001another one in a month um you know that's how it is I just can tell you from my experience my kids seem depressed they do need some even if it's at six you know feet apart they need interaction with other kids and I see a really big decline in their just how they are how they act and not only that but I say my kids aren't the top of the grade you know what I mean they they struggle already as it is so they're really struggling ever since since last year not to mention I'm a single mom um so you know as my co-workers can tell you when I'm gone to work it's at days at a time so I can't rely on my 15-year-old to make sure that my 9-year-old gets on her computer
002does her stuff because she has to do her own stuff you know what I mean I already put enough responsibility on her as to make sure her little sister eats in the morning or takes a shower at night and is okay you know what I mean so that's that's just what I wanted to express and I just know that there's other people you know other parents that I've talked to that feel the same so I don't know how it's going to be or you know I just wanted to give my opinion on that thank you thank you for letting you speakly I appreciate it all right the next is superintendent report oh excuse me uh Dr D another did you want to say something all right um my name is Sal I live in y
003my um I I three things I wanted to quickly say is I I did file by by the board has uh inspired me I suppose from Monday to file grievances more properly so I have done so today but I need to add to it and I have uh some documents to do that with uh also I'm gonna ask the board again if they would maybe consider putting on the agenda an item um pertaining to teachers requesting representation to the board when you're especially when you're talking about anything that relates directly to our staffing or monies that relate to us or anything along those lines uh I feel like we're being Mis presented and we're not accurate stories are not being told and things are not being accurately related to the board as far as I
004can tell um and I would I would think just on behalf of all the teachers we would like we would like to be represented more clearly and uh more properly with the board than what we currently are um I'm just going to hold my comments to that thank you you're welcome thank you all right Dr ding uh thank you madam president excuse me governing board report first oh do you have something I do have something just really brief I um I promised a document uh Monday night as I put together a document that had to do with um board response to public comments and I don't have that ready yet but I will get it as soon as I can to you thank you all right Dr D third time are you sure okay um
005thank you madam president um this has been a very unique 10 months uh for anybody in public education um we have people that work for the district are experts in teaching and administration and school law and school finance and things like that we're not experts in covid-19 we have learned a lot since March of 2020 but the other work still persists and in my opinion the other work is more intriguing it's much easier to talk to teachers about reading and math and supervision of children and talk about Co um but impact much of what we do uh I've had a couple meetings lately with other superintendents and County Health Department um some numbers that surprise me um there's a belief that school age children are not vulnerable to co U that is not borne out
006by data um the younger the child is the seem it seems the safer they are but just some numbers I thought you might be interested in between July and December 20th when we went on this winter break uh Pima County had 1410 cases of children with Co between the ages of 5 and 10 they had 494 cases between the ages of 11 18 so between the two that's 556 cases in six months been nine fatalities in the state students under 19 um from the covid um you may have watched on the 11th the Governor State of the State address Mr Guthrie just mentioned it um in Maricopa County they started vacc vaccinating teach Educators on the 11th which is Monday as you all know uh the 1A group is uh elderly and typically nursing homes
007and medical providers our school nurse got a shot because she's onea um educators are the second group 1B uh School Employees um he also talked about he talked about that in fact of doing that americ County not sure why americ COA County beat P but they did um I he addressed mental and financial challenges of the lockdown and uh I understand that one of the things that I like to tell employees is that we are still receiving we're stressed because of the virus and what's doing to people in a different way we deliver instruction but we're financially in the same place we would have been pretty much individuals not the district individuals where we would have been without the co if if I had Bob's Bar and Grill in Haw Arizona I'd be I'd be
008in trouble because i' had to shut it down I wouldn't have enough customers so I think we're and I appreciate the federal government uh supporting us uh and keeping schools uh at least online functioning and we're seeing different different Delivery Systems all over the country uh he talked about the Educators uh vaccination schedule and I'll talk about that a little bit more a little bit further on it's not as healthy for kids they didn't think as didn't know that's I heard him say this as it is for adults so I'm not sure all that and he talked about the challenge of online classes but he also said there'll be no new state money at the last board meeting the uh the board voted to modify the existing budget by $58,000 and that's due to loss
009of student enrollment state wide uh the state's lost 50,000 students uh from public schools because of the shutdown or some form the shutdown uh we hope we don't know this that if the co with the vaccination becomes controllable and students can come back as we open school up more and more um we hope that we will be able to uh see an increase some of the students come back uh that will help a lot part of the cares act that helped us provide funding last year carried a provision that said the state cannot reduce School budgets below more than 2% of believe it was below the 1819 budget if that's the case Arizona has a challenge I'm sure they'll be challenged uh by districts that when we lost the amount of money we did TD
010for example lost 13 million that's a lot of cash that they're going to be saying that the governor promised maximum 5% loss well for us it came out to be almost 20% and that's similar number to what other districts are facing so it's going to be interesting and I've talked with Miss Burns and we're trying to get some answers out there on school business officials we don't know sure what's going to happen I got an email today on the 20th we had have a webinar with a gentleman named Chuck Essex he's the former assistant superintendent from Mason schools for business he worked for ASO on school school business officials he's worked for the state department Chuck is a PhD plus uh a CPA he's brilliant with school Finance he's the best I know he also
011is very he'll answer my calls from Little La I respect him a lot he's been on a webinar I hope I learn more and so I wake up in the middle of the night and I thinking about finances so whole time um I want to thank new board members uh welcome to the job because for in it's a job where you're going to get a a bunch of thanks from the public all the time they're always going to be happy with you um but and I mean this sincerely I've had in my career uh various board members various quality board members I've been fortunate downtown AO and I always make a try comment about the only pay the board members are probably the most active volunteers in most communities and they are and I appreciate
012it it's kind of like town hall and so thank you folks for being being willing to be here a couple nights a month at least and help us do the job I've been told uh a couple places that we have email challenges uh we had communication with um an engineer with tabletop today and Eric cannot find anything within our system that's causing the Slowdown um tabletop cleared out 64,000 emails last night that and I don't understand technology all kind of but basically they were hacked in that slowed things down to snail's pace so hopefully that is remedied we don't know yet but I didn't want you to think we're ignoring that we depend on email way too much and we send one out we expect it to get there within five seconds and uh we're
013an instantaneous culture we expect to have lar St and have everything work and it doesn't always work but hopefully that happen it shouldn't impact if if if I'm emailing from home on my home email to one of you at your home email that totally bypasses the school email so those shouldn't be impacted but since it was tabletop and that's what we're worried about there's something in our system but har can find that he's looked at not not stud for two days we spent a couple days looking at so I wanted to be aware that the fact that we weren't ignoring those concerns I conclud my report thank you Dr D all right the next is the consent agenda uh may I have a motion that we approve the consent agenda I make a motion I'll
014second Mrs Duncan hi Mr Hopkins hi Mr C Mrs Robertson hi Mr gy hi all right let's moving on to um board action items the first is a classified resignation of Sharon Brer um she has submitted an email to Mr edin resigning from her position as a PRI professional from ouro school effective immediately um may I hear a motion to approve her resignation with the request move all second Mrs Duncan I Mr Hopkins I Mr pres I Mrs Robertson hi Mr bu hi and the next one is AI resignation par professional louisian uh Tores um Louisiana Torres has submitted a PA resonating from her position as a paraprofessional from the AO schools uh Louisiana's last day of employment will be January 15th which is Friday do I hear a motion that will um we will
015accept the resignation of Louisiana tourus I'll second this Mrs Duncan I Mr Hopkins hi Mr I Mrs Robertson hi Mr Goody and the next order of business we'll go to the business of the meeting is authorization to dispose of equipment and there are pages of ancient and I mean all capital letters agent uh televisions and uh printer and all of that and I none of them work do they no no um may I hear a motion that we um give the approval of the disposal of obsolete and unsafe equipment to be recycled I'll motion I'll second Mr Duncan hi Mr Hopkins hi Mr I Mr Robinson hi Mr got okay the next is approval of modified certified working condition agreement representatives from the certified staff have worked with the superintendent to modify portions of the
016board and teacher adopted certified working condition agreement the modifications focused on leave issues in the agreement the certified represented and the superintendent have signed this approve approval of the agreement this document is presented to the board for their approval of the modified total portion of the agreement and as a Monday night we went over most of this I'm sure at length and so may I hear a I have okay so um just I wanted to point out that the changes that we're making um they do have impact on the classified agreements and the employee handbooks as well so um I I hope that when those are next published those be reflected in okay and then um on Monday night's discussion it was agreed that if we were to make substantial changes to this document it
017have to S back to the we have to approve it again they've already worked really hard on it so I think we're all in agreement that we'd like to avoid that um so what I propose is that we address the outstanding issues that we can to the extent that we can without necess trading a review so I'm just gonna walk through a few of those things that we talked about on Monday night um so the first one is on page two so at it's it's one school day the last sentence says ensure that pars for Planned medical leave and professional days are submitted at least a week prior to day so this we actually didn't talk about on Monday because I missed it um but it it asks for a week prior notification for professional
018days but down on page nine we go to page n professional leave it says uh staff should have uh lead requests must be submitted four weeks for professional Le so on page nine it says four weeks and on page two it says one week so I think if we were to make any decision about this tonight it would have to go back to the teachers because that would be a substantial change of removing one or the other um so I suggest that we proceed with leave it as it is and proceed with the understanding that it will be that conflict will be addressed at the next revision everyone in agreement about that I would agree with that and then it's always at the supervisor discretion if if we're able to Grant a professional leave regardless
019of the time period as long as we have time to prepare for it we would we would grant that as well sorry to interrupt okay so um on page three this is the first one that it's a conflict with with existing policy it's two D um 2D is in conflict with existing policy and the existing po policy um it States per year and then the agreement it States per Deb um so I I think there was an agreement that we would attempt to correct this at the policy level so if we're all in agreement with that I suggest we leave it as is and with the understanding that will attempt to correct it at the policy level as soon as possible is that are we all in agree agreement about that I I think um
020not not just on these but I think most of these that we found were discrep I think we all pretty much agree that we're willing to go look at the policy to make sure because it's more of it's a big hindrance for the staff that to go back and sure yeah yeah um so that's the same for the next one Eric um it's it's slightly different from the policy this is um two two I'm sorry gement leave number four um same thing attempt to address it at the policy level as soon as possible and a gr an agreement um and then C let's see it's saying retirement and severance pay number 4 C uh same thing this is the third potential policy of conflict this one I say addresses as Poli I don't know that
021it's absolutely clear that it's it's in conflict with policy at this point but we should look at it um because it does cover from the same situation um so same everyone's in agreement that we'll look at that at a later date okay um and now we're already all the way over on page six um maternity leave so this there there's a conflict with the FMLA but I I do think this if we change it was suggested that we could just strike a portion of it but I think that's a substantial enough change that we we shouldn't actually do that I think um we should um leave it at is as it is and correct it at a later at a later date um because I think that would require teacher approval if we were to
022straighten it agement okay okay so page seven um so this is the first actual change that I'm proposing we're on leave days F this is about FMLA but the first sentence says sickly may be used for FMLA CLE is not related to FMLA and I think we can strike that sentence without it impacting the document anyway and it will be clearer and that first sentence is not it's not necessary because the rest of the paragraph covers the rules for FMLA so you want to take a second to absor it so what is the policy on sick timeon what is the policy on sick time is sick time listed in there so that they can be paid for some of the FMLA time uh I I don't have the agreement in front of me because FMLA
023has not paid time otherwise if they're not that was put in there years ago that was the original teachers wanted right I think I I think it's just a it's a confused word because it says sick leave and sick leave is actually paid um so it's not related to F MLA which is unpaid so I think we can safely strike that sentence without having an impact I think it'd be better to change the sentence to sick Le maybe used if if we're allowing them to take sick days for family medical reasons change it to sick leaves may be requested may be used with FMLA during FMLA well they're but they're they're side by side they're really not related you can use six Lea or you can use FMLA mam president the 10 years ago when
024this was done was to do what Mr Hopkins just suggested Mr Robertson is correct FMLA if we Grant FMLA we're not required to give any leave time but my understanding and I can revisit it is that it doesn't prohibit a teacher from using because rarely do they have six six weeks of uh cly recruit they if they want to be paid part of that they can if it's going to cost District way trying to help staff from typically if they have FMLA need there's also going to be some Financial impact on help I'll verify that when we turning before we strike to my understanding flma is it it kicks in after you've exhausted all your six time all your vacation everything else then the the employee can apply for flma and then they get additional
025three months of that but I've never heard of it being concurrent right way I'm reading it is it's written as it is so that people can take leave for any of the people the family members listed under FMLA if they have to take care of them oh so you think there's there's missing words there simply may be used for they they could use sick leave and then they could use FMLA in addition to their sick leave because if they exhaust their sickly they would still have all their FMLA time yeah because they would have used their sickly as paid time so they would still have their full FMLA days at that point but they could use the sick leave if it's not them that is sick if it's any of these family members listed in
026FMLA who is the one who said right it would be a choice at that point in time technically is what it would be so is that your understanding that that sentence family members that's been on the books for years and that's been that was that was the type of thing I can't remember what people said in 2010 or 2008 but that was the type of intent what Mr President Mr Hopkins talk to the point we Chang our doc I I I think that sentence is really unclear but it doesn't seem like we have consensus either of what the best way to handle it is um should we just leave it leave it as just leave it as is and then the St address that in future looking at it again as I'm reading it SLE
027may be used per FMLA is to me is saying sickle may be used under the same rules that apply to FMLA not that they are the same thing but but that's basically saying you're referring back to that list of family members who you can take days if that you to take care of them so that's to me I'm reading as per reading as per the list qualify you to take that time out except for so that even further complicates thing because because Arizona law family member is defin in a different way than F MLA so that's then that's even more confusing which one defines it more broadly uh Arizona W oh wow so do you all agree that maybe we should just leave leave that for now it's is that been used very often rarely
028us the last 18 years maybe three or four times and there's not been a question about that so people appear to us ofla andly appear to understand except for none of us are in agreement as to what it means even up here so but the users of the policy the users of the of the agreement tend to agree that not complain okay okay so moving on I think we we agree to uh leave that as is not to straighten it um the next next one is just below that G I think this will be really straightforward may be used to care for and that says a spouse a child or parent I would like uh to suggest that we strike a spouse a child or parent because that not only is in opposition to sickly
029for that is actually that exact situation is to find over here on this huge green chunk so I I propose that we strike a spouse a child parent and just um in its place right family member as defined in ARS 23 371 which is the green section that's fine yeah that's not a big enough change that would need to go back I don't think we need to I actually think it makes it more friendly for the employee if we do that that way is everyone in agreement with that okay uh let's see okay so we're getting there so under page eight p no personal lead to Grant be granted on the day before day after holiday break um this is still confusing to me I have looked it up and down and I it's to
030me it's not clear but I don't think this is a time to make a change to that because it would necessitate sending it back to the teachers for theable so I'm say we we uh make no change to that as of now agreed yeah M I have a question yes so we're being asked to approve or not approve this policy right this this agreement if there that many issues with it we're not the ones we're either approving it or not approving it we're not we're not making that policy I mean that was a a a deal between the teachers and the administration right yes so if it's not something we can approve we should send it back and and you it's not is it our job to to change all this I I think at
031this point it is just these swall things that we're doing to tr because this has been such a long process it's been it's been back and forth between the teachers and us and the administration um and I think it's much much better than it was a year ago uh and then these last things that are left um they'll get fixed with time um either at the policy level or in the spring when it's when it's looked at again are we making a lot of changes that the teachers would before us I don't think we changing anything I think we're voting on the document that was put before us by the staff that's my thought real quick so we could just we vote on this yes or no tonight yes yeah that's what we could yeah
032and a lot of the recommendation you're making fantastic I think maybe we could say okay these are the items you need to look at next time that you need to adjust before you submit it to us so can I just go go ahead so we're done we went through the whole document at this point we've agreed to look at the three uh sections that are in disagreement with policy to look at the at that at the policy level that doesn't change anything here the only thing that's that's changed is that one line that replaces a spouse a child and a parent with family member which we can do without sending it back to the to the teachers because it's actually a state law it's our job to fix that so then so we vote tonight
033we we need to say that we vote yay or nay on this with the with that with the discussed change so I'm getting there I'm getting there so with that understanding I'd like to make a motion to approve the document with the agreed change one little change um and that's it do we have a second I'll second uh Mrs Duncan hi Mr Hopkins hi Mr C i Mrs Robin Robertson I apologize hi Mr g i all right and the third is second reading of board policy FF name of facilities and this is the naming of facilities the D the district will consider names derived from significant geographical locations historical events or events of community in significance as well as worthy deceased individual who have been who have made unique contributions to the district and have
034been deceased for at least 10 years and what we wanted to do in this policy the word facility refers to any school building Administration uh gymnasium stadium and athletic field P playground and so what we would be voting on is to eliminate has been deceased for at least 10 years so Madam president I uh I have some comments on that I did this kind of an policy review of other school districts most have this policy the way we currently have it with the 10 years um requirement but actually a lot of them have changed this is just for everyone's information a lot of them have changed it um some to remove that requirement altogether um and many actually to reduce that to two or three or five years um I said the other night that
035I I see the value in waiting I think it it should say stand the test of time and um I I I already said this but I think it it to a certain extent devalues the Honor by rushing into it so would anyone up here consider changing it to rather than 10 years two years three years or five years no I think we just leave it as how we have it for the on the agenda tonight go that you guys no okay so and regardless of the outcome of the vote I think that this kind of thing requires public participation action requires public participation because the these are public structures and even though ultimately the board approves it um I hope that when it comes to actual uh nomination of of uh people to be
036honored with facilities but it's a process that is explained to the board follow whatever the policy says there's no there's no process in place know for it would be agendized at the if this passes this evening it'll be agendized at a subsequent board meeting names proposed so there will be a proposed process be board agenda with the proposed names up okay so so the community will not get a stay in this they'll be they can come to the meeting like anybody else make comments okay they had to say in November okay a lot of schools have like a public comment period ortion or they have a committee gone through this process have that has not been suggested any B until this point well I know that's what that's what we're talking about okay all right
037then let's just leave it the way that it reads um and we will eliminate from the naming of facilities um the 10 years there it is having been deceased for at least 10 years do I hear a motion I'll motion Mr Duncan I Mr Hopkins hi Mr kman is I Mrs Robertson hi Mr Guthrie I there is nothing else all right I know what you're going to say yes go ahead okay I have two requests for future agenda items we can't do that tonight I can't make a request it's not it's not a discussion we can't make the request because we haven't voted that it's going to be on our agenda and that's what I checked on I I believe I can make a request on any night because it's not it's not a discussion
038it's only a statement let's what difference does it make for a one meeting and then we'll be in the M dunan Mr and no we can't do three because that' be violation me email Mrs Duncan okay so so I I may not make an agenda request tonight no I'd feel much better if you did not can we can we get that put on the next agenda and then you can immediately after it's passed name what you need to have great yeah okay all right if there's no more further business I ad this meeting at 6:09 and you can either you want to take everything out