001All right, you guys ready? >> Like to call to order the meeting of January 14th, 2026. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to theublic which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Moving to item three, election of governing board officers for 2026. Um, I will open the floor for nominations for governing board president at this time. I would um >> pass nominate myself >> or you don't have to make a nomination. >> Oh, I would like to nominate Kristen. >> Uh I was actually gonna say I nominate Kristen Actton. Um and this year she's led difficult conversations with truth and grace and balance the needs of staff, community members, district leadership.
002Um while putting what's best for kids first. So, I'd love to see you continue that as well. >> In the spirit of the same thing, um Christmas break is always great for me because there's time to think and reflect and to reflect back on the last year. I think about our board and in the community there are a lot of dysfunctional boards, but this is an amazing board and I very much appreciate your leadership and our um vice president Vicki yours also. I think about the team of six. I call it the team of six. Um I hear our superintendent say, "We as a board are a working team and doing that work together with him." Um we're doing some amazing things together. I'm so impressed. And so I would like to add I'd also
003like to echo them in nominating you because things are going so great, so wonderful. And I just want to thank you for all the extra time, your service and time. being our last year's board president. Sorry not to echo their comments. Also, >> we can just if someone would like to make a motion. >> Um I move be >> yes. Naylor. Yes. >> Yes. >> Actton. Yes. >> Okay. And now we will move. Okay. Um, and do we have I would like to nominate Landis as our vice president again this year. That would be >> I'll vote then do a We're going to square in real quick. Do we have to do it again? >> Yes. I support the Constitution of the United States. >> United States >> and the Constitution and laws of the
004State of Arizona. >> State of Arizona. >> That I will bear true. >> I will bear true. defend them all. >> And I willfully impartially discharge the duties of the office of presidentfully >> high school district. >> According to the my abil [applause] I >> do swear >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States. the state of Arizona. I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. >> I will bear true >> and defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic >> and that I will faithfully and discharge the duties of vice president and discharge >> of the high school district of my abil Best of my ability. [applause] Now that that's done, moving on to better things. 4.1 student recognition national merit scholars. President Actton, members of the board, I
005have with me director of uh strategic initiatives and community um Melinda Maris. And this year we embarked on an initiative to uh give more recognition in our district to academic excellence. And we have an entire plan um throughout the year that I will give you more detail on later. However, I want to have Melinda touch on some of the highlights on how we're going to uh recognize our uh academic excellence in our students. >> Yes. So, the academic superstar initiative is really cool. We do lots of cool initiatives here in our district as you know. Um but this is have been has been a really fun one. And so each month we're going to recognize superintendent academic superstars. I want you guys to say that fast times. Um but in that each month we're going
006to recognize national throughout the rest of the school year. We're going to recognize National Merit Scholars, top 5% students with exceptional ACT scores, Ivy League acceptance, uh students that have accepted at a IV league school, and then also portrait of a graduate standouts. And so we're going to recognize those students here in a governing board meeting. You're also going to see those on press releases in the West Valley View. So, we're really excited about that. Be on the lookout in our social media. We'll do um some press release um shoutouts there as well. Tonight though, we're recognizing the National Merit Scholars. And so what is a National Merit Scholar? Um these are students that represent the top academic 1% of students nationwide um based on very exceptional performance, rigorous um rigorous uh PSAT scores as
007well as a very strenuous selection process. And so we're very proud to recognize two students across our district this evening um who basically have um been recognized for this and been placed among the most accomplished scholars in our country. So on I'm going to ask principal Matt Le to come on up and he's going to recognize his national merit scholar. >> All right. Good evening. new elected president Actton, Vice President Landis, members of the board, Mr. Let's um get to do what I love most, which is just brag about our students. This is Emerson Cow and Emerson has recently been recognized as a National American Commened student in recognition of her outstanding ability and potential for academic success in college. On top of that, she's our Woodwin captain for the Viper Vanguard. Um she was
008Elsa where she let it go back here in the uh the fall play in the musical. Um, she's also heavily involved in NHS, senior senior program, uh, show choir, all on top of being in the top 5% of our school. Um, but the thing I think I'm most proud of Emerson is that she has a huge heart. She's always positive and she's a dedicated student that people count on. So, proud of Emerson and all she does. And now I'll invite up principal hand as she introduces her student. Good evening, President Actton, members of the board, superintendent, and our aafria community. Um, I first want to say thank you for to you for letting us do this. I think um I'm speaking on behalf probably of all the principles that we don't get enough opportunity to
009get up here and and showcase what great things um our kids do. So, thank you for this opportunity. Um, tonight I have uh Celicia Nunees. Uh, she is a student who dedicated herself. This is not Celia. I'll explain. [laughter] You're like, "WOW." >> UM, [laughter] >> Lisia um demonstrated a very strong commitment to her academic and extracurricular um excellence. She was involved in our Asian-American student union. She was participant in cross country, the physics club, and NHS member. Um because of her great outstanding performance, she actually graduated in the spring. And so Celisia is currently studying um psychology, correct, at the University of California, San Diego. So she's not here with us because she started school today. Um but we're really excited. Um her mother Charlene is here with us tonight. She's also our physics
010teacher at Desert Edge High School. So we're really excited um to congratulate Celisia. [applause] Let's [laughter] actually Listing off those accomplishments. They're not only brilliant but well-rounded students. Great to hear. >> Um, moving to 5.1, request to address the governing board. And we have no comments tonight. So, moving on to 6.1, a Millennium High School update. Hello, Mr. H. Thank you, President Actton, and congratulations, members of the board, Superintendent East, and members of our community. I'm up here with some friends tonight. I have with me David Schmidt and Kristen Taylor Foley from the DLR Group, architects on the Millennium High School remodel project. I've got Connor Lewis and he's got some of his team from Chase building team, the contractors on the project. And we have principal Cole Bundy um who's couldn't be more important
011on the project. Um so we wanted to first of all we're just really excited we got to spend basically the whole last hour with the governing board and with some of members of our community kind of digging deep into this project and um what it was going to be and the challenges and how we're tackling those challenges and really digging deep into that that process. We're not going to spend a whole hour here right now again. So, we're going to give you just a very brief update as to uh some of the things going on with the Millennium High School remodel. So, we started some time ago on a master plan process and we took a look at what Nicole and her team um through a process with the architects identified as the wants and
012needs campuswide. And then we had to really start narrowing those down to what were the top priorities. And as we started talking about what some of those top priorities might be, um we also were in the process of doing a little bit of a remodel. Anyway, um here you see in this image the concourse um from the stadium and that was being redone during this time. This was a safety and security project. So because of that, it rose to the top of the list while we were processing this master planning process. Um, so as we jumped in, we went from the master plan trying to figure out what are the most important things. And um, you see principal Bundy in the picture on the left here with her team. They had a lot of fun
013moving blocks around and talking about what were the needs. And it was pretty unanimous as we talked to student groups and parent groups and teacher groups and community groups that the core center of the campus was the number one priority and the number one need in particular the buildings on campus that had a basement in. So that's where our efforts then went. Um I'm just briefly going to talk about some of the components in this phase that we're calling phase two. We're calling the stadium concourse phase one. Um so real quickly I'd like for David to talk about a lot of the work we're doing kind of goes around a center plaza or courtyard. And I want David just to briefly talk about why that was such an important part of this process. Um we
014back at the way this campus grew. Uh it was originally designed as a campus for about 500 students and we've designed a courtyard around that. And as the campus grew, we kind of ended up with a lot of little suburban courtyards around the thing around the spaces that were very hard to like keep tabs on. There was no space. So you always go uh if I told one of you, meet me at at Millennium High School, where would you go if you didn't know any better? Where does that where's that center courtyard? And so, um, although this project kind seems sort of invasive in the sense that it's in the center, I think it was very important that we that we really take out the center of the campus and really reorganize that and really
015build it around an idea of a student of a student population that's now 1,800 to 2,000 students, make it larger, connects all the pieces together. connects the vital components of cafeteria, the library, the administration, the new white box, the new labs, and all the uh curriculum spaces around that um around that center courtyard. And so I think the outcomes of this really speak to um a revitalization of a of a place where students can can gather and can um work on the social aspects of their learning. >> Thank you, David. So as we did that um you know I mentioned that we had this building that we wanted to tackle first that included a basement. So the basement was always our big challenge and we tried to turn it into one of the big strengths
016going forward and that it provided this awesome area to to create this plaza and to bring light into the lower level and I think that it's really going to be one of the most important aspects going forward. Um, I know that some of you are further away from the screen than others, but basically on this plaza or below ground level, everything in green is actually underneath the current gymnasium. So, with the addition of the Tigers D about three or four years ago, um, we were able to cut down on some of the locker room space there and add some additional classrooms uh, in that area. Um, also in the purple you see, um, things like the marketing program. So, that's where the student store would be going this open plaza as well as the TV
017and films broadcast programs which also is a great program to have going out in this public space and the area in pink is the white box and the white box is designed uh one of the thing that um all of Nicole's stakeholders talk about is having multi-purpose spaces and this will be our key multi-purpose space on campus the ground floor level um is probably practical level. It's open down below for the for the white box. It's got some science classrooms and it also has a lot of traffic flowing through campus through the gym to get to and from different places as well as culinary classrooms immediately adjacent to our culinary kitchens. And then the top floor of these buildings um um are going to be really cool because everything in blue are science classrooms. So
018our science teachers are going from the basement to the penthouse in this project. Uh, so that's something we're really excited about. What I'm going to do now is is we're going to show just a very short video. One of the challenges was is this is an active campus. They've got well over 2,000 students here. So, how are we going to tear down the center of campus and rebuild it while school's going on? U, we didn't want to bring in portables. That was going to be millions of dollars. So, the team was amazing. Stop right there if you would, please. The team was uh, maybe go back just a little bit. The team was amazing in um working and working and working the process until we finally found a way to sequence the building construction so
019that we would um be able to not purchase any portable portables and put that money into the project instead. Um go forward about two seconds. How about backwards about five seconds? Thank you. >> Perfect. >> Thank you. I'm gonna let Conor talk right now. >> Okay. Thanks, Tom. So, the first step in when we're doing these occupied campus um projects and we're actually right in the middle of campus is rerouting all the utilities. As this campus grew over the years, a lot of the utilities ran through each building connecting building to building. Well, for us to have the the perimeter of the campus operational for the day-to-day operations of going to school, we have to relocate these utilities over the summer. So, that has to happen. That's the first thing and that's why we really
020highlighted it. That's going to be the focus and the critical path of that first um basically the first task we do alongside the locker room remodel, which you can't see, but it's underneath that white roof where the And that will happen that first summer and then we're going to get >> So we're going to go ahead and let you play. We're not gonna ask you to stop. >> Just gonna talk. >> So relocate the utilities. That's done. We got the campus back up and running. Now we're going to demo the south half of building BC and then this building A. Uh this is going to occur in June of 26. So as soon as the kids are out, we're going to get in there and we're going to start rolling. Um those buildings will be
021constructed. That's going to include the white box and the science. classrooms. That'll be complete for the 2027 school year. Um, and then the summer of 27, while you're moving into the new space, we're going to be tearing down the center area. And then we're going to build that up. And we expect to complete that over spring break the following year 2028. And that's going to be the TV film room, the culinary, the culinary classrooms, as well as all of the cool amphitheater and courtyard um heartscape improvements that you see. So, March of 2028, we'll have a bow on this thing and uh we're excited to be part of it. So, thank you. >> Awesome. Thank you, Connor. >> So, we put all that together, those three levels, the challenges with construction. This is uh something
022similar what we're what it's going to end up looking like. Um you can see that open courtyard plaza space. Um the buildings on the left there are the white box. The building straight ahead at the bottom is the TV marketing. Um up at the top of all of it is the science classrooms and we can't wait to kick this off with some of this trenching starting over spring break of this year. Um as we're moving forward now we're on to working on things like interiors and what are they going to look like and then our next steps are is we'll be coming to the governing board very soon with some pricing information. The architects are working on construction documents so that we can move forward with permitting as they get the construction documents. Conor and
023his team can work with their subcontractors to get us that official final pricing so that we're ready to go the second kids leave campus this summer. We'll be happy to entertain any questions. >> Let's go. >> Yeah. Thank you. 7.1 approval of minutes from the governing board meeting. >> It resolved the governing board approved to the minutes of the December 10, 2025 study session and regular meetings as presented. >> Second. Yes. >> Colton. Yes. >> Yes. >> Action items. consideration of approval of the work holiday calendars for the 26 27 year. Um so this is in response to us approving the at the December 10th meeting the new school calendar and so this will be the working and holiday calendar to align with that. >> Yes ma'am. President active members of the board mus and
024of course the entire community. Thank you for having Gabby and I here today to answer any questions you may have. Um, as you just stated, President Act and the board took action last month regarding approval of the school calendar for 2627 school year. Following that, we need to look to revise our employee work calendar and the holiday calendar as well to align with those changes. Basically over the 172 instructional days to the 175 instructional days, we had to adjust the start and end for our group of employee groups. Questions >> be it resolved that the governing board approves the 26 27 work and holiday calendars as presented. >> Second. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. Consent agenda. Does anyone have any item that they would like to pull for discussion? If not resolve board pass the
025consent agenda as presented. >> Second. Yes. >> Colton. Yes. >> Yes. Actton. Yes. twice now I've been up here. President, what's going on? >> Special night for you. >> Uh, President Actton, um, members of the board, with passage of the consent agenda items, you also approved the hiring of Matt Le as the permanent principal of uh, Vado High School. So, I'll have Matt come up here and I'll say a few words on how that came about. >> So, you may remember in the spring of last year that we u Mr. Non recommended to me and uh uh to the governing board that we place and appoint Matt as the interim principal of Roto High School. um during the time that has met that Matt has been um uh assistant principal and during the six months
026principal at uh six or seven months right a principal at uh bar uh Mr. Non our deputy superintendent of academics and schools expressed that provided some stability some consistency um I think it was uh Mr. Allen saying how uh the school kind of continued on on the great progress that they've been making and uh didn't miss a beat as we went through the summer and the start of school. Um Mr. Nan um met with Mr. Le frequently throughout the the first semester and during that time really believed in Matt's leadership and how he stepped up from the assistant principal role uh to the principal. Um as you know Mr. you know that he is he has a passion for uh high school um as you can see with his really cool Nikes that he has
027on today. Um and just really loves the school and the kids and everything that they do. Uh one of the things that uh this governing board has directed me as a superintendent to make sure of is that we recognize that our high schools belong to the community. the community is really important to us and how we engage in partnerships and and what we do in the community is is really important and I think that that's one of the things that impressed us the most about Mr. Le is that he recognized that that's what we do here in the Alfrey High School District and our family of high schools and he embraced that. You see him out in the senior to senior program. He's out at at meetings and uh he's out in the community and
028has embraced the community. into his school. So, uh we are very proud um to have uh recommended to you and you guys accepted that recommendation to u make Mr. Le the permanent principal of high school. [applause] Thank you very much. Um yeah, black and gold Mr. Huffman was a great great call for sure. Thank you. Um, just want to say uh on what Mr. said about belief. It's really important to talk about with my staff. Um, it's really the thing that I think drives me, right, is the belief that people have in me. So, I want to thank Mr. for that. The board as well. Um, community members, I mean, parents as well, obviously. Um, there's people in this room who believed in me. Uh, that's really important to me. Uh, people I've worked with
029this year, but people I've worked with in the past at different places that believed in me. Um, most importantly, the person believed me is Mr. Le who's back there. So, um, want to thank all those people. Uh, I'm just excited to continue working at Edo. It's it's my favorite place to be. Um, it's because of kids like Emerson. It's because of the community. Um, there's there's nothing else I'd rather do. So, thank you guys for allowing me to continue doing it. So, appreciate. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] >> Well, it's your turn again. Superintendent I want to say a couple things. We are really area. So very very special. I want to thank you guys last year. I want to really challenge. A lot of hours instruction also trying to very much. I think a
030little bit also. else. I think We may obviously respons We also have some partners. Thank you. Great shout out. Governing board members of current events. Anyone else want to go first? Just throwing it out there every time. Um, I know it's kind of old news, but I just want to say happy new year to everybody and I hope you had a fabulous holiday season with your family and friends. Um, I am also I would like to second the sentiment from Superintendent Eless about the improvements that are finally getting started on Millennium. I'm very excited to see that going. I think we all need to send um, Principal Bundy lots of well wishes and her staff well wishes during the construction because it's going to be um, tough while you're going through be totally worth it
031in the end. Um, also I just want to tell everybody that um is involved in the recognizing academic efforts, I really really appreciate that this is something that we're doing and we're recognizing our kids for the hard work that they put in. And I think it's um really nice to know as a board member that it's not just the academics that they're excelling in, but there's so there's so many other things that they're doing. they sleep at all because there's no time and some of their their resumes are so long. But thank you so much for doing that for our kids. Um and then just really quick, one more time, congrats to um Autumn and Alria um high school students and staff and everybody on your new cafeteria. I do want to give um a
032special shout out to your cafeteria staff. I was asking all kinds of questions and they were the loveliest bunch of people. So you have a good over there. Thank you. >> I did nothing board related since the last board meeting because my babies were home from college, so I stayed in my house with my children. Um, however, I do want to just give some shout outs to, um, again, Nicole, I'm excited to see what you do with those beautiful new spaces. There you are. Um, I'm excited to see it. Thank you for all your hard work. Um, Kristen and Vicki, looking forward to your leadership again for the next year and thank you for your leadership this past year. uh Celicia and Emerson, which I think one of them left, but that's okay. Um you're
033representing what is possible, I think, when motivated and and driven students, um come together with great educators in a in schools that not only value academics, but value the arts and athletics and trades. Um you're the example of what it can be. Um so, thank you for that, your your hard work and congratulations. And then um Matt uh VHS is an incredible community that has very high expectations as I'm sure Nate and Tom and Kristen and some of us in the room can tell you from a leadership perspective uh can be a challenging community to lead. But I have 100% faith that your belief in being a partner with the community uh leading alongside your staff and putting kids first always is going to bring you great success. You would a great person for it.
034Congratulations. Um, like I had mentioned, the break was amazing. Um, three of my my four kids came home for the break and that was really nice for us to be together as a family. Um, it's been a quiet month, but at the same time, um, each of us in this room represent amazing things that are done to support our kids, parents, and our community. And I would just like to say it was a pretty amazing and a great day when a certain person was born. So, I'd like to wish Mr. Eastless a happy birthday since that's this week. So, kudos. Um, I want to talk about the Hilltop Arts Academy and just say I live in the area close by where the academy is and it is so fun to watch day to day, week
035to week the progress of that project. So, loving it, enjoying it. Just had to mention that. Um, the one event that I did go to this month was one that our district sponsored and was a part of and it was a great partner and that was the Maverick annual Patriot event. It's an annual golf tournament where all American golfers from around the country come in. It's a a huge great opportunity to meet and see people and see our region, all the community partners that come together for an amazing patriotic event uh surrounding athletics and such. So, it was great to see all of the different materials that our district uh provided to help support infrastructure um at the Wigmore course. So, great event. Thank you uh to Ernie for all of his work um in
036helping make that happen. Um, Mr. Eus, I just want to say thank you for your kind words. Um, I just wanted to mention being selected to be a part of the Maropa County Workforce Development Youth Committee. I I wanted to read through what the charge and the mission is of this board and then I'll talk about it for one brief moment. But the goals are to explore and develop new ways to connect youth to careers, especially those that align to the board strategic focus industries, which I'll say are just like ours. To investigate the creation of youth career pathways, including apprenticeships, continue to explore new ways of educating major stakeholders, decision makers, policy makers, especially in the in demand career opportunities. When I asked when I got the phone call asking me if I would
037be a part of this, I asked why me and they said, "You currently serve as a board member in the Agua Fria High School District and we hear amazing things that are happening." So this really is I think the opportunity to be a part of this is such a congratulations to our district and everyone involved in the the work that we are doing as a board, our super superintendent, your cabinet, all of our administrators, teachers, and staff. And so, this just kind of stumbled to me. And so, this is all about our district. And if there's a way, like I did in my first meeting this week, to provide an introduction, I talked about our school district. I talked about all the amazing things that are happening and how they align with that board's objectives.
038And so, pretty cool things that this district is doing. in reputation and word it's spreading quickly. So congratulations to our school districts for such amazing things. >> Um I would like to extend a thank you to Desert Edge and Miss Pan who hosted a group of us to come over and um see how the weapon detection worked and um also dedicate some time to us to answer questions at the end. And maybe my favorite part was someone was waving and smiling at me and greeting me and that was AJ that morning. So it was so nice to have our ambassador and so many people are not that happy to see um an administrator coming through the door. So it was so nice to have you. Thank you. Um and then today I was able to
039um attend the state of the state address um as a Westmark event which was um a great way to see our community partners, our schools, our from all over the valley really uniting and and cheering on and seeing how big the West Valley is becoming and what a force it will be. Um and then that continued focus on partnership uh was great to see. Uh Eric, I'd like to congratulate you on your um dedication to workforce development and being a part of that committee and I look forward to hearing more about that. And then I also would just like to second what everybody else said about and and Millennium and everything. And the last thing I would say to my fellow board members is it is National Board Recognition Month. And the theme is our
040future is public. And so I I think that's a very fitting theme. Um, we are up here because we want to improve public schools and the quality and I I feel Philadelphia of this are really here to do that that work um and to focus on the school in our community. So, happy national board recognition month and I'm happy to serve you. >> Well, I don't think any of us take our role lightly. So, we try to do the best by our community as elected elected officials. Um, congratulations. so proud of you. That's great. You're always out there doing exceptional things for our community. So, I appreciate you. Um, we had discussed in years past about acknowledging all the students on our campuses. So, thank you for bringing in and shining light on our academic
041achievers. And it's also inspiring to see that these are just not just superstars in the classroom, but talented, well-rounded individuals who are feeding other students around them. And so it's I'm I'm glad that we're going to get to meet them and showcase their efforts. Um the Millennium Update, as much as I appreciate that, I love that we're bringing it for our community to see as well. It is their contribution by passing our bond, their continued support. They need to know what we're doing with those funds, how it's being spent, and when they drive by that beautiful school, they're going to realize and be so proud of it. Um, Mr. Le, you have shown year after year your dedication to the Verado community and and students within it. So, thank you so much. Very well deserved.
042Um, and that's all I have. So, um, moving to 11.1. Any requests for future agenda items? Being none, um, can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> Be it resolved the governing board adjourns to the regular board meeting for January 14th, 2026. Second silk. Yes. Taylor. Yes. >> Colton. Yes. >> Yes. >> Also, just so everyone knows, Emerson's parents and sister go to&M. Went to&M and graduated from there. So, another >> shameless plug.