001guys in the back. Full house. I absolutely love it. Hey. Oh, that's so loud and abrasive and I'm sorry, but we're going to get started. Thank you so much for being here. Um I know you guys are really excited to see what a board meeting consists of, but um anyways, we'll get to that. So, if we could all stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right, moving to 3.1 requests to address the governing board. We have none today. Thank you. Um so let's move on to why everyone's here. 4.1 winter sports um recognition, Mr. Nen and Miss. All right. Uh President Actton,
002members of the governing board, superintendent is the community. We are excited to be here. Today I'm going to pass it over to executive uh director uh Miss Tammy Greset who also oversees athletics and she's going to talk about why we're so excited to be here tonight. All right. Thank you. Uh good evening president Actton members of the board superintendent to all of our families and our community. Uh good evening. So I saw a shirt when I walked in that said pride of the west side and tonight is pride of the west side. So I thought that was very fitting. Uh tonight we have the honor of uh we had an awesome winter season for our district. Not a lot of districts can can be in this position. Uh and we're grateful for that. And we're
003here tonight to honor our state champions and some of our state runnerups. Uh we have tonight is just awesome. So we have back-to-back state champions. We have a championship team uh for the open division which is the elite of the elite. Uh and we also tonight to honor uh some of our musicians uh in indoor wins tonight. So, and then when I'm done, we're also going to be able to celebrate some of our unified athletes, which is super exciting. So, with that, I'm just going to let them um I think as uh the Canyon View wrestling coach Joey says, uh I'm just going to let them flex and come up here tonight and do that. So, first we're gonna start with Awa Fria uh and their uh individual state wrestling runner up. [Applause] people in
004the hallway. So, I wasn't told I was going to have to speak. Surprise. Just here to uh congratulate Matthew Cabales. Uh stay runner up. He's a um dual sport athlete. plays football and wrestling, just just wrestles during wrestling season. Um, works on football in the offseason. So, it just speaks about the kind of athlete he is. Um, to be able to to be able to be a state runner up in wrestling um to do it just during the season is extremely extremely impressive. So, he finished with a 42 and4 record this season. Um, he has a career record um at all of 116 and 32. It's been a pleasure to to coach him and um we're going to miss him for sure. [Applause] Congratulations. All right. Next up is Canyon View. So, I'm going to
005bring up uh Principal Reed and she's going to introduce her teams. Thank you, Miss Greset. Good evening, governing board members, superintendent eastless, cabinet, and community members. Tonight, I have the great honor of celebrating coach Dez Puranza, her coaching staff, and the girls basketball team who have made three state appearances in the last three years and are now back-to-back 5A state champions. With, might I add, a strong junior squad. The future is solid for next season. These girls and their coaches work tirelessly year round to achieve greatness. But there's so much more. There's something that you might not know about our program and something we're so proud of at Canyon View. Our team has hosted both the Native American Basketball Showcase and the Chuco Basketball League tournament, welcoming families from across the state. Such fun events.
006And then our girls, our own basketball players, not only played, they volunteer at the events and they get to experience firsthand how our basketball connects and uplifts uplifts different cultures. They were amazing and that's all a credit to coach Panza and her amazing staff and her amazing and her amazing players. We are incredibly proud of our girls on and off the court. Now, it is my great honor to introduce our 5A conference coach of the year, Dez [Applause] Coranza. Thank you. Come on, girls. Come on up. So, um, just thank you for having us tonight. Um, we're thankful, grateful to be a part of this. Um, everyone in this room, I think, knows how difficult it is to be a student athlete. um it's even more difficult to win as a student athlete and it's
007much more difficult to repeat. So um just hats off to the girls um to our community for all of you. Um thank you for being there uh for us. We see you out there. We see you at our games um Grasset Men, you know, all of our administration, our board members. Um so we appreciate you guys and your support. So thank you for everything. Let's see the trophy. [Applause] Thank you guys for having us. Thank you guys for inviting us. It's a huge honor to be here. Thank you guys. [Applause] So, we got a picture. Pictures. Nice picture. Awesome. Whatever the communication department we're all right. Thanks. Thank you, ladies. All right. Thank you guys so much. We appreciate all the work that our coaches and our our our lady Jags do for our campus.
008Next up, governing board, Superintendent East, cabinet, um, community members. It's my honor to celebrate Coach Joy Ortiz, his coaching staff, and the boys wrestling team who are now also back-to-back state champions. This year they crowned six individual state champions as well and made history with Gabe Ramirez becoming the first ever four-time state championship in Aguhria Union High School's district history. Please join us in congratulating our individual state champions CJ Ramirez, Braden RWS, Gabe Ramirez, Ben Crochenko, Charles Law Albano, and Tavier Garcia. We continue to be amazed by our boys, their hard work, their amazing ethic, our coaches who put in day in day out, um who continue to compete at the highest level and represent really what it means to be a Jaguar. Now, it is my great honor to introduce the Arizona Republic and
009NWCA state and section 7 coach of the year and the NWCA National Coach of the Year finalist, Joey Ortiz. And gentlemen, come up. Wrestlers, come up with Coach [Applause] Ortiz. So, I would like to go ahead and I always do this before I do anything. I always like to thank Mr. Mr. Philip Non for taking a chance on myself back in how long has it been? Seven years now. So, seven years ago, Mr. Non took a chance on me and here I am representing you guys, the kids, the community. And not only that, I would like to thank all of you guys for making us what we really are, the pride of the west side, right? Like we are team of the community. And so when we put that CV on our chest, when we
010wear that that's that blue singlet, we represent you guys, our family, all of you guys here to represent us here to this this this fine meeting here. Um we we are we are uh that that se is that community, right? And that's that canyon view is is basically what represents our family. This how our Fria Union School District here. So um real quick, I I just I just wanted to throw this out here. Um, Gabe Ramirez was the, again, I want to reiterate how important Gabriel Ramirez is four-time state championship in the entire history of the Awafria school district. Uh, there has been no four-time state champions in any sport and Gabriel was the first one to do it. So you [Applause] guys along with along with that Gabriel is just committed to Cal Baptist
011University, a division one wrestling program. And Charles Law Albano just he's about to commit to Menllo University, which is a division 2 wrestling program. So not only are we getting done on the mat, we're getting it done in the classroom. And again, um, this is a testament to your guys' families, to our community, and this district. So again, we want to thank you guys from the bottom of our heart, and we're going to keep doing what we'll be doing as long as you'll have [Applause] us. Congratulations. [Applause] All right, the final one I have tonight uh for celebrations is Millennium High School. I'm going to bring up uh athletic director Mr. Gordio and uh I don't know if principal Bundy wants to come up or not, but one of you Good evening, Madame President and
012distinguished board members. So, we're very excited to be here to recognize some of our awesome winter sports at Millennium High School. Um, so we're recognizing three teams tonight. We're going to start with um our winter indoor wins. If they'd like to step forward, I'll say a few words before turning it over to the coach. So, for those that aren't aren't familiar, in the winter season, band breaks off into different groups and competes on the WGAZ circuit. Um, so you have winter guard, you have drum line, and then now you have what's become more popular is the winter indoor winds. This was the inaugural season for Millennium High School in the indoor winds. And they had a historic success. They won the state championship in their inaugural season, knocking off the seventime straight state champions from
013the east side uh in Williamsfield. So talk about pride of the west side. Here they are right here. So, I'm going to let U director Ian Hoffman come up and say a few words about his team. Cool. Yeah, we kind of went into the season not really knowing what we had. First year obviously like a lot of jitters with that and everything. Um, so really no expectations and then about halfway through the season we were like, okay, we kind of got something here. Judges were starting to get it. We did a pizza delivery show. So like all the music was Hot to Go by Chapel Rowan, stuff like that. Like things to really push that across. So by the end we were seated first and not really expecting that just from kind of how things
014shaked out with us being we did the last show of the season. Um so we kind of hyped the kids up and we're like hey we have an opportunity here right like we're the last ones of the night at our own show and uh yeah they had a great performance. You know I can't speak enough to all these kids like as far as just the buy in sticking through it and everything. So you know another round of applause for them. Come on up. B Thank you. Congratulations. Really quick before they depart, I just want to say one thing about this this group. I would encourage everybody in this room to come to the WGA championships next year to support them, drum line, and uh also Wintergard. We've been fortunate at Millennium High School to host
015the championships for WGAZ the last three years in a row. It'll be amazing to see some of these faces in the room next year supporting all of these awesome student athletes and cheering them on to another state championship. Thank you. Uh, next we'd like to recognize our Millennium Bomb team. [Applause] Oh, it doesn't. Um, we are super proud of our Millennium Palm team. They've had a historic season uh this past season. Um and it didn't really begin this season. I'd be remiss if I didn't tell the story of this program. Um five years ago, we had about four student athletes try out for Palm total. Um Coach Matthews came in the next year, took over the program, and now the last two years, we've had a JV team in addition to our varsity for the
016first time in school history. So, varsity and JV. And this year both uh varsity and JV went to the nationals. Um and both were a huge success. Our JV team took third place in the nation, their first time ever competing at nationals. And our varsity team was national champion runner up for the first time in school history. And we believe it's the first time in district history that we've had a national champion runner up in the Palm Division. Um and they narrowly missed the champion. They're going to hate me for saying this, but they narrowly missed the championship by one point. So they were that close. uh to being the champion uh to being the national champion, but we are extremely proud. They also were the AIA state runnerup in the small hiphop division. Coach
017will probably tell you more accolades, but they are a testament to never settling. Um believing in what you're capable of, finding out what you're really good at, and making everything you do in your program about that and not stopping until you achieve the true potential of every student athlete in the program. and Millennium Bomb is just that. Congratulations, ladies. Um, so hello. My name is Coach Matthews. I'm the head coach of Palm and uh this is my assistant, coach, Jordan Mitchell, her her daughter. Um, we wanted to say that we are so proud of these young ladies and what they accomplished. Um, you know, you you can guide and you can lead, but ultimately it is their choice and their decision on how great they want to be. and we have truly been blessed with
018that. I'm so glad that I came over to Millennium with G. Um, a little bit about the season again, we did make history. Um, we were voted the most entertaining team for AIA state championships. Um, we had the best choreography and grand champion for uh, TSC and then again we went on to nationals to become the national runner up. So, I would say that these girls have the success that they have brought this year, they have truly earned and I am so proud of them as a coach and as individuals. Like, we just couldn't be more happy and so proud of you guys. Hi, I'm Melissa. I'm a member of the team and I just want to say um this season has been one of the best it's ever been. I am really proud of
019the team and how we've accomplished so many goals like winning regional champion, going to nationals, doing so well. Like our confidence level this year has really boosted and I'm just I love our team so much and I love the coaches. It's like a positive environment and the mindset that we bring into here, it's amazing and that's how we were able to really just push through everything this year and really get to our titles. Thank you. Yeah, right. You're right. That's good. Thank you. Thank you. Our final uh program that we'd like to recognize tonight is our Millennium Girls Basketball Team. If they would come forward, please. So, our Millennium girls basketball team also had a historic season uh this year as well. It began in the summer uh where they competed in Lady X, which
020is the most prestigious summer basketball tournament in our state for girls basketball. Uh it's invitational only amongst what they consider to be the top teams in the state. They won the championship there and continued to grind and work into the season where we played the toughest schedule in the state, including playing in the toughest region in the state. In our region, our five teams, including us, four of those teams advanced to the elite eight of the uh open, which is the highest division you can compete in for the state championships. And two of those teams made it to the final four. ultimately with our girls winning not only the first open championship of any sport in our school's history, but also in our district's history. So, um this will go down in the record books
021uh forever, this group. Um in addition to their historic season, we also played a national schedule where they competed against the number one team in the nation and others in PowerPoint games at the Sabrina Aansu Classic in the Bay Area and also competed against top teams in the nation in Dallas at the She Got Game Classic. Uh, and here in Arizona, we compete in the Nike Tournament of the Champions and the second highest rated division. Um, their motto is we'll play anyone, anywhere, at any time. Um, and they continued to do that and that's ultimately what led to their success along the way with the team success with some awesome individual success. Uh Destiny Kaishi Lunan, our senior, was recognized as the Gatorade Player of the Year for the state of Arizona, which is the
022most prestigious individual honor a player can earn in any sport. She is the second girls basketball player in our school and district's history to earn that honor and the fourth overall athlete in our district's history to ever earn Gatorade Player of the Year. So, a banner will hang uh forever along with the Open Championship in our gym with her name on it. our coach. Uh she also was the Max Preps player of the year as well in several other accolades. Uh our coach, Coach Danny Solomon, who is not going to speak tonight because he's feeling a little under the weather. Coach T is, but I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about his leadership and his success, which also been recognized. He was recognized by his peers as the 6A conference coach of the year,
023by the Arizona Republic as the Arizona girls basketball coach of the year, as well as the uh West Valley Independence uh coach of the year on the west side. Um so I'm going to turn it over to Coach T, who will tell you a little bit more about these girls. Congratulations, ladies. Hi. Yeah, I just want to thank everybody for um at least um inviting us here and giving us this opportunity to recognize um these young ladies and their um just historic uh achievement this year. Um it takes a lot to do what they did. I think they know that anybody that's been in the trenches um they're asked to be students before the athlete part and they've done that in spades um with a 3.9 GPA. So, not only have these girls excelled on
024the court, you know, they're excelling in the classroom, which is what we're probably most proud of. Um, but that's hard to do, right? We ask a lot of them. There's a lot of hard work that goes into it. This is my 17th year working with this program. And I will tell you firsthand, this is by far the toughest year that we've had to undergo to try to do what these girls have done. Um, it's not easy. Um, but there was commitment. It takes sacrifice. and every last kid in a jersey showed up every single day, good, bad, in between, and they put in the work to do what they did. So, we are extremely proud of them. Um, you guys deserve, you know, the recognition, like I said, today. Um, and we're we're somewhat of
025a young group. We've got a lot of great girls coming back, so we're excited about the future, but Millennium's been a strong culture, and we're just glad that we could, you know, set the the tone for hopefully many more to come. So, congrats, girls. You guys definitely deserve it. And I'm going to let this Gatorade player of the year come up here and uh tell you what it's like from a player perspective. So, congrats girls. [Applause] Hi, I'm Destiny. As y'all some of y'all may know, I'm Kaii as well, but um but um I just want to tell or thank all of you guys for just giving us this opportunity to really just honor us and honor um this beautiful team that I have. Um, you know, we've been through a lot of trials and
026tribulations, but at the end of the day, we stuck together. And we really believed in one another. We believed in our coaching staff. We believed in ourselves within. And I feel like we never gave up to the very end. And I I'm forever grateful for that. And, you know, I love them. And thank you. [Applause] Sarah, will you All [Applause] right. I think We can all agree that is the best part of our board meetings. Well, we've got more. There's more. Okay. Skills USA. All right. So, um you know, first first and foremost, I want to uh thank our our coaches, our student athletes, um but also our our our athletic directors that spend tireless hours on our campuses, our principles that help support them. Um and uh Miss Tammy Greset, who if you don't
027know, she's at everything. um she's supported every single one of these teams and so um we are a team and we can't do it without our team. So I'm just extremely proud of all of our principles, all our ads, Miss Tammy Gret, our student athletes, our trainers, everybody and our fans and parents. And so um it's just exciting to be able to be here tonight. The the last thing that I want to do is I want to introduce um Mr. Patrick Becker and Miss Sash Lysy to come up and talk about our unified because we have we are the leaders in the state when it comes to unified sports and probably in the nation. I am a little biased but uh I want to go ahead and bring them up so they can talk about
028our unified athletes. All right. So yeah, good evening president Actton board members Mr. Eis and our community. I like Mr. Announce said I am a little biased. This is, you know, you save the best for last. We have some really good athletes here. Um, you know, we got a senior on Kase and we got a freshman in Mason. Come on, you can. You can't be shy now. Come on. So, uh, and we'll talk a little about Unifi, but these two athletes kind of represent our unified program, how much it's grown. So, like Mason, I met him over the summer and I remember, you know, when I was a coach, his mom was telling me how good he is in basketball. Of course, like, yeah, every mom thinks their kid's good at basketball. And then I
029saw him playing the game. I was like, "Oh, this kid's really good." And then his mom was telling me he's going to go overseas and play this summer for the first time ever in a down syndrome basketball team for the USA. So that's why Mason is dressed up here in his USA outfit. So he'll be traveling. So he'll be traveling, you know, with the USA team. I think he has to go to Georgia, right, to practice in a couple weeks. So he'll be all summer long playing basketball for our our nation against these other teams like from Argentina, Finland and you know so it's we're very excited about that for him. He'll bring back that experience to our team and then he'll hopefully lead Verado to a championship here in the next couple years. So
030um that's that's really good for Rado and Mason and our unified team and we'll have him answer some questions in a minute. Then we have Kase, our senior who uh you know has been in the program for four years. I first met him four years ago and I saw him throw a football about 60 yards. I was like, man, who's this kid throwing this football out here? And so I watched him, but he was like the star of every team that they had at Millennium. You know, he was always the quarterback or he wanted to be the point guard and, you know, in basketball, you know, he wanted to shoot all the time, but he just loved it. you know, if he he was always around, his family would come out and watch him play,
031but he gets all the kids excited and just kind of emphasized what we do in Unified and he single-handedly, and we'll show the clip here in a minute, jumpstarted the entire unified program u and just made it so popular at Millennium U because, you know, we held a district-wide tournament at the gym, invited Buckeye, and you'll see the video where in the championship game against a Buckeye school Yoner, double overtime game, it got really competitive, and this kid hits this incredible shot at the buzzer that just made the entire place go crazy. I've never heard a gym that loud before. I know we've had some great basketball teams at Millennium, but I guarantee that team has never ever been so loud. And you'll see it the clip here how everybody just rushes court. So, but
032that's our unified program and we have great athletes that come in, they enjoy it, they get the whole school involvement and uh and then you see the uh you know the accolades like he has his jacket. I just saw it tonight. He has special Olympics up all over his jacket because he's so proud of what he does in unified sports. So, um, and he'll be part of our moving forward program next year and our ESS work force. So, we're kind of excited about that, too. So, yeah, I know if you guys want to ask him any questions. I know they talk about your favorite unified memory or for you that you get to go overseas and play basketball, which is awesome. So, I'm pretty excited about that. So, yeah, they could ask any answer any
033questions that you would like them to answer and then you can watch that clip that kind of jump start this entire co You want to talk about your favorite memory of unified or what you like about unified like about is the sports and this is a good season we we have to do and this is a really good season. Thank you. You had to try out for this team right? You had to go through tryyous and you know compete against other kids all over this country. So talk about how excited you are when you got your mom got the call that you get to go oversee play. Very excited, very good played basketball player. I saw him play and I was like kid to play and you see him right there in the video right
034there. He knows how to do the shots, the layups and it's funny with the freshman experience this year and every kid knew him that came in from the freshman because I didn't know I'm like oh that's amazing kid. Everybody was chatting his name. I'm like who is this kid and I figured out oh that's going overseas and playing. So very exciting to watch him play with all his friends over and his mom always at our events during month. So just a great great we have our unified events that you know we just love and if you want to show the clip this is the clip that got everybody going that just get the whole crowd going since that day. just so excited for. You want to click on it, Eric? [Music] the younger kid, they
035were really mad that they lost, which is probably I did go in there. I had to try to get him out of there, too. He lost his glasses. want to say anything. Are you good? Yeah, he likes to talk a lot. I know he does talk a lot. Awesome. Well, thank you. You guys have any questions or comments or ask any questions? Congratulations. Congratulations. Great job. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, that was awesome. Where did everybody go? All right, moving on. If anybody in the back would like to come to the front, you can, but you don't have to. Just we'll take this little pause. Thank you for coming, Mr. Showman. Thank you. All right. 5.1 strategic plan brief. Gross. Yeah. I'm not really sure how you follow that. So amazing. So
036incredible. Um we also have another incredible staff member bringing up here from the ESS department, Sasha Lysy. um she is in her second year uh of the leadership cadre and she is going to be sharing a detail of one of the many action steps that have been met this year. So go ahead and take it. Thank you. Good evening president actton members of the board, superintendent east and the agree community. So I'm just going to give you a quick update on part of our strategic plan. So, um, we're focusing on strategic plan goal 4A, which is social and emotional wellness. Um, and how we're building systems to support students through academy team meetings. By strengthening how we teach and support social emotional skills, we're helping students develop key life skills unlike managing stress, building relationships,
037and making responsible decisions. This work directly supports our portrait of a graduate by reinforcing the development of communication, collaboration, and responsibility. Skills that our community has identified as essential for life beyond high school. Our district district has met this action step using character strong. So, Character Strong provides both curriculum and professional learning designed to improve behavior, increase school safety, and also support student mental health. It helps students build the social and emotional skills they need to succeed not just in school but in life. It's also an evidence-based multi-tered system. Whether it's universal lessons for all students or targeted interventions for those who need more. It gives us practical tools that align with our whole child approach. This framework is guiding how we structure social emotional supports across the district and helps us move closer to
038our goal of developing confident, connected, and capable graduates. In order to meet goal 4A, we're using a tiered approach that ensures all students receive social emotional learning with additional supports for those who need it. On the left is tier one. These are universal instruction that is delivered to all students during character strong advisory lessons. So all students receive this. Um these are grade specific intentionally designed and align with our portrait of a graduate. On the right is tier 2. So this is um provides individualized strategies and small group instruction for students who need additional support with social emotional skills. These students are identified through team conversations and data review. This model helps ensure that all students have a strong foundation while allowing us to respond to individual needs in a meaningful way. Once a student
039is identified as needing support, our academy team follows a structured process using the character strong framework. This flowchart shows um the steps in that process from identifying students to determine their need needs to matching them with the right kind of support whether that's an individualized strategy or a small group. is then delivered through those in-class strategies or facilitated small groupoup lessons that are um led by our student support specialists and then progress is monitored and adjusted as needed. So, we're already seeing some of the impact of this program. Um one of the students who participated in our tier 2 um small group sessions um let us know that they feel like they fit in now. So, um that sense of belonging is what these systems are meant to create. And a big that is thanks
040to our student support specialists. They don't just deliver lessons, but they build trust and they help students feel seen. So, why does this matter? In short, we're not just talking about wellness. Um, we're building structures that make it real and sustainable. By using consistent protocols and targeted interventions, we're ensuring that students who need support don't fall through the cracks and that every student has a path to success both in school and beyond. At this time, I can entertain any questions you might have. All right. Thank you very much. [Applause] All right. 5.2 AC marketing campaign. Good evening, President Actton, members of the board, Superintendent Elas, and Auafria community. My name is Alyssa Scro and I'm honored to present this evening on behalf of our department leader, Megan Grigo, and the communications and strategic alliances team.
041As you may have noticed, Megan was unable to be here tonight. She was excused for attending her daughter's school play, so she sends her regards. Um, with that being said, I am thrilled to share how the communications and strategic alliances team um, and their work continues to align with our district's 10-year strategic plan, particularly in the areas of student engagement, academic success, and meaningful community partnerships. One of our latest efforts centered on a simple but powerful idea. What if students felt their entire community was behind them as they prepared for the ACTs? So to bring this vision to life, the communications and strategic alliances team reached out to local businesses and asked them to send words of encouragement to our junior class. Their response was overwhelming. 10 local partners stepped up to create customized videos
042encouraging and supporting our students. These inspiring videos were shared daily across all of our district um social media and our school site social media platforms. In the few days leading up to ACTs that were taken today, the initiative aimed to build a culture of enthusiasm around ACTs, inspiring strong test taking efforts and recognizing the dedication of students to committing to studying and preparing for their ACTs. So, I wanted to take a brief moment to recognize the businesses and the influential leaders who participated in this effort. We have Modern Grind, NYPD Pizza, Kane's Chicken, Bubba's 33, Texas Roadhouse, Main Event, World Wildlife Zoo, Phoenix International Raceway, City of Aenddale Mayor Pieda, Somborough's Mexican Kitchen, and Alice Cooper Solid Rock Teen Center. So, these partners not only offered encouragement, but they also made meaningful contributions. Nearly 1,000
043coupons were donated, totaling approximately $8,400 in value for our students. These included free appetizers, meals, discounted coffee, entertainment passes, or other studentfriendly prizes. And as students express their excitement and gratitude for the gifts that they've received already, recognizing their efforts to prepare for the ACTs, it's clear that that goal was achieved. So, here's how the ACT incentive program worked. Students who participated in study sessions or showed ample effort to prepare for the test and or will go on to improve their ACT scores by even one point will be entered into a drawing to receive one of the donated rewards. In fact, with the generous amount of donations, we actually have prizes collected for nearly half of our students taking the ACT test. they'll have the opportunity to win one of those prizes. Making incentives for
044academic success tangible and reinforcing that academic growth is truly worth celebrating. Oh, and did I mention there is a grand prize? One lucky student will win pizza, free pizza for one year donated by NYPD Pizza. I'm excited to see who gets that one. So, while this incentive was designed with students in mind, it also delivered incredible value to our partners. Whether long-standing partners or brand new partners, all businesses were tagged and celebrated in our social media posts, gaining vis visibility across our district's network that reaches 10,000 individuals or more in the Southwest Valley. So, it's truly a win-win both for our schools and for our businesses. So, I wanted to take a moment to watch a few of the uplifting videos of these amazing partners submitted. So, we'll watch three now. So, I hear you're
045setting up I'm creating the right testers. So go get them. Hi Aorea High School District. I'm Miranda with Texas House in Goodyear. We're just coming to say hi. Wish you great luck on your upcoming I know it's a very stressful time for us all, but it's just one more amazing step towards your future and we are rooting you on from here. We got some free appetizers for y'all for once you're done. So come on, d with us. We cannot wait to see you here and we'll give you a big old Texasiz e-haw when you get here. Okay, we can't wait. And good luck. school. My name is [Applause] So you can see this is a really fun initiative to just create some excitement for our students and let our bis our local businesses bring in
046their brand to some of these videos. So, as we wrap up this year's ATC season, um the communications and strategic alliances team is excited um looking forward to what we can do next year in collaboration with the academics team to maximize this impact. Together, we'll continue cultivating a culture that celebrates preparation, recognizes progress, and rewards academic performance. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, moving on to 6.1. We need to move into our public hearing for the instructional time model. Um, do I have a motion? Be it resolved the governing board convene a public hearing as recommended. I'll second. Yes. Actton members in the governing board and community. As you are familiar, we are required to do uh consecutive board meetings in order to review a uh instructional time model. And so, as presented at last
047board meeting, I would entertain any questions that you may have in regards to this ITM. I do have a comment. I would like to thank our team here at the district for all of the work that you did to help make this happen for us uh leading to our graduation event. So, thank you very much. I did put on record last meeting my comments about our community partner. Um so, congratulations. Appreciate all that you guys do to make this happen. Thank you, Mr. Questions. This is our second reading. We went Thank you so much. Okay. So, if I have another motion to um adjourn our public hearing. So, moved. Wonderful. Are we voting? Silk. Yes. Colum. Yes. Yes. Acting. Yes. Um 7.1 consider Thank you, Mr. 7.1 Consideration of approval of the minutes for the
048March 5th, 2025 study session and regular board meeting. Okay. Be it resolved the governing board approves the minutes of the March 5th, 2025 study session regular board meeting as presented. Second. So yes, Colton. Yes. Yes. Acting. Yes. All right. Action items 8.1. We're going to now consideration of approval for the instructional time model for the spring 2024 2025. Hello again. Hello. Any questions that I may answer? No, I believe we're good. Be it resolved the governing board approves the instructional time model as presented. I'll second. Yes. Colton. Yes. Yes. Acting. Yes. 8.2. A comprehensive annual financial report single audit reporting package uniform system of financial records compliant questionnaire. It's a mouthful. It was. It is. Good evening. President Actton, uh members of the board, Superintendent East and the Alfria community. Um tonight we bring for
049your uh acceptance our annual um audit. Uh attached to the agenda item was a brief executive summary, but I wanted to just share a few highlights of that audit, which is really three um separate documents or reports including our annual comprehensive financial report um our single audit report and our compliance questionnaire um which is really the result a culmination of of an extensive process that takes you know just short of a year to complete. So, um, each year at the at the end of our fiscal year, our audit team joins us, comes out on site to begin some of their preliminary work. Um, they start gathering data, meeting with our teams, sampling some of our accounting data. Um, and then as we wrap up our fiscal year, um, you may recall we enter our incumbrance
050period where we're still kind of paying our bills, um, paying invoices for goods and services. That takes us all the way through August, the end of August, which is when we can really kind of technically close our books and start preparing our annual financial reports. Uh, which is really our, you know, look back on that fiscal year. We bring those to the school board for approval in October. Um, and that's right about the time where our audit team comes back out on site. Um now that we have our annual financial report, they're really able to verify that that report is accurate by preparing um our comprehensive financial statements. Um they continue to collect data um working through our compliance questionnaire, making sure that our processes and procedures are where they need to be. Um, all
051of that really takes us through about early March um to where it's it's all said and done and we can bring it to the board um for acceptance. Um, a couple things I just want to recognize the efforts of our business office staff for the hours that they put in working with our audit team um gathering and collecting and reviewing this data. Um, in addition to our business office, a lot of departments participate in that. Um, our transportation department sharing and providing data. Our payroll and our human resources department is contributing to that. Our IT staff um is sharing about our disaster recovery and our cyber preparedness. Um our student information systems is is sharing attendance data. Our school staff in our attendance offices and our guidance offices. So that it really takes the efforts
052of a lot of our staff um to to get through this process. Um so I will just highlight uh some of the outcomes of that. Um over 171 areas are tested for compliance. Um and within each of those areas sometimes they test a wide sample. Um so really when you look at all the questions within the questions that's really closer to 503 different data points that are sampled and tested. And I'm happy to share that our district uh um positively uh complied on 94% of those questions. Um our team has reviewed the audit findings. Um none of which I would consider are severe or result in any material uh misrepresentation. Um however, you know, we've certainly always try to improve and get that score as high as possible. So, we put plans together uh to
053address the findings that that were uncovered. Um again, most most of which are are minor adjustments um to our existing processes. So, with that, I'm happy to answer any questions um on that audit for this evening. Thank you for all the information that you did include in our packet though and the additional information that was requested. Um it's nice to get a comprehensive view of what this entails. Um I did read through the report. Um not all of it was fun reading by any means, but it does paint a really good picture of how strong our district is and all the things that we're doing. So thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. 9.1 um consent agenda. Um Oh, I have to vote. We have to vote on this. I'm so sorry. I
054got excited. Be resolved. The governing board accepts the fiscal year 23 24 annual comprehensive report, fiscal year 24 single audit reporting package and fiscal year 2024 uniform system of financial records compliance questionnaire as presented. Second. Silk. Yes. Colton. Yes, Landis. Yes. Acting. Yes. Um, now moving on to 9.1, consideration of approval of the consent agenda. Does anybody have anything they um would like to discuss or pull? No. Wonderful. Okay. Be it resolved, the governing board approves the items on the consent agenda as um presented. Yes. Colton. Yes. Yes. Yes. President Actton. Uh members of the governing board, superintendent. I would like to this is a special time anytime that uh we have an opportunity to welcome members to our family. And so I'm gonna invite principal Nicole Bundy to come up and she's gonna introduce
055a new new member to the hour. Good evening, President Actton, members of the board, Superintendent East, cabinet members, and our community. Um, I am super excited to introduce to you a new member to our team. Um, as you know, Carissa Harvey will be um going back into the classroom. Bless her, bless her heart, she misses it. So, um Jessica, um is going to be joining our team as a Tiger, and this is an awesome night for her to be here to see all the student recognitions um and fun things going on at Millennium. Um Jessica has about 23 years um in the education field. Um I'm excited about the experience that she brings to our family. Um some of the things that she has been involved with, uh she's got some experience in the IB
056world. Um she has spent some time as an IB biology teacher. Um I know we have a teacher on campus who's going to be super excited to um connect with her about with some ideas. Um once she left the classroom, she then beca came into a role as a freshman house um advisor, mentor coordinator. Um, so she spent some time with our freshman kiddos, which is going to align perfectly um with our freshman academy. Um, she then went on and spent some time in Xolo as an assistant principal um working obviously with some discipline and their ESS um program um which she will be doing for us at Millennium. Um she is currently in the role back at Mville um as a micro school principal um as the leader of their gifted and talented academy
057there um at Mville. So I was super happy um to find her with so much experience in the areas that we were looking for um and excited about bringing her on board as a tiger. So welcome to Jessica. [Applause] Um 10 comments and or information from Superintendent East. Thank you, President Actton, members of the board in our community. Uh what a great night. Uh we we seem to um to uh to be on the way to becoming the the district of champions. It seems like everything that we're doing uh we're just winning it all. And uh uh before I go on to on some of the things I want to I don't know if you recognize, but Tammy Greset is at every single playoff game. Uh, regardless of it's out of town or it's it's
058here. Uh, sometimes she juggles being at two or three different games in one on one Saturday. Uh, you can call Tammy and I know that Eric and I have had this time where we calling and texting Tammy to see what the score is at a game that we're not at. Um, she also represents us very well in the uh uh areas of with the AIA and uh that is a I don't know how many hours you put in. I don't I don't even want to begin to think that but um uh success doesn't happen by accident and the support for our coaches and the community and everything that she has to deal with is just uh tremendous. So I want to thank you Tammy as we know we have great coaches and great uh athletic
059direct directors and our our students and our our families are great but you are always there for so I really appreciate. Thank you very much. I also want to um uh say with your with your approval we have uh u a family member that you have not seen there uh that has been a member of our family for four days. Megan Ggo asked to be uh asked to be excused today because her daughter was starring in a play. Uh but you also approve the um the uh uh allowing Megan to be released from her contact because Megan got a job with another part of our family. We definitely consider Westmech as part of our family. So Megan will be joining the Westmech family. I just wanted to say as you guys know Megan had a
060lot to do with putting us on the map making sure that everyone that we felt that our district belonged to the community. Um so we wish her well and we're uh excited about the new partnership we will have with her as she's working with West. Um want to also mention that there are I think there was another Olympian that we did not showcase. I think is Patrick is back there. There's someone that qualified to be in the Olympics as well, a second one, right? Yeah. And uh I have challenged her to a basketball shoot off and uh if she beats me, what is her name again? Remember little girl? So she Yeah, she's a great basketball player. She also qualified to go to the Olympics this summer. And uh I will be challenging her to
061a shoot off and if she beats me, which she won't, um the uh school gets a free pizza party. [Laughter] So, u we will maybe announce her or recognize her next time. So, we actually have two that qualify for the Olympics. Um so cool that I believe um the other the taller gentleman that was here um is going to be part of our alumni um uh hiring program as an employee next year. So, uh hopefully he'll be on the basketball staff as well coaching um as well. So, that's really cool. I have something that I want to play for you because we we had a um one of our teachers get teacher of the month from Vado High School. If we can play that radio clip, this is pretty cool. Guest hear that again. Thanks
062to our presenting sponsor, your Valley Toyota dealers. You can text the word teacher to 620620. nominate a deserving teacher. We'll give you 2500 bucks. Bruce and I love going down to the classrooms. We bring the big check, big goofy oversized check camera crew. We meet the kids, meet the teacher, present the check, and it is pay tribute to a teacher. So, Bruce, we've got some finalists. Yeah. For this month online. Let's start right now from Verado High School, Coach Duplane. Coach, how are you doing? Great, guys. Thanks for the call. So, we call you coach. Tell me what you teach. Well, what I teach is I teach a program focused around students with autism. And um it's called the Strive program. Structured teaching, researchbased inclusion, datadriven education program. What we try to do is get
063these students out there getting jobs once they graduate high school. So that's my specialty. Good for you, man. That is awesome. you you know you were nominated I think by a mom and her daughter has been in your class and so here's a little bit of what mom said. You've been absolutely amazing and made a difference in my daughter's life. She's had him you coach for four years and she's blossomed. He changes lives. Wow. There's always a waiting list to get into his program. My daughter went into high school melting down all the time unsure of herself. She's now more confident and loves school. She never wants to miss out because of coach. He is an inspiration and does so much for her students. He's a truly amazing man. When you hear something like that
064from a mom, I mean, that's the best gift, right? Oh, it's the best gift ever. I tell you what, you know, it makes me cry. It really does because her kid that Bella, she's come miles from where she started her freshman year and it is just a joy to see her grow. So her name's Bella, right? Yes, it is. What do you remember about Bella walking in day one? Well, the biggest thing I'd love to remember about Bella is she has colear implants and so she doesn't hear very well without them. So it was always interesting to make sure and what I tell Bella is keep your ears on. She keeps her ears on a lot for me. So it's it's great to see her. So help me understand the program a little. So you
065have uh kids with autism, varying degrees of them. The idea is to to to blend them with the other kids in the school. How does that work? Yeah. So it's all about inclusion. Yeah. We do some um we have them in academics classes, but my whole idea is I'm trying to include them in as many classes as I possibly can. When I see them my when they're freshman year, I may have them for three, four, five classes, but then by the time they're seniors, I only have Bella in one or two classes. She's out there taking classes. She's working on campus. She actually has an office job that she works. She does mail. She does other things like she does some shredding and she does some other office jobs. But they're actually learning real work
066experience when they're in our class that senior year. We've got coach Dupplay on the line. One of our finalists for pay tribute to a teacher. 2500 bucks possibly. Coach, um, why children with autism? What made you want to teach special ed? Tell you what, my wife was a special educator or still is a special educator. She's actually in administration now, but I would visit her classes many years ago, 30 years ago when she started teaching. And I've only started this I started this program about 15 years ago. I had to figure out what I was going to do. I first started at Vado High School as a football coach. Okay? And then I became a special educator. I got my masters in special ed focusing on students with autism. I continue to do that right
067now and I just continue to dig into these students and and try to see what we can do and where what's their capabilities and where can they go after high school. And the biggest reason I started this was I didn't want these kids sitting on a couch when they're 20 years old. I want them out there working and being part of the community. I can hear the passion in your voice when you talk about it. It sounds like it's like it's a calling. It is. It kind of is became a calling. You're right. It really has become a calling to me. And it's amazing what these kids have done and what they showed me. I have kids that when I first started this program, 12 maybe one kid to speak, the first thing he did
068and only thing he did his freshman year was growl at me. Wow. I just saw his brother and his brother and him he just bought his first car. He works at Fry and he bought his first car with his debit card. So many of us can go to to the dealership and buy a car with our debit card. So proud of him. Oh my gosh. Coach Duplain Verado High School. All right. So, if you win 25,00 bucks, what do you do with the money? Well, well, I guess it would help me probably pay for some of the stuff I bought for my classroom already this year and next year. So, well, you you do something for yourself, right? I might. I might, but I do put back a lot to these classrooms. I do love
069these kiddos. So, what did you buy that that would help pay pay for some of that? I tell you what, here's what I teach a unified sports class. And so what we do, we take students with and without disabilities and we go do fun stuff. And the biggest thing that we do is we have nice little gettogethers and parties. And my seniors, what we did this year is every one of the seniors gets a senior gift basket. We got seven seniors in the unified program. So each one of them gets a gift basket with all kinds of goodies in it. You know, nice water bottles. They got the Stanley water bottles for the girls and the Yeti for the boys. They just got some really cool stuff and basically that's what my fun goes to
070at the end of the year is this is their end of year party. Well, I think the senior gift basket this year is going to look like a swag bag from the Oscars because you have $2,500 thanks to your Valley Toyota dealers. You win, coach. Oh my goodness, guys. Oh, you make me cry. You make me cry, guys. These kiddos, they make me cry. When the parents call me, they make me cry. I just love it. Your love of the children, your love of teaching them, and and your love of helping deserves this kind of a reward. So positive, Bruce. Yes. You can just feel it through the phone. He's such a positive. I'm going to go run through a wall for coach. I'm running through a wall for you, coach. I'm ready. Guys, tell
071you what these students do. They will now by the time they're done. I build relationships with their family. They want to run through a wall for me. I'm like, you don't have to do that. Let's let's build an obstacle and let's go around it. Wow. Well, Veronado High School is lucky to have you, Coach Dlan, and uh congratulations. He's an amazing amazing job that you're doing. You got 2,500 bucks. Thanks to your Valley Toyota dealers for paying tribute to a teacher. Congrats, coach. Thank you guys so much. That is so awesome. I can't wait for you guys to meet some of the students. You guys are going to be torn when you guys see them. You're going to know why I do what I do. All right. We'll see you soon, coach. Right. Yeah. Way
072cool. That's way cool. Love his energy and enthusiasm. Can't wait to go visit. First second that we brought him on, it's like, oh my gosh, he's got it. And these kids love him. And so we're going to we'll go down. We'll meet him. We'll meet the kids and we'll we'll hand him a big check. 25,500. I actually tried to see if coach Dup could be here, but he was coaching tennis against away game or something. So, he's spending some time with kid. But I just thought that that was real a real testament to uh how lucky we are to be in this district and have people like him that are working so hard for our kids and doing some great things. So, thank you for being patient as I share that with you. That's all.
073No, thank you. I think we all enjoyed that. Okay. Um, 5.2 governing board members. I'm sorry, 10.2 governing board members. Summary of current events. You want me to start? Yes, please. Okay. Well, first I have to say I've known Donnie, I'm sorry, Coach Duplane for 20 many of the the years that he was talking about. I actually worked with his wife and if there's ever anyone that is more deserving of a prize like that, I mean, you could just I I can't even say enough. I love him. He's doing a great job. So, I'm really glad that you shared that with us. I actually just texted my You didn't even tell me. Um so, uh I I got to do some really fun things this past month. Um I went to the Desert Art Desert
074Edge barn uh groundbreaking for their aggra sciences program, which I'm very excited because there were goats and chickens there and I always said I want goats and chickens in my backyard. So, thank you for having those principal one. I appreciate that. It was a great event. Um, I also got to attend the Awafria Gala, which from what I understand is the very first one, but um, Principal Daniels, you wouldn't even know. Is she here? There she is. Oh, she's right in front of me. Thank you. You would not even know that that was your very first one. That was very well put on and everybody dressed up and it was just a beautiful event. The performers, everything. It was a really good and I'm so glad that you plan to keep doing that because that
075is amazing. Um, I also got to attend the beam signing for Goodyear High School, which was really fun, but it does make me really nervous knowing that I had to get my signature just right. It's going to be there forever. And but I'm glad we got to go first because then we didn't have to figure out what we were going to write after everybody else had already written something. Um, so thank you for inviting me to that. And then um I also attended the leadership alliance breakfast where we had some stakeholders, community stakeholders come and talk about what the needs are for the district and the the workforce and all kinds of things. It was a really really nice um way to get to know some of the people because I'd never been to one
076before. Um, I also went to the Chuck Wagon Feast fundraiser that raised money for All Faith, which again, another really awesome event. And I think I found out that they raised about $90,000 uh for All Faith, the nonprofit community church, or not church, but they give back to the community. So, that was very exciting. 100% I'm so glad that any anything I donated is going right back into our community. So, Thank you very much for inviting me to all these things. Excellent. We had the opportunity to attend a few of those events together. Um March was very busy. Um it's always busy because it's so exciting to be out on campuses and be out and about. We all have very busy lives and so when we have an opportunity, it's it's great to get out
077and participate. Um, as elected governing board members, we are always out and about, like I mentioned, and sometimes we're asked to communicate and share, give updates on our district. And I'd like to thank Mr. Eastless as well as Miss Grego. Um, they provided me the opportunity to go to the Pebble Creek community. and had the privilege of not just showing a video of themies that also is on our website. Um, but because they are proud proud members of our community in Goodyear, uh, they were extra excited when they got to see the Goodyear High School um, historical video. And so for them to think and to see this is our town, this is our high school and for them to see the history all the way going back to the Troder uh racetrack and and
078how that all fits in in the community with them. They were pretty excited. Also, uh there were some questions and answers, so it was nice to highlight um our school district. Um, in addition to that, I know with all of our athletic teams here, it was really exciting because getting to go to all those different events and seeing them be successful. Kind of funny I mentioned to to Vicki that it's kind of different to see them in person in a board meeting versus seeing them in their tennis shoes. And so, it was we just kind of laugh about that. Um, I'll just say on a personal note, our family attends the Phoenix Symphony. We love it. the music, the uh culture uh that comes with our participation. I know I've mentioned this before, but when
079I'm at those events, um I know who and I've interacted with the president of the Phoenix Symphony and with our arts academy and our theater being something very exciting to come um to be able to communicate an update about how that project's going and um the Phoenix Symphony, if you don't know, um they tend to have their Friday night um at the Phoenix Symphony Hall, but then they also go into the community and and so I keep prompting and reminding the president that remember you're going to have in the fall of 2026 uh a 700 seat arts uh theater. So start to plan and think and consider coming our way. So it's always fun to have that reminder conversation, although I'm probably annoying him as I continue to repeat it. Um had the privilege of
080of going with Mr. Eastless not just to Millennium High School, but also the new Westmech facility that's on the former um transportation barn area at Agua Fria High School. It was nice to see the progress of our partner Westmech putting together a new facility as well as getting an update on the athletic concourse at Millennium High School, which we hope will be completed soon. Um other events would include the Southwest Advocacy Support Program uh gala. Um I was very very proud that one of our students had um been invited to come and speak at that event. So pride of our district, wonderful um student as well as a way to support that program that supports our families and students in the community. Also attended the Aua Fria Gala event. Congratulations. Very exciting. again donations towards
081uh a historical school which um to hear the stories of Aguia High School and uh different members who attended there. Um it was it was very special event. Um also went to the Chuck Wagon event which uh supported the Buckeye Food Bank. Um that was an incredible event, great stories and we also got to see and learn about students that prepared um all of the menu items for that night which included students uh in our district and the West Valley. Let's see. I would like to um I'm kind of a big CTE person. I know different people know that. We all are, but um the state national competitions are coming up for all of our students involved with career technical education competitions. Uh they've worked hard all year long and so I wanted to just
082publicly say good luck. We're proud of you. Go and have a great time and show off your stuff. And lastly, the beaming sign. The beam signing was excellent. So, thank you for everybody that put that together. So, I'll just highlight one event. Um this morning, I stopped off at Alria and it was the ACT um today. And so, um they had a great event where kids were greeted on campus and celebrated. There was a different environment and not of dread of testing, but of excitement. your best and prepare and all the things that could come to you. Uh all the teachers were dressed up in their best. Um there was breakfast for all of the kids. Um Miss Daniels got on the um microphone and um encouraged kids to do their best, give each other
083high fives, and um it was just a great environment. Kids won prizes and t-shirts and uh they went off when the bell rang excited to take their test. So um Congratulations. I had never been to an event where uh kids were celebrated and encouraged and um it was just a different feel on the campus when they were heading off. Instead of dread, there was um ease and excitement. So, congratulations to you on a great event. That's great. Wonderful. Well, I was honored to be a part of the Desert Edge um a farm groundbreaking as well as the beam signing at Goodyear High School. So, thank you for um allowing me to be at those events. I also got to go to our senior to senior um final event of the year where our adult seniors
084hosted the younger seniors. Um what a fabulous program. Um, but seeing it in action was definitely um, inspiring because uh, both the our high school students and our older adult seniors um, shared what that experience meant to them and the connections made and um, so thank you for the people who were involved in that program because that will stay with all of those people um, for many years to come. And then I also want to uh today I was at Goodyear ballpark um because the city of Goodyear opens up the ballpark to the Goodyear high school so that those um baseball teams can play on a bigger stage. So um Desert Edge played Verado. So two of our schools had that opportunity and then Millennium played at 4. So um just thank you to our
085community partners for um allowing our kids those opportunities. Um 11.1 requests for future agenda items. Okay. Um then we will move to 12.1 um convene to our executive session pursuant to ARS 38-31.03 to discuss the terms and employment. Superintendent. Do I have a motion? Be it resolved. The governing board convene and executive session is presented. Second. Yes. Colton. Yes. Yes. After we come back from our executive session, we're journeying. So, please feel free to leave. Thank you. Conven the governing board adjourns the executive session and returns to the regular board meeting. Second. So yes, Colton. Yes. Acting. Yes. 13.1 the governing. So this is now return to regular session consideration and possible action to approve the superintendent contract for a three-year term commencing January 1st, 2025. Are you looking for a motion? Yes. Be it
086resolved the governing board approves superintendent employment agreement as written and discussed in executive session. Second. Yes. Colton. Yes. Actton. Yes. Congratulations. Y you're stuck with us. Um, do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Yes. Colton. Yes. Acting. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.