001[Music] the administration is recommending the approval of this personal designation and the implementation of liquidated damages per line 11 of the certified contract she signed on march 3rd 2015. the superintendent recommends approval of the resignation of angela garcia and the implementation of liquidated challenges uh mr hopkins yes this is for more information over the last several days i just want to share pretty much the district can import damages from my understanding uh the superintendent did uh did uh assign the damage as my predecessor okay um at the same time you know looking at the whole perspective and speaking of mr alfred uh most superintendents usually take it to the governing board to for discussion uh at the same time we can impose liquidated damages a suggestion is um the governing board can approve the resignation
002of the staff member and authorize myself to enforce the liquidated damages now in saying this i just want to get a sense of what the governing board uh wants to do in this situation to make sure we have clarity moving forward as far as with with uh with this situation case-by-case basis also a case-by-case basis or the governing board can direct as many other districts do the superintendent to enforce the liquidated damages what is the best practices is is what comes up in this situation with with the liquidated damages and i say this just for for everyone here for for there to be some consistency but also as stated in uh the contract in section 11 as far as for the governing body it says or clearly also the governing board has the option they
003want to wave away the damages as well it's always uh in a sense a matter of fairness on the situation at hand and collaborating with other superintendents on this on this issue the feedback i received is that when a teacher is going uh to another position whether it be administrator manager maybe a professional growth move what i've had other superintendents share with me is that in some such in some cases they'll waive the liquidated damages based on on informing the board and what the board wants to move forward with while at the same time in this case understanding all the details correctly uh the contract was signed march 3rd from our understanding the head start position was advertised afterward from our understanding so these this can be seen as circumstances beyond the teacher's control which
004is also stated in section 11 of the contract simultaneously uh the feedback i received from other superintendents is that a teacher to teacher move or a teacher resigning and just resigning now that proves to be a hardship on the school and the district and the students and so uh liquidated damages have been implemented in that case it's very clearly it states around section 11. it would be considered job abandonment professional act can be reported to the state board of education but at the same time on the back of the ade certificate this is recognized as a breach of contract either way but i'm just keeping the case of the teacher to teacher or teacher resigning disciplinary disciplinary action can be enforced such as a suspension or revocation of the certificate so i just wanted to
005share that information with the board from my understanding of the whole situation the details speaking with mr hufford but also speaking with other superintendents who have had similar situations just so that the best decision can be made totally um motion reads administration recommended approval of mrs garcia's resignation and implementation of liquidated damages yes so that's your recommendation that that's my recommendation but at the same time i want to just do my due diligence and share with the governing board all the the factors that are involved with every situation of liquidated damages as such such a case-by-case basis but that's just for for our discussion yeah and from looking at our other personal items it looks like we've already we're already hiring somebody to take the position that she's leaving is that correct i believe so
006okay so it's dion vega is down for cte early childhood so yes that was the concern of mine was just how bad oh okay okay okay okay i was gonna i knew dion before was the cookie the culinary arts teacher but i didn't know oh just on the orange page it says cte teacher diane vega um so we still have to we're still short that teacher a pre-teacher in that position okay to have that on their record was that cte that they have to take like the first class like autograph one and then all of them um and it's one of those that cpe as you said so if she taught sophomores and juniors in the class one now they don't have the class to to follow up with that program it's one it's either
007[Music] we get a copy of the contract not her not her contract but the the um base the general contract just so we can see uh what the language is on the liquidated yeah thank you and then this one i kind of get that it's a professional development move for her and that she wasn't in control of when that position was posted but it also kind of puts us it puts the district at a setback trying to find the teacher at such short notice right and that's why mr albert i wanted to make sure explain these steps but also as we just shared right now it was part time but it's the same class is not going to be offered is that correct so so now it does based on on as stated in section
00811 of the contract now that makes it a little different as far as there's a hardship how do we fill it and how it's impacting students so just just based on the facts available so um this was a part-time position would i understand the point four three yeah okay and is the the amount of the liquidated damages is that scaled from what i understand it would be 1 000 from what i understand based on the part-time salary it ended like 12 something but then they moved to a thousand so the previous superintendent and the finance director talked about it and um i just wanted to double check with everybody so it's prorated to her fpe which is full-time employment so she won't pay you if she does pay the liquidated damages i don't want me
009to think about it okay i just want to be consistent i don't want to pick and choose okay you know if we're going to make this the policy the way we're going to do it then i think we have to do it for everybody okay that's just my thing you may disagree indeed you're looking at me like you disagree no not no not necessarily though i i do think it's um worthwhile to look at the individual case because there are you know an infinite number of reasons that sure someone might have to have to break their contract and so i do think it's important to look at the individual okay um the next personnel item is the certified employment of a teacher gina t lopez dean of team appearances has been interviewed and respects completed
010for position school year superintendent's recommendation is the employment of junior t repose as a teacher for the 22-23 school yes sir mr hopkins [Applause] [Music] yeah okay that's what i figured just a matter of difficulties coming from the philippines and getting back yeah and then yes primarily the visa yeah yes okay i was just curious because it didn't make sense to me august we were having a conversation before the meeting we didn't want to worry about teachers anymore because state law that i just saw that was passed i could take a humanities course online and say i'm going for my teacher's certificate and i i'm employable with a full-time teacher am i getting that wrong and then what [Music] program not just basketball or whatever but yes you're you're eligible to now teach in the
011classroom without the behavior and management type stuff so with a mentor some people are natural teachers you could be a parent pro that you have now that wants to be teacher and can't because you can't afford it well if they enroll in a program now and they're good if you wanted them to be a teacher they get that pay and now they can afford to go to school so some people are natural teachers and we all know teachers that are along with the voucher okay i heard about the voucher on this one okay next matter of personnel certified employment of teacher dionne vega dionviva has been interviewed and reference checks completed for the position of teacher for the 22-23 school year uh the superintendent recommends the employment of dion vega as a teacher for the
0122023 school year i was telling angelina that i had a long property on the other day didn't know about this and then during that whole conversation she talked about what she was gonna do in her future she never even said a word to me about going to work at school but i know she's she's worked for this before in the same position and she's a great disability position okay okay she's good at columbia reacts yeah i knew she was we always heard good reviews so next item uh classified resignation of the special projects secretary candice moore candace moore special project secretary turned in a letter of resignation of the district office on june 21st 2022 her last day of work will be august 5th of 2022 superintendent recommends approval of the resignation of candace more
013effective august 5th 22. she's been very professional she's shared with us that she's going to be taking part in online work working towards a bachelor's degree she also signed up as an emergency substitute so she's going to train debbie house who's going to take her place up until august 5th so this house is going to go over after this first week of jump start july 18 to august 5th so she's been very professional during this time okay okay next item's classified reassignment of the special projects secretary debbie house administration has advertised in-house for the position of special education secretary w house a paraprofessional was interviewed for this position and is being recommended by the committee to become the ausd special project secretary this reassignment is a move from a part-time paraprofessional to a full-time 12
014months secretary her first day of her 12 months would be july 18th 2022. okay [Applause] the next one is the approval of the 2223 pre-k program staff pay increase and stipends in 2021 ronnie cote pre-k director applied to the arizona department of economic security for a child care stabilization grant to supplement the first sentence first pre-k grant the des grant was approved and the district was able to ease the budget's contribution to the pre-k program in the attached document at the top the board can view how the grant was used in 2021. this year 2022 ms cote again reapplied for the des child care stabilization grant to our surprise not only was the pre-k grant approved but the grant was doubled this cote has made a proposal to the administration to use a portion of
015the funds for personnel items that need board approval increased pay and benefits for pre-k staff 10 days of pre-k staff training and retention stipends mid-year and end of year for pre-k steps mr hopkins and members of the board i just want to elaborate a little bit on this first myself in the smith this was a collaborative process so we really took the time first with the dr chabots dr dooley this is kote and i on june 23rd we met from about when i say about an hour and a half doctor shabalt's office then he followed up on june 27th uh dr dooley myself and miss smith we reviewed the uh the aspects of the grant we followed up on june 28th with mrs cote miss smith dr dooley angelina and myself just to go over
016all the different uh details the aspects and making sure that all the eyes were dotted and t's were crossed and i'm just going to ask smith right now for everyone hi yes so it's my privilege to go over this with you and make sure you don't have any questions on this so basically in this last fiscal year which is 2122 they had a budget of 55 000 and it went to salaries and benefits which is great because it helps supplement our other child care programs so with this increase in spending you still need to cover the salaries and benefits and then we went into other things that we would throw not throw but apply the additional funding to and the grant specifically addresses the need of child care workers to get an increase in pay
017so we put that on there first and then we also added some training for them because the director wants to improve the program so we did the estimate of the salaries and the benefits that cost with it they're also giving um the parapros a stipend which they would get in december and in june so it's not every pay period it's if you stay you earn it if something comes up and you take another position that's typing as it pays out so it gives you some uh buy-in there from the employees so those stipends since i referred to as retention stipends are they intended basically for like in june are we giving a stipend to somebody who is agreeing to work the next semester or something particularly it's in a rear basically an hour raise okay
018right in the beginning and they get extra time so that they can address improving the quality of the program and getting all the prep in so they immediately get money which we have to do monthly reporting on this and the state wants to see that our child care workers have received an increase so that's what the dollar an hour does and then in december they'll get half of their annual statement and in june they'll get the second half okay now i just since it was called a retention one i was thinking it was yeah kind of like a signing bonus for the fall like in june right they get it if they have agreed to stay through the next six months about that's what i was thinking yeah that's what i saw a retention stipend
019that's what i was thinking it was a way to retain them the following year well this actually retained you for the second half so but you have the idea but you earn it if you stay yeah you believe this isn't the partial retention yeah is the hourly pay increase um knowing that it's a grant is that something that there's a risk of it not being there they're following you you're right so we calculated our calculator based on equation what the january first minimum wage is going to be which i estimate now at 13.85 so it's 12. right now so right off the bat they get a dollar and in january they'll probably get a nipple but they do get a job but can't also can't have a stampede for positions and so that would give
020them money right away plus the extra money twice a year we also had them include the cost of food which we were paying for from something else and so that's the twelve thousand dollars that's three meals and eighteen students my question is more since the grant is a yearly if we don't get the grant or we don't get the same amount next year are we then cutting their pay back so that's why we only took it up to the new minimum okay okay that was the reason there but if the program works out now if you look down here we also are offering staff tuition discount which is a benefit to educators i have other possible expenditures and um potential 15 carry forward at the fy 24 if allowable because normal normally federal grants you
021can carry forward 15 which is 17 000 which is almost enough to pay those stipends again if the grant went away so we don't know and that's something you'll be able to monitor so if we find out that it is going to be coming back we can also you know you don't care if we're allowed or we find that we'll have more than pre-k site maintenance and improvement there's some other things over there we could do to improve things okay and new supplies and activities we allocated that yeah no i was just concerned about people's reaction if in two years all of a sudden their pay that raise went away but i understand too that the arizona minimum is going up exactly so in any way that we give we always lineate the exact reason
022for it is that your projection where minimum wage is going to go 13.85 that's where it's going to go for sure no that's not for sure because the year's not over yet but it's based on inflation right which is running like 8.53 so it may be and if it is then they'll get that much more but they're getting the beginning of the year jump on it and that's the purpose of this grant and and they obviously know we run a good program here so this is a bit of additional money and years ago when i was here and this program lost a lot of money and now it has managed and it's it's paying its way and now we can improve it yeah okay because i just wanted to elaborate a little more that she
023really deserves a lot of credit she really was thinking outside the box and she really was keeping us informed of what was going on it was a collaborative effort first we met once twice three times just to make sure all these points could you know keeping in mind the inflation the increase that they're not going to go back but also that that she get compensated as well as far as you know twice twice a year but it really just um to just try and build more you know on the morale just the positive energy that that's a hard job yeah she was just walking you through their setup the restroom i mean they are there her and and two parapro's and they take care of everything and i just shared with her in my experience
024i had some early childhood work in kindergarten and preschool that is very tough but also to make sure the restroom that they're in the restroom they're they're doing the right thing they're taking care of when they need help and so it was a collaborative collaborative effort and i really believe it's kind of a dividend in the short term but also in the long run as well okay so what would your weight be in comparison to a first grade teacher she and she also has a statement for this additional reward on this it's tied to the grant so she has a stipend and uh the finance director for the audits that this is gonna involve gonna have to keep meticulous records like we do with everything else so her increase is just part of the child
025care salary the dps wants them to get additional money i just don't recall what a first grade teacher makes foreign [Music] so there's a staff tuition discount so um does this program generate money in addition to these grants that people yeah that's part of how we pay for those other expenses like the food and the supplies was taken from the tuition that was gathered so if you're a school district employee we're proposing that instead of 275 a month it'll be 135 for those eligible employees whose young children participate in this program and that would be the annual cost that will be put into this program to cover that tuition it includes tuitions that are paid plus plus grant monies yeah that's all in here no no this is what tuition money we would be off
026setting oh oh okay so it saves the if you're a district employee and your children participate in this or however it's working if you bring them in this program this last year you're gonna pay shortly so that extra 140 dollars i just wish i could have seen her face when she realized they were offering twice the amount she asked for because i don't know that i've heard of grant funding agencies doing that often yes and it is not a guarantee so it is one of those things we need to watch our money on but that's why i i suggested that if we could that we could do a carry forward to offer it and we would know toward the end of the year if he was being reduced probably okay okay and those ideas all
027were from uh the child care stabilization graph there was like a little venn diagram that gave me options of what it can be enforced so we followed a wage increase primarily tuition discount benefits so all of that came from the guidelines that were provided okay okay next order is uh the approval of the jump start employment jumpstart for k through eighth grade students will be will be july 11th through the 14th and july 18th through the 21st from 8 o'clock in the morning till 1 pm teachers will work six days per week for eight days do i say six hours per day for eight days paid by title one running each pair of pros will work five hours per day at their hourly rate of pay following staff members have expressed an interest in working
028during jumpstart world as teachers wilder quizno richard rigadone art moningo charlie aaron cohen and april caballero for parapros we have maria duran sheri simpson bernadine tamayo and debbie house for the first week only the superintendent recommends the hiring of the above teachers and parapros to work during elementary jump start from july 11th to 14th and july 18th to the 21st from 8 to 1 p.m mr hopkins i needed some students today just speaking myself firstly walking around i saw mr moningo's class so they were getting started already the students looked very happy they looked very happy to be back in school and in class so just from those two classes that i saw it's off to a good start and so it looks following employees have expressed the desire to perform the designated extra pay
029positions for the 22-23 school year uh mercy erin cohen is the high school student council advisor doug sane as the national honors society advisor donnell connolly as yearbook sponsor april caballero as freshman class sponsor ah we switched it up here uh donnell connolly as a sophomore class advisor jose yan as athletic director buddy cruiser as head football coach ryan vissel as assistant football coach jason horton his assistant football coach kayla liam is head volleyball coach for zelda munoz as assistant volleyball coach jennifer guthrie as spirit line coach and mandy pickle as spirit line coach the superintendent's recommendation is that the board approved the above employees for the corresponding positions so in previous years the last two years you've had two athletic directors instead of just one i noticed this year you just went to one
030or did i read something wrong um no from from what i understand we still have two co-athletic coordinators yes sir i don't see that here didn't i miss me so when i was 18 i did it by myself and i made thirty five hundred dollars now we paid thousand dollars for four thousand dollars a piece of two athletic directors and i just wonder why we have to have two athletic directors well um just from from my experience in the in the six days that i've been here for what i could assess and and the last month it is there does there's quite a bit of work that has to be taken care of as far as just you know uh making sure when i was athletic i was trying to interrupt sure sure i don't
031want to sound argumentative here when i was athletic director we had junior high jv sports previous athletic director dropped all that so now we have no junior high sports we have no jv sports which the community wants by the way they want those those sports sure okay so now only thing left is varsity sports so again why do they take two ads getting twice as much money as i got to do the job i did by myself well that's a good question i mean no you don't have the answer i understand that i don't expect you to have an answer right now but i'm just bringing that up now i'll tell you the answer you ready we want to give those guys more money than what they make so we both make them ads so
032they both get a stipend and they make more money for the year their income enhancement positions right and that's the reason why we have two ads making eight thousand dollars instead of 180 making three thousand dollars right these day jobs are never put up to the community right they're never advertised are they i would have to probably i would have to go back to what what has been what past practice has been and then i could i could always get back with you either current coaches or staff it's hard to be somebody who doesn't work for the district and be the athletic person why why is it hard are those positions advertised they're advertised in-house but we prefer they don't have to advertise in-house and if the position is putted forth for in-house and we
033don't advertise outside so athletics are just because you're you're involved with student data and student information and birth dates and faith numbers then nine times out of ten it's better for a staff member who have access to that information if you are having somebody from olsens to be the wasn't a coach who didn't have that kind of training to be the athletic director now they're they're they have information from every student who plays athletics so sorry i apologize it's happening your first meeting that's fine so we take somebody to make them income enhancement right we take a girl that works in the accounting office and we make her an a.d she's never coached anything in her life but half of a volleyball not a volleyball cheerleading season where she quit as a head coach right
034so now she is the boss of all the coaches she's never sat through a football practice she's never run a sprint she never shot a basket she never hit a home run she's never done anything sports wise and now she's bossing and getting paid to boss around coaches okay and the coaches have no choice but to toe the line right they have no choice but to total line which means you're going to play the state playoffs and they tell you can't leave until 12 o'clock when you it's a saturday and you could leave at 7 o'clock in the morning and she stands in front of the bus and says you can't leave until 12 o'clock right going to play a state playoff game right can't leave until 12 o'clock because she's never coached a minute
035right she's never coached a minute and now she's the supervisor of coaches because we want to enhance her income right so now you're asking coaches to coach for somebody that has no athletic experience at all none and you wonder why you have coaches that are disgruntled huh you have you wonder why you have coaches that are disgruntled you have coaches that are disgruntled because they have no leadership they're kenny farmer was the athletic director he'd coach every sport known to man since king you know adam right so of course he had natural respect from everybody when kenny farmer said something julie thiel coached sports everybody understood that from julie but then suddenly we got into this income enhanced ancient thing right and so i'm not going to prove any athlete director until first i like
036to have a job description what is the job description of an athletic director what is their responsibility who who do they answer to and who are they in charge of am i wrong if you guys think i'm being going on my way here okay and um and then i like to know why we can't just have one person even if we pay one person eight thousand dollars why we can't just have one person that does this why do we have to have a d by committee huh and um so you might have 10 football coaches show up applicants to show up for football but the a.d decides who we see right all we see is these names here you know so if he doesn't like joe blow his name is not going to be here
037right he might say this guy can't be a assistant football coach because he's having an affair with a high school girl right he might say that but then when it comes down to well have you called the sheriff's office about this no but his name just doesn't get brought up to you guys right just doesn't get brought up to you even though the head coach is saying i really want this guy he's a valuable part of my program huh because of rumor induendo he can't be an assistant coach so i understand you correctly mr guthrie you're asking for a job description of the athletic director the responsibility they report and i think there should be something about qualifications also to be an ad because sir you're asking them to supervise coaches right you're asking them
038to supervise coaches and so it'd be like me trying to come in and supervise the school right never never stand for that so bonnie is this something that on wednesday you might ask to table that that portion so we can i would you guys can vote if you guys want to vote for it that's fine but i i i want to see and i'm not just talking for myself i'm talking for all the coaches i hear this from all the coaches right so this discussion needs to be had our bird is back he hadn't been there for years back coming at the door um yeah i think if i remember correctly we can actually on this pull out those two and say okay we're going to table these the two athletic director ones and then
039have more time for discussion and looking in review of that information and still vote on the rest of them so i don't know what impact that has on our teams right now what i'm going to say and you can you can stop me and say hey this is inappropriate you can't say it so i had one of my boys that graduated this year hang himself last night i wanted to spend time with that kid in the weight room as soon as the season was over because i knew that he was endangered right i wanted to spend significant time with him and i got locked out of the weight room and the gym huh i got locked out so i was unable to do anything with that kid nothing with that kid right we never heard
040that though of course you didn't hear that of course you never heard it right you know why i got locked out money because i dared walked in with her on that um employment agreement and so he penalized me lonnie appointed order i i am so sorry i i i understand how upset you are but it's not it's not an agenda discussion i apologize it just there's a lot of respect a lot of responsibility into this coaching athletics that well sorry about that sorry about my rant so okay anything more on the extra pay positions if not the next item of business is the approval of addition hours for the sped director kelly aaron code due to unforeseen circumstances mr anthony delaila and roger our choose fed teachers won't arrive until august or september in addition
041sved's secretary's last day will be the 5th of august ms erin cohen needs additional hours not set out under contract to get the special education department ready for the new year the administration is requesting shelley work 1-5 p.m from july 11th through the 21st and full days the week of july 25th to 29th uh her contract starts on august 2nd of 2022 this is a superintendent's recommendation that we approve the additional work time for shelly erin cohen's half days from july 11th through the 21st and one week of full days from the 25th to the 29th that's correct mr hopkins dr as dr shabolz has expressed a concern just to make sure that so that the special ed program is wednesday okay next item in the business is the approval and adoption of the proposed
042financial year 2023 budget az revive statute 15-905-a requires governing board of a school district to prepare and furnish to the superintendent of public instruction and the county superintendent's office an adopted budget by july 15th of each year ms smith will go over the 2023 budget during the budget hearing superintendent recommends the approval of the adopted budget for the 23 financial school fiscal schools well i would like to start first of all by saying i have done this for two decades plus and this is the first year ever it was the last pillar of finance rules and that you could never adopt a budget that was higher than your proposed budget and house bill um what is it 2866 was passed by the legislators the last week of june and knowing that we can't adopt higher
043than our proposed they gave all the schools more money and said oh and by the way this year you can adopt higher than you're proposed so i tried to do a little memorandum here that let you know what it is and basically they increased the base support level which is what each student's funding is based on they took away the teacher experience index which we just captured last may for the first time we put it into the this year's budget but they also um increased our group b weights which is ours our sped counts and so overall they took some things away to simplify the formulas in the future but our mno budget is going to be an additional 182 more than we said it's going to be last month and our capital is going
044up by twenty eight thousand seven hundred thirty five dollars and we can always use that so it is the first time this has ever been done when we do our finances it's a series of calculations and formulas that they changed this year at the last minute but we go through these and it's it always comes out so much money per atm so they've also increased our atm with that speculated count you always you never make money instead you that isn't your decision and anything but it is long over to do to get this they even gave us a little bit more money for textbooks this year since the last two decades has been 69 for every high school 912 and they moved it up to 70 something so i think every couple dollars we can
045get towards this so they expect it to be spent in the classroom or in classroom support which comes down to the actual classroom where teachers are working it also goes for speech and language therapists the library and nursing so that first layer that encounters so they expect that increase to show up there when you do your budgets and your annual financial report um luckily it didn't affect our taxes even though we're getting more money because we get maxed out on the qualifying tax rate so so this is great this is good news yeah you got more money it didn't cost me anything and so um and also i also wanted to say because dr saltero and i had a nice conversation about this i basically made made decisions on what to do with this money
046it was the last minute this happened and i wasn't even like i thought you were just going to do the drop down from proposed to the factory then i realized oh hey i could rebuild this budget and do all the calculations again so when we put it in these in these cells you might want to call it we can move it later when the if the need changes and that's what your budget revisions are for right now it's just kind of uh a good educated guess where the money will be needed but we have also i found out our utilities going up extensively you know and so i'll have to probably shift money into there but this is not a year-long commitment this is to extend the budget we're allowed to spend yeah so i
047can talk about this for hours anybody want to talk about it um so i was curious um i asked just from a qualitative standpoint what does it mean for the district to have more than two hundred thousand dollars that we didn't know we were sure sure well uh mr hopkins miss robertson means good news it's just a matter of you know where do we want to apply this funding what resources uh minimum wage increases benefits that's that's good to have also um resources uh uh can include uh you know one example possibly a speech and language pathologist may be available these are just brainstorming ideas that smith and i talked about uh speech and language pathologists possibly um trying to have that person here if it's possible you know once or twice a week in
048the other days remotely so we have that staff member here versus other resources that we have to use right now um there's a there's just it's we're evaluating all the resources and what we need as far as also uh and talking to ms smith any kind of additional security measures as far as for school safety to look into um possibly cameras more cameras for for school safety security these are just possible topics but it's good to have these additional resources this additional money as she said and and now we at least have something to to work with to help to help our school our entire campus it's it's a it's a good challenge to have it is and i'd also like to say as we were talking about earlier inflation this extra money isn't even
049a couple with the cost of fuel the diesel fuel and that goes for the field trips and the sporting events and the minimum wage but schools we always find a way to make it work but it is so nice in all this rain of inflation that that we have a little extra to help us is any of the extra going to the elementary level um it's it's per per pupil and so it isn't necessarily whether it's k-8 or 9-12 i mean our staffing we tend to do that way but not not everything is we you know electricity goes to maintenance so yeah i understand that but i noticed that the books uh was increased on nine to twelve for the textbooks yes yes and i know the little ones need to have new books exactly
050but they never allocate textbook money to anybody but high schoolers i know i find that very terrible yes yes it is they do a lot of paper and workbooks which is good you know it's a lot of hand they have to write things and we don't want to write textbooks but um yeah it is something else i when was the last time i don't know it's probably places but they go to online now so there are this is good this is good to have as far as and just we can explore uh some of the options and it's always good to move forward collaborate with dr chabots on what are the needs at the school and get his valuable input so i think this is this is a really good step in the right direction
051okay sure any other discussion then last item in business is the approval of the disposal of library books donnell connolly has weeded the school library and is seeking board permission to discard 307 library books these books are recommended for disposal based on lack of circulation and condition it is the superintendent's recommendation that the attached list of books be approved for disposed [Music] remember the first time i looked at one of these lists and we had a book from the 40s on the list so it looks like right now 64 is the oldest book that i've seen yeah by wednesday you almost had me on that one but you know she she did a great job she was here and she was i mean she was here early and she stayed late and so just from
052my perspective she really put in a great deal of the next one is the agenda item to add agenda items oh we have um report on graduation rates yes okay sorry says okay you're in this cohort this is when you should graduate this year okay so we did have six students for 2022 who did not graduate who were in that cohort only one of those students was on campus that was one of our severe needs special ed students and showed up every day this has nothing to do with the dropout part of it but the kids showed up every day worked his behind off of course i can't say any names tonight you all know most of the kids and according to the state who'll never you know be able to graduate with with their
053guidelines he is allowed to stay until he's 20 um here on campus i have not heard of if he's coming back or not next year but um he's wonderful to have on campus so he was so he was one of them our other students that didn't graduate the last one that was here was in 2020. so we have two students in 2020 um both as far as we know and you all know maria and mr casey make follow-up calls because it does affect us so we call a call talk to relatives and just try to get answers call schools and try to get transcripts um two two of those students of five left two of those students that we know of have gone um to mexico i i dare say back to mexico because i'm
054just not real positive i don't know the students like y'all do but i know some of them some originally come come come from there have family members there so two of them went to mexico and we didn't we just didn't get any other information from 2019 one of the students dropped out their freshman year no information and that was two in 2019 so dropped out pressure two of them dropped out their freshman year and we got no follow-up no follow-up from family students and or schools requesting transcripts one student that we know of 2021 so he's been in the district quite a long time he moved out of town during his senior year had planned on getting a ged is what he had told told employees here the year before i got here and um
055and we just don't know if that happened or not again um without saying names i did i did get the word that he left a pretty bad situation here in town family wise and that many people community members um had reached out and really tried but it may have been best for him but unfortunately we don't have there were no transcripts requested and or we don't know if he got his gdp so i went back a little bit more with the help of mr casey of course back to around 2018 and if we can keep the kids here on campus they'll graduate very seldom do they not i mean it's really tough now we make it hard on them they have to go through the credit recovery and and there's some summer school there's some
056extra hours there's the that they have to go through so you know some people would say well they just had to do that so all that school does is they graduate kids they just they'll just graduate and then others say well it's just two day you know it's kids just drop out because of all these different reasons so you can't really please both sides but for the most part if the kids will stay here and give it a shot we will push them and um which we did last year we had a last minute graduation but i mean the kid had to do work and that's all there is to it they don't get a lot of the fluff stuff i mean it is here's the facts learn it expand on it you know whatever
057kind of assessment you're doing that they have to do um they do have to do it they do have to do that and prove it um so the year so this so for 2022 our graduation rate would be 84.85 and the year before that it was 88.89 so it did drop and again those students were all the way back hadn't been here since 2019 it's interesting um this is just kind of a side note but from 2018 to this year many and maybe it's not that big a deal because we're in a small town but there's there's we can pinpoint family names and then so i don't know if that's called generational um educational dropout or what you may call it systemic um but we do have that there there are family names so that
058gives a starting point for when those kids are younger you know if we know kind of a family you know to kind of really push in academics and the positiveness of staying in and all the great things that we can do if you do graduate i know with uh kobe we weren't allowed to have as many visitors on campus so hopefully covered will go down i hear certain parts are going up but hopefully we'll be able to bring in more opportunities to have members from the career and technical sector of our communities to come out and speak and also our military which you have to graduate high school you want to get in the better you do the better the better jobs you end up getting um so we'll be able to do that as
059well i know that there's multiple people working as guidance counselors which almost every high school that you and i went to had a guidance counselor at least one some have teams of them and they're able to just monitor those kids and still their graduation rates aren't much greater than ours even though you have that so i don't know if there's a right or wrong answer i appreciate the board's concerned about it because that keeps it fresh to to uh dr soltero and myself the importance of starting from day one we really have to keep them motivated just just to finish and finish strong for some of them um you know is the key just don't give up towards you and put in way too much time and we put in way too much time on
060you let's go get out of here i know the generational thing is true because in adult education i've always been told that basically if a parent graduates high school their kids are 80 more likely to stay through and graduate if they graduate or get a ged then their kids are like 80 more likely to stay in school and graduate just because they've they've had that example set for them even teaching in the present i had students where i would tell them like you know you're in prison but you have kids if you're working on your education in here in this bad situation that really is going to tell them that this is something you know is important and then when you get out you'll be able to help them with their schoolwork so how many
061kids are graduating early going through the computer classes i think it's growing every year i don't know if it's all has to do with computer classes um i think the first question about this was that president hopkins had asked was something about the teachers the evening and our dropout rate that there was somebody had mentioned that at least that that was an issue i i can't pinpoint that there would be someone leaving but i will say that when you have less electives kids can graduate a lot quicker because they're not they're not doing those electives so they get on the computer and they will graduate early and whether and if we had more electives were able to offer which we will this year um that always keeps them in their seats and keep them engaged
062in something different and then that extends those other classes out when you put you know and you don't have those electives and you've got time on your hands yeah you can knock those not because i'll graduate earlier so i know we had like four this year and i'm not sure about the year before but um that may be a trend that keeps growing with online learning or it may slow down a little bit now that we have some some electives and hopefully those grow into more electives culinary being one if we could get you know build things up like the old days learning would you remember the marching band and so that keeps kids in school varsity sports keeps kids in school um so yeah so i'm just a little concerned and it may be
063unfounded and i'm more than happy to say i'm wrong but i'm just a little concerned that some of our kids are graduating a little too immaturely because they're doing a lot of credits on computers and now they're going from middle of their junior year to the end of their senior year and graduating you know what would be the end of their should be the end of the junior year and now they're getting out of high school and they have no no no where to go they're too young to buy a car they're too young to rent an apartment they're you know they're just stuck and so i i have concerns over that i hope that that we're doing the right thing by by allowing these kids to to get in that computer lab and and
064it's not from what i can see it's not the best students that are doing it it's more of the the middle of the grade kids that are doing it it's not the top of the the line kids i could be wrong there and um so i just i've had a concern for a couple years over that had a kid gradually at the end of his junior year and um he told me the worst decision ever ever happened to him he just wasn't ready to couldn't couldn't do anything at all you just stuck an awful right working at oceans and so i just i surrender to you that you have the right judgment with these kids and and we're headed in the right right direction with that piggybacking on that even one of our valedictorians like
065an extremely successful student expressed some regret of have having graduated a year early but he was missing out on another year of sports and friends and all the things that he would have been doing his senior year well i would think too especially in a town as small as ajo when like when you're the guy you're mentioning gets out then he realizes too like well all my friends are still in school i don't get to see my friends anymore because they're in school and i'm working i just don't know where the benefit to the school is you know i just but excuse me sorry i'm having a rough night question students that have gone switched to homeschooling are they registered to the state and then so you that's that's included um i don't know who
066to ask but i would love to get um these numbers going further back i don't know if the ade i can't hear you oh i'm just asking i would love for the handbook the board handbook i would love to include this data going back a few years so we can see you know what the trajectory is um so maybe one of you could point me to where i would find that information if it's ade or sit again just the graduation rates um going back further yeah going back more than just this year last year like a decade oh i mean if we could go back 10 years that would be that would be great um i don't want to make a ton of work for you i'm hoping there's a there's a place where that
067has that information yeah yeah yeah and it sounds good you know i just want to say something separate is is i just look forward to our to our collaboration i really do uh i've been meeting with dr chabot a couple of times we've had some good uh salient conversations of how we want to move forward uh ms smith also she knows her numbers she knows her numbers and and i really want to credit her on these reports i i i took them home on the weekend i write them friday saturday sunday i have them highlighted in different different colors but my point is we really have a good team a good foundation and and i also want to share that with you as my governing board um i called each of you today and and
068i'm going to keep doing that and just as a way just to for outreach to reach out and build our relationship but also just to talk to every one of you you know before we have a meeting about if there's any way i can be of any service to please let me know that's what i should do i'm superintendent and and i report to all five of you and i want us to have a real strong foundation as well moving forward so i just want to share that with you and also acknowledge our team miss angelina also has been working very hard so we have a very great foundation i believe to move forward and to really just make aho the model district so uh let's keep doing it and that's all i wanted to
069say we all love doctor shoeboys you're slushy okay so now we're on to the agenda item to add agenda does anybody have something to add to wednesday's agenda okay then now i have a motion to adjourn i'll second it okay hi uh mr robinson hi uh mr guthrie hi mr hopkins stuck in design meeting adjourned at 6 40. i apologize