly elective opportunities are reduced. Right? When you go to off to a middle school, your child's going to have a you know a robust opportunity to take multiple classes even though it's a sixth period day and two electives.

202Those elective choices are more robust at the middle school level. At the elementary level, because a little bit of the funding that we have and the specials that we have there, it definitely is much more limited. And so the student engagement piece in that capacity becomes limited as well in the student interest. Then limited extracurricular programming. Um in the past year and a half we have not been able to really come up with a plan to engage our students with afterchool opportunities as much as they have at the middle school level including extracurricular sports uh or after school clubs. But that is something that you'll see on the next slide that we're happy to report we're going to be able to do. uh next year for our sixth grade students. And then of course family

203choice and enrollment pressures. We know we have some wonderful middle schools. We have Dodge, we have Wakefield. And so sometimes the families really want to get into those schools early on in sixth grade and not have to wait for that transition into seventh grade to make that uh to get in there, especially through sort of the lottery system. And so that's important for families that they sort of get their student in right away which then does cause us to have a little bit of that enrollment loss when it comes to retaining the students in sixth grade uh at the K6s. And of course the perception that middle school offers more sports, more after school clubs um and more electives which which is an accurate um perception. So what are we trying to do moving forward?

204We've made some steps in doing this based on the enrollment and in particular K6 schools. For example, uh six of the 13 schools do departmentalized instruction, which means they don't get four teachers, but they get two. There's a teacher that is teaching the math science curriculum, and then there's a teacher that is teaching the ELA social studies curriculum. And thus that does allow for some of that transition to occur where the sixth grade student does get a different perspective, a different teacher. Um, and that teacher is able not to have to teach so much content. They can be a little bit more content experts uh in those two particular contents that they've been assigned as well. We have been since dating back to last year during our PLLD days pulling all sixth grade teachers from

205K6s and providing them professional development because we know this is a new model. We want them to come together as colleagues and talk about things that are going well, things that they're struggling with and how are they able to manage u you know the role that they're playing. I do want to thank uh uh Kathy Jensen and Hillary Lopes for being the facilitators and planning those uh specialized PLLD days uh for those K6 teachers. We do plan next year um because of the great news of the override passage um to have more opportunities for our sixth graders on the K5 campus. As we now know that because of the override, we will have elementary schools that now offer PE where that was a little bit of hit and miss across the district. Now, all 66

206of our schools, including the 13 uh case uh six schools, will have PE as an opportunity there. We know that we have the arts already and that's also going to be expanded um through the override passage and the enrichment uh electives that we have we really want to incorporate into the student schedule by making it more of a quarterly kind of elective and maybe not a semester kind of elective moving into next year. And then of course we want to partner with communities or and organizations to come in to those K6 schools and offer some afterchool activities that the sixth graders could participate in and engage with as well. And then the great news that we have to share with the public is beginning next year we are going to allow our sixth graders to

207participate in extracurricular sports at their nearest middle school. So we will be providing information to those sixth graders and those parents about how to become eligible to participate. There are some participation requirements um if you have your children going through intercolastics, but they will basically will be able to provide them a their nearest uh middle school to then transition to after school and then um you know compete in those extracurricular activities. I am working also with uh Dr. Joe Nashcraft to determine if that also can be replicated when it comes to performing arts. So if there is a middle school nearby that has afterchool choir, I want to be able to provide the sixth grade uh student the opportunity to participate in in that afterchool program there as well. So those are things that we've

208been able to work out through eligibility and our synergy team. Um that's been a process, but we're we're happy that that's going to be coming up soon enough. So with that being said, um I will be happy to take any questions and or any ideas that you may have that will help enhance uh this particular initiative. Thank you. >> Well, thank you for the presentation. I think you know this summarizes a lot of what I and I assume a lot of my colleagues uh see when we visit schools that have the K to6 campus. see things that are working well for the students that are there and and a lot of the challenges that we see firsthand or hear from the teachers and staff that are uh trying to engage the students and make sure

209they have all the opportunities they need. Uh I have a there's a lot of ideas and thoughts, but I'll turn it off to my governing board members if they wanted to make any comments or questions. First, Mr. Romero, followed by Miss Luna Rose, followed by Miss Shaw. So, um, real quick, you're talking about the lower student, uh, to teacher ratio on on those schools is I'm guessing that is the the I guess the rule, but uh, we have a couple excellers like uh, Soling Tom Oscar who's got a lot going over there other than Soling Tom and his sixth grade. of anybody that has kind of that quite a bit different ratio like they have >> uh with the enrollment of over in the southwest side of uh Tucson VC and banks also tend to

210have higher enrollment uh when it comes to the studenttoteer ratio. Um more of our central uh sort of uh central locations. I mean every school varies. Um I know at Wright it's in their first iteration so it's a little bit smaller there. um when it comes to student toteer ratio, but just down the street, Davidson, which is in it, you know, it's in its second year, uh has been able to grow the program and actually bring in additional students from neighboring elementaryaries uh that wanted to stay in the elementary sort of setting. So, uh it just varies uh Mr. Romero from enrollment, but Soling Tom is definitely a school that has been able to retain many of the the fifth grade cohort to sixth grade. And I know again as it's infancy and I just

211want to see how we're thinking ahead and be of because eventually they're going to have to leave sixth grade like before they had to leave fifth grade now they have to leave sixth grade. Are we keeping an eye on any of the type of metrics from the kids that are going into seventh grade that are going from middle school 6th to middle school 7th from K6 to middle school 7? Are we how are we monitoring where those children are, those students are in that seventh grade experience? Because again, sixth grade, they have that one year for seventh grade in middle school. In the K6 program, it's jumped right into the fire there. >> Yeah. So, you know, part of the the rationale for why we picked AVID as that second elective was really to get

212them ready for that transition into uh seventh grade because we knew the transition was going to occur and it's not going to be replicated perfectly on the elementary environment that they're going to have to get used to um making the transition six or seven times where maybe currently they're only making it one or two times if they're going into special. So part of the AVID kind of curriculum that we're working on is them understanding some of those transition uh experiences and even though they're not really living it, it's really mentally preparing them for that. And then really it's about us looking at what the enrollment looks like for the receiving schools and making sure that we're capturing as many students as possible transitioning into that middle school. >> Thank you. Miss Lar Rose followed by

213Miss Shaw. >> Thank you. Hi Mr. Sanchez. Thank you so much for the presentation. Uh one comment and then um my question. I was recently at Davidson um last week. I actually did love her reading. And so, um, in speaking to principal there, she was saying that, um, I I I had honestly forgotten that there was sixth grade there because I was saying like sometimes reading to fifth graders is a little bit more of a challenge than reading to first in kindergarten. And um, and she's like, "Oh, yes. You know, we also have our sixth grade." And I said, and I was like, "Oh, how's that going?" and she said that um it was just such a nice change for the community there. Um as well as the fact that um they weren't it was

214for a lot of the parents they felt like um it kind of kept them on the smaller side, you know, as opposed to going to the middle school and acting too too cool for school, as I like to say. Um, and so I I it sounded to me in our conversation that the parents really appreciated it. So to lead into my question, have has there been maybe a midyear um ask of parents like a survey of how you're feeling um keeping your child through sixth grade here or moving them to uh a school that from their previous school that now this school that they're at has the sixth grade? you know, have have we done that or have you done that yet? >> We haven't done a particular survey. It's something that I I know

215myself and the assessment evaluation team can put together. We tend to of course rely on the school quality survey that parents fill out, but we also realize that's a very general survey about their child's experience. We do believe that because parents will fill that out for their sixth grade child that we'll be able to gain some data from that. But um I definitely do uh re you know see hear your recommendation that we probably should customize a quick survey uh for particular parents about the sixth grade experience and what can be done so we can uh start working on something like that. I I thank you um for saying that because I think that might be also a good marketing tool using um the experiences the positive experiences from parents since we decided to um

216implement this pilot program. Um and you know like my kid did great at Davidson because sixth grade is here. You know like I that I I know for some people you know that you might sound cheesy or something but those things do work. that's why they're around. So, um, as you're thinking about implementing, if you can keep the board appraised on that, I'd appreciate it. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Thank you for your presentation. Um, I'm really excited to hear about the opportunities for sixth grade students to take sports at their closest uh middle school. So, I appreciate you working on that. Um but is there data yet that shows that these uh families who kept their students in their elementary school are staying in our district um are enrolling in the seventh grade middle

217school in TUSD. >> I do believe Mr. Bryant Odin probably has that data and he can share that with the board. >> Okay. Thank you. Can you go ahead and put up that slide? We we looked at uh what we'll call um say loss rates. So it's it's the transition of it's the students going from one grade to the next and how many we we lose. uh typically in the fifth to sixth transition. Uh you can see it in there, the fifth to sixth transition in the K5 schools or in general in K5 schools before we started K6, we lost about 10% of the students. Um with the K6 schools, the loss was only about 5%. That's equivalent to about 40 students. So that sounds good. But to your point, um the loss rate from

218in the K6es from six to seven is 15%. And in middle schools is 4%. If you look at the numbers, it comes out to a loss of about 40 students. So we kept them for a year is what it really comes down to. >> Is this at all tracking our pilot programs? Just honing in on those pilot program students. honing in just on the K6 program loss rates compared to just the middle school loss rates. >> I see. Well, I think that it would be helpful like the uh extracurricular opportunity connecting sixth graders with a middle school somewhere in our district whether it's through sports or or otherwise I think will help um improve this average. So, thank you. >> Mr. Romero, you were adjusting your mic or >> Mr. Exter. Go ahead. >> Uh,

219thank you. I'm a little disappointed because I think I had asked for a survey a year ago and we still haven't given parents a survey. Um, I think it's important that we do that soon because if we're continuing to see loss, I don't see how we continue to expand the program. Um, so sixth graders will go to their nearest middle school. So Borton, do they go to Draman because it's K8 or do they go to Mansfeld because it's a middle school >> for next year in the sport that they'd be going to Mansfeld. >> Okay. >> So we've designated and I don't have it memorized um though I could get that information to the board where we have provided all the principles uh at the K6es where their nearest middle school is. We did not

220do K8s, we did middle schools. Um, so for example, Davidson would be going to Dulan. Wright would be going to Dulan because those are Whitmore Dodge. And so we tried to do it to where we could have the nearest middle school because of the proximity for transportation. >> Okay. Um, and again I unless I with with the parent quality survey, I'm not particularly I don't find it useful. I mean, it's the same questions every year and I don't know what we get from it. So, you know, unless we're constantly evolving, I I don't see how that parent quality survey is going to help us with this K6 um expansion or, you know, this pilot program. So, I would like to see something different. Um because I I really believe I and I've heard from families,

221they're like, "Here's this quality survey again, and it's the same questions, and what are we really getting out of it?" So I I think we need to be proactive and start changing things um so that way we really understand what our parents are feeling um and how they see their students improving and how we can improve our schools um because without it I mean we're just doing the same thing year after year. >> Thank you. >> So I'll say a couple of things uh and comments here. So, I I remember when we were first approving this K6 pilot program a few years back, uh I remember saying like, I wish this was in existence for my oldest who's now an eighth grader to be able to um take part in this if you line is

222not one of those schools, but if if it were that it would been really nice to have her at Line Weaver for an additional year um and and be part of this. But, you know, having seen both kind of how it's been implemented, the on the ground uh feedback and then how my daughter has really thrived in middle school uh including at sixth grade with the oeltive options, especially the bandon orchestra. You saw her here playing the the worst parent fibrophone or xylophone or whatever the big machine is over there that she was playing here tonight. Um she's going to hate me for that. Uh but um I I would say that like I I I would not if I had had the option to do that, I would not do that for her. I

223wouldn't enroll my twins into a K6 uh after fifth grade and and move them into middle school if it stays the way they are right now. Uh I think a lot of the electives, a lot of the um the ability to have the change in teachers and in her sixth grade year she did have the same teacher do math and science and so that model was there even in the middle schools. Um I think we need to do a lot more for the kids and so we one idea that I had was more of a hub and spoke model where you talk about kind of the the nearest middle school but we have the feeder schools. We have the we have the elementary schools, we know where they're supposed to feed to in a in

224a normal normal transition system here. And if we had a hub and spoke model where they spend their morning, for example, in their elementary school, so they can have the best of both worlds, a safe environment, let's do their core classes with two teachers, maybe splitting like you recommended with English, social studies, math, and science, uh, and do the mornings in their home schools with elementary. And then after lunch being bus to the the spoke uh the hub middle school rather. So all the elementary schools in that hub spoke model all the folks come to the hub middle school for the afternoon where then they can participate in the uh electives. So all the electives are in the afternoon. They can participate in music programs, art programs, uh industrial engineering, all these different things. Lego

225technology is what she did her her sixth grade year and have these elective options that really expand their horizons and bring them all together because, you know, a band in a in a K6 with, you know, with this like their band of sixth graders isn't going to be the same if she's, you know, a sixth grader, you know, learning this new instrument that she's never played before with a bunch of seventh and eighth graders uh there to kind of lead the way and and show her how it's done. And so I think staying in that sixth grade uh in the K6 would really have lost her whole year of all that training and and and and growth and development that she had. And in the afternoon after electives they can stay then if they wanted

226to if if the parents wanted them to stay for the extracurricular activities for sports or for uh yearbook or or whatever you know all these different things that a lot of these middle schools Dungeons and Dragons that Alice Veil all these different uh clubs and activities that are available for those like older developing kids. you know the you know like a a linew weaver at one point had like a a chess club game club but a sixth grader playing that with bunch of first second graders is very different than a sixth grader playing that with the seventh and eighth graders that are really challenging them and so that's that's kind of where I would love to see in terms of a change in vision and how we manage this K6 model where we have the

227hub and spoke the part of the day in their safe elementary school with the adults that they know doing their core classes and then bus and when we have that capacity, we don't have a lot of buses going anywhere like at noon or at 1:00 them being bus to their hub middle school. And then hopefully that will increase that six to seven uh retention because they're already in that middle school uh to do their extracurriculars and their band and music programs and their sports and extracurricular activities. So, they're maybe more likely to want to stay in that same middle school to continue those programs uh in those last two years of of middle school. So, I know it'll cost more in terms of the busing and kind of the logistics behind it, but I think

228that will bring all the kids together, give them the opportunities, have the best of both worlds, what we're trying to accomplish with this program and and maybe get some more enrollment and more um more more achievement for for the kids. >> No, thank you, Dr. Shaw. appreciate that uh thinking you know I think like we I started with you know that kind of thinking uh does allow us to start thinking about how we can create a different iteration of it you know I you know the hub and smoke model could work as long as we do some logistical sort of planning around that right from like we probably have to align some bell schedules together to make sure that um those classes are being offered at the time that it's needed of course with the

229instructional minutes making sure that that's uh accounted for because if you're on the school bus going to the middle school, that does not count as instructional minutes. So, we have to maybe elongate the day a little bit. But, it's those kind of things that we're happy to go back and review um and see what kind of iterations uh we can build on uh for future uh cohorts. Definitely. >> Lisha, >> just want to say that um I completely agree with u what you said, Dr. Shaw. Um, I equally wanted to keep my daughter at Linew Weaver, but I'm so happy that she moved on and, you know, had that scary first day and now she loves it over there. Um, and I'm really interested to see what the hub and spoke model can do um,

230for our district. >> Anything else on this topic? All right. Thank you for the late presentation. Thank you. >> Appreciate your time this evening. Uh so our last item tonight um is going to be our future meeting days dates and agenda items. Dr. Trillo. >> Yes, governing board members. Uh two things. First uh an order of business. The February 17th uh we scheduled a an executive session meeting. We have a clean slate that evening and uh we would like the board to consider cancelling that one. >> Let's see. Unanimous consent. No objection. Okay. Okay. So, I have unanimous consent for cancing the February 17th meeting and I will send off I'll have Yolenna send off uh just an invitation for the 17th uh forum. So, even though there's not a board meeting, there's not a

231quorum uh event, um just, you know, if you can attend a solicit and be there uh to see what the feedback is from the from the staff, I think that'll be helpful for any board member that can't attend. >> Secondly, we will be back on February 24th. We're going to have a budget uh reduction review session with the governing board. will be presenting our administrative cuts package in a lot more detail than what you saw the first time. Uh we will also have uh several administrative appointments uh on deck that evening. We'll also have the annual comprehensive financial report. So we will be busy uh in two weeks. Dr. Trio, for a future agenda item, can we have an information item maybe having a presentation from our consultants for the sustainability uh program? I think

232April or early May was when we uh approved that last year. So, it's been almost a year and love to see what they're doing and what the community forums and feedback and and how they're um implementing our sustainability plan. Mr. Romero, um also the renaming of Deputy to the Deputy Romero Family Resource Center. Just kidding. No one got the joke at 9:13 in the evening. >> It's a joke. All right. With uh anything else? All right. All right, with that we'll close the meeting. Thank you everyone. That was that was a Since we're here,