001good afternoon and welcome we are um calling the asdb board meeting to order at we'll just say 4 pm and can you do roll call Britney I can um Su can I present uh I Am Britney banan I am present Michael Gordon I'm here Linda B present Katie Cino present Lynn Davidson present Earl Terry uh Colette Chapman present that's it okay um moving on information item item 1.2 um just an introduction we do have a new board member who is not able to make it tonight so we will hold off on her introduction till the next board meeting moving on to 1.3 the campus student assessments presentation by Rosie De La Cruz hello I Rosie DEA Cruz I am the deputy assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction my team and I will be talking about
002student data assessments hi there good afternoon I'm Paul Saunders principal of asdb Tucson campus we'd like to go over a bit about our benchmark assessments that we perform twice a year to show student growth over time this shows the performance of the students's academic progress throughout the year through State assessments after receiving results we review the different areas of growth that guides Us in improving our instruction we have three formative assessments we use here at asdb Maps testing which is used at both asdb and pdsd specifically for the ASD population we have Galileo testing used for ASB our blind visually impaired population and we also have the bilingual grammar curriculum to assess ASL language acquisition hello good afternoon everyone my name is Michael Olivier I am the organizational Department director and our department is responsible
003for collecting data of these assessments from each of the campuses I'd like to acknowledge some highlights you have the slides with additional information I won't go over each data point but I'd like to highlight some areas of improvement and growth throughout the years a comparative gain of the last two years school year 2022 to 2023 to now 2425 we will be discussing what areas of growth have been made the four content areas to discuss are science what's interesting about this data point is that it's collected via the map test scores we like to compare our scores to other other schools for the deaf Maps testing is used nationally with both hearing and de students but as you know we are a specific population so we were able to compare ourselves to the Utah school for
004the duff as they hold public information for us to compare our data points so we can see if we are on par with other schools from excuse me this is Colette and I can't hear this is Lynn I can't hear either oh okay okay I was wondering okay thank you and this is Michelle Kinsman on the line um from the AG's office and I can't hear either and I just sent a message to Deborah Sterling who I believe is there so hopefully she saw the message and I S one to ltia oh good oh good thank you testing board members on the phone can you hear us now testing hello testing can you hear us now this is 2K are you guys still on the line yes I I can hear you okay so you
005can hear me but you're still not hearing The Interpreter hello can you hear The Interpreter no no okay we're working on it okay thank you you testing can you hear me now can you hear The Interpreter yeah okay this is Micha Olivier are we ready to come back from our commercial break just to quickly go over our areas of highlight in science our sixth seventh and eighth grade points receive gains there were areas in growth for language but there were specific grades that were outliers the scores made minimal improvement from of about two to seven points between the 3rd to 11th grade in the area of map interestingly there was a large area of growth which indicates that we are doing well in that subject area we indicate it indicates that in high school there
006was a little bit of a drop so we are taking a closer look as to the reason why there was a change in testc this is Paul I'd like to review the ASB Galileo assessment assess Ela for 3rd to 8th grade first testing showed 91% standing scores but by the second Benchmark there was growth of 31% those grades tested were 9 to 12 with the 4% increase by the end of the last Benchmark math third grade to 8th grade Benchmark and the initial Benchmark testing started at 3.5% but by the second Benchmark there was a 4.6% growth 48.6% grow excuse me we have 70% of our students passing the Benchmark in Galileo again that test is designed as accessible for Blind and Visually Impaired students they do not take the maps test hello my name
007is Joe voy and I am the principal at the Phoenix campus and tonight I'd like to discuss two assessment points aasa the Arizona academic standards assessment and the MSA assessment which is the multi-state alternative assessment so let's start with the aasa we had 117 students take that assessment from grades 3 to 8 we noticed that in the elementary level third grade through fifth grade there was a lot of minimally proficient scores or below minimally proficient scores that indicated that foundational skills were still lacking but by grade six we saw Improvement and we saw students who were performing at per efficient Levels by grades seven and E we saw similar patterns we had a lot of students still at level one which is again minimally proficient and some of the individual students were starting to show
008or demonstrate growth so we know that we can do it now with the msaa assessment we had a total of 32 students that took this assessment in the areas of el we had 10 students that reached level two which means moderately proficient two students achieved level three which means that they understood the material 18 students were scored at below minim minimum proficient which place them at level one for math we had five students that obtained level two which is basically proficient basic proficiency seven students reach level three which means that they could great they can understand grade level material so that's really exciting in that grouping we had four level two two students who obtain level four which is above grade level proficiency so we're really excited about that math score in the area of
009science we had students at the fifth eighth and high school levels most of them scored at level one one of the students performed at level two which was approaching now the biggest takeaways are what are we doing with this information if it's okay with the team I'd like to briefly explain that I've now established a school Improvement team to do specific data digs is what this data is informing us and in January we will start a tutoring program to Target specific students in grades three through high school we also will be doing more walkthroughs as administrators to see teachers actively teaching to the standards to expose the students to those standards and many other things we are doing as a result of these assessments but I won't go through all them now this is Michael
010Olivier again one last piece our bilingual grammar curriculum this was implemented I would say uh it's been in the works for a few years now so it's a fairly new bilingual approach to De education so many of our de students come to us as a with ASL as our primary language so we work with ASL as a primary mode of learning and scaff that with English bying grammar curriculum specifically in that curriculum we were able to assess vocabulary and these are not terms that are used in conversation these are specific site words in the bilingual gra curriculum making sure they have a foundation of these common words and the average for kindergarten to fifth grade students vocabulary retention was at 60.4 terms from the design vocabulary list from grade 6 to 12 the vocabulary Li
011retention increased from second grade where language acquisition flourished students would come to us at kindergarten with no language of vocabulary and second grade after being involved in the B grammar curriculum and that Foundation is where we notice growth so second grade was the window of opportunity because of this assessment we realized that we need to improve our training and our professional development for our teachers and our assessments making sure that we have enough trainers and assessors with the number of turnovers that has impacted the training of our staff so we have to retrain new staff or retrain our staff or train new staff but again the numbers IND indicate that there has been growth this is Rosie obviously as we know there are many pros and cons to State assessments the number of students the
012cohorts vary throughout the year so results AR not always consistent sometimes one year you have a large work sample where you have many students and then in the following year the numbers reduce depending on the enrollment every assessment is a snapshot of the students's ability it is not an accumulation of their progress our sample sizes are small because of our specific disabilities so for maps testing we use RIT scores based off on the national average for hearing students and all grade levels so for math RIT scores compared to science R scores may look incredibly different based off of the student population so it's it's hard to compare apples to apples based off of these assessments of course we serve a unique population of students with the variety of language needs and backgrounds and abilities which
013means there's not one size fits all with these assessments currently our state assessments and our benchmark assessments are are not designed for our deaf heart of hearing Blind and Visually Impaired students so it's hard to really determine a full scope and picture of the students potential some State assessments are phonic based which means that is not accessible for DEA and heart of hearing students under the guidance of AD our OD director and our assessment coordinator we are working to realize the full potential of our students by explaining the differences that our students have when taking these data assessments so we are actively working together to improve outcomes to make it more Equitable for our students I like now to turn it over to or if you have any further you'd like to discuss in terms
014of the letter grade thank you I I do not I thought you all did a very thorough job but I'm here to help if there's any questions on the board are there any questions thank you we appreciate your this is Linda uh this is uh I do have a question about Ela um English language arts um it is rather important as a foundation if we have language then you can learn other subjects so how are we planning to thank you for first of all for the report and the presentation thank you so much um but in looking at this to get a clear picture for us for me specifically um I would like to know um what is going to be done I'm sure you guys have a vision or a plan for how we're
015planning to raise those Ela scores um math is doing great science seems to be doing good but we seem to have the most struggle in the area Ela which is pretty foundational so um back to you to clarify that this is Rosie as Jill mentioned we are offering tutoring for both campuses and we're also looking at creating an uh advisory period throughout the students Day so a a time in their schedule where they can catch up on homework Target skills work with transition programs as we know our students are are now prepared for the real world and postsecondary education requires a strong Ela base so we are making sure we are targeting specific skills to our students and offering the appropriate courses we're looking at considering extending the time block for students and their schedule
016so that they can have more direct instruction we also have instruction coaches in place they are working with all staff to work on what we call the impact cycle so they come in do walkthroughs they work with teachers on creating lesson plans talk about teaching strategies and how to improve the reading and writing scores for our students thank you any further questions this is Katie um I wanted to say that you did a wonderful job uh with this presentation I'm glad to hear that you've identified some areas where the students show their strengths and we can use that to tailor um their programming to use their strengths to help them with their life prepare for life after after graduation it's critical to set setting them up for Success I'm excited to see how they achieve
017what their outcomes are with tutoring I think that is a fantastic idea and hats off to you your team thank you thank you any other questions thank you very much for your presentation thank you over yeah check check on the phone can you hear this microphone on the phone can you hear this microphone okay check check on the phon can you hear this microphone hello everyone on the phone anyone yeah I you can hear okay thank you all right moving on um to 1.4 information item brief overview of the Early Learning Program Kendra Benedict early learning program director hello those on the phone can you hear me yes okay all right very good good afternoon asdv board of directors board president canel superintendent rman assistant superintendent ketov and um Cooper on the phone and the
018Greater asdb Community we just spoke about um how our kids are doing in kindergarten through 12th grade we talked about the importance of them being ready to go out into the world when they're 18 years old I'm going to back us up 18 years and we're going to talk birth to five for a second that's where it all starts right and we all often talk about the importance of early childhood I don't think there's anyone in this room that would say those are those 5 years are pretty much the most important periods of time in our life okay I want to just talk for a minute about why that is I just want to refresh our memories as to why those first first five years are so important because I think sometimes it's just something
019we say and we forget why the brain is most flexible or plastic to learning during the earliest years of life while its capacity for change decreases with age as the maturing brain becomes more specialized to assume more complex functions it is less capable of reorganizing and adapting to new or unexpected challenges although the windows for language learning and other skills remain open these brain circuits become increasingly difficult to alter over time early plasticity means it's easier and more effective to influence a baby's developing brain architecture than to rewire parts of its circuitry in the adult years in the first few years of life more than 1 million new neural connections are formed every second this is where asb's Early Learning Program comes in our mission to empower and support the growth of families and Learners
020through coaching and specialized constructional methods what do we value child family and Community connections advocacy Equity perseverance support and Grace we provide an array of services to approximately 700 children birth to age five who are deaf heart of hearing blind low vision and death blind we provide virtual inhome and Community Based Services to families of infants and toddlers across the entire State we offer six campus-based preschool locations to eligible children Age 3 to5 in the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas and in addition we provide itinerate preschool services to region one in northern Arizona as well as in Yuma in January I'll be back um along with assistant director Michelle Ahern to present in a bit more detail on the following in enrollment Trends Over The Last 5 Years Service delivery models how things have changed
021child outcomes our professional development activities and most importantly our current initiatives which includes a comprehensive review of our blind low vision birth to five Services across the state specifically looking at eligibility access to Services Equity of services and the intensity and Fidelity of Service delivery certainly if there are other topics you'd be interested in exploring do not hesitate to reach out that's all I have for you unless you have any questions thank you Kendra I do have a sort of a question I think one of the things I'm interested in is how what you guys are doing in early learning connects with what they're doing from the assessment side so how do we bridge that transition period perod that I definitely do that very look forun it awesome thank you any other questions for Kendra
022yeah a quick one mentioned a quote or a figure early in your presentation about a number of was it neurotransmitters that were developing per second neuroc connections neuroc connections and at what age is that or can you just repeat that because that was pretty most definitely in the first few years of life so birth to three more than 1 million new neural connections are formed every second that is why we have to capitalize and invest in this period it's as simple as that any other questions go ahead Linda thank you for your presentation I would love to dive more into that the birth to five age range and how mentoring Works how you work with families how the success rates are and with deaf children de blind children however all of that works that information
023I want to see um like numerically broken down maybe we should have some sort of separate work work study for that so that we are able really dive into that information in more depth the different categories for example um the itinerant services that are provided R to three what that looks like compared with the Campus based programming that exists first to five um total programming just to be more aware of um and have a better sense of how communication is being developed for those children because you talked about those incredible rates of bra during that time but what about the families not being able to keep keep up with that how are we supporting how the all those little questions that I have I don't want to take a a ton of time right now
024but could is a work study something that we could do to dive more into that depth with that information and learn more I will definitely make a note of that we have a couple of them already in the works and I know that they are going to do a more in-depth presentation at January's board meeting as well and I will definitely go through those numbers for you thank you again okay we did not receive any um public comments on agendized items for 1.5 so we're going to move on to 1.6 information item superintendent report superintendent rman thank you good afternoon president kif acting assistant superintendent catch off assistant superintendent Cooper members of the board and asdb Community welcome to the November 14th board meeting I'm just going to give a brief report this evening because
025you've already listened to two presentations this afternoon one of them on our campus student assessment results and our work to continue to improve their English language scores as well as their math skills and so on and then you also just heard about our Early Learning Program so thank you um everyone for coming to present to the board this evening and I look forward to the January board meeting to learn even more about our Early Learning Program I want to say that this is our final board meeting for the year of 2024 this year has absolutely flown by we are already talking about 202 25 our next board meeting we will get together in January of 2025 from now until the end of this year it is our time for a variety of holidays and so
026forth we get together with family and friends it's a busy time of year it is also my time in the year where I like to take a pause and reflect on the year that H we have just finished and I also like to think about the year ahead of us 2025 we have a lot happening in 2025 the last three board meetings I have discussed with you all about the importance of organizational stability we have talked about the organizational culture and that stability must be um grounded in our core values with clear shared goals and strong leadership we have to develop plans for the future and those plans have to be flexible and adaptable so that they can change as our environment changes we have been talking about this for quite some time for at
027least the last three board meetings that stable organization promotes growth in our culture and promotes planning for the future you just heard from our leaders who are heavily focused on the growth of our students when we look forward to 2025 I have two requests from you our board my first request is that you take the time time to set two work study sessions one in February where you will learn more about asb's fiscal resources our money as it were because any plans that we decide to move forward with are dependent on our fiscal resources the second work study session will be scheduled for April and that session will focus on our strategic plan 2.0 so that will be from 2025 to 2030 for the next 5 years we will have a draft of the Strategic
028plan ready to go and we will be sharing that with you the board we want you to take a look at that have some conversations dig into it and provide some feedback the goal is that at the May board meeting you will have the Strategic plan 2.0 ready for your approval and then we will move forward July 1st 2025 we will implement the new strategic plan in that strategic plan we'll identify our priorities and how we will organize and prioritize our resour ources that is my first request my second request is that you look around at our leadership team who we have leading our programs here at asdb we will be bringing contracts to you our board in January and again in March perhaps some additional contracts in May and we will be asking for
029your approval to renew these contracts I am asking that you seriously consider their knowledge their expertise their experience their hard work for asdb and their leadership of our organization that they have provided for quite some time and I will ask that you all of their contracts because again that is critical to maintain stability within our organization to be able to address our future challenges that will continue to come we know that our environment is ever changing our recent election shows that our environment will continue to change again we have a strong leadership team to guide us through those changes so those are my asks from you the asdb board and the last thing I will say is that I am very appreciative of your time and your commitment and your energy and your caring in
030your support of ASB because of your support we are able to strive for that best education and the best support for our students thank you and I am ready to answer any questions you may have any questions any questions from anyone on the phone thank you superintendent rikman moving on to 1.7 information item assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction report interim assistant superintendent Orin kof all right good afternoon board president kifl superintendent rikman assistant superintendent Cooper and members of the board and members of the Community as Anette mentioned here we are already in November and back when I was a teacher and a principal I always thought this was one of the funnest times of the year to be in education by now classes are usually kind of within their flow and there are a
031lot of holidays coming up which do lead to Shorter weeks they also lead though to opportunities to build in celebrations among students and staff this is also the time of the year where we start to cram in everything we said we'd have accomplished within that first half of the school year for me one of the items I really wanted to do the first half of this school year was to go on ride alongs with our itinerant staff through the rural parts of the state so far I have been able to go on a few rideal alongs throughout Flagstaff Prescot and presc Valley and I've been able to obser of our tvi and onm specialists at work I want to publicly thank Laura aloko Carissa Reed and Kathy Williams for letting me tag along with them
032I am thoroughly impressed and proud of how they spent their time working with students in some cases parents janed teachers and sped directors during these visits all of them represented asdb as well as our profession with absolute dignity I have some additional trips through sholo and White River planned for December and I'm looking forward to going on those and learning more from our itinerate teachers who travel across the rural parts of our state every single day in staying with the theme of how our teachers represent asdb and the profession with absolute dignity I do want to take some time to recognize Karina Lee for being recognized as one of the finalists for the rathon leaders and education uh award a couple weeks back the Tucson values teacher standup for teachers 2024 Galla was held on
033November 7th in Tucson and at that event Karina Lee a teacher here on the Tucson campus was one of only three teachers in Pima County to be a finalist for the rathon leaders and education award Elementary division although she did not win the award we are very proud to have her on our team as Karina holds many certifications including the national board certification which we all know is one of the most rigorous professional teacher certifications available here in the United States this is not the first time that Tucson values teacher as honored asdb teachers back in January they presented the January teacher excellent award to Maggie durken who's a teacher at the asdb Tucson preschool and I do want to thank all of them for their continued hard work as we head into the new
034year as superintendent reikan mentioned there are going to be a lot of decisions that asdb leadership and the board are going to have to make as we make these decisions I think it's important that we remember the work of Maggie Karina Laura Carissa and Kathy and all the other teachers and related service providers here at asdb and remember what they do and the students who they influence Although our student numbers might be getting smaller the impact on the students we serve is not we have a lot of great things happening across the state and we do employ phenomenal staff who could easily work somewhere else but they do want to be part of this team so no matter if it's in a general education classroom a home visit from a birth to a three teacher
035or here in our asdb classrooms our teachers are giving it their all and I am proud in my final year in this position to continue to assist the principles and directors uh through the rest of the school year as they support their staff who go forth and then support our students you all have my board report if you have any questions please let me know any questions anyone on the phone with a question okay hearing none moving on to 1.8 information item assistant superintendent of agency operation and Support Services report assistant superintendent Shaina Cooper good afternoon board president superintendent rikan interm assistant super members of the board community and staff members each of the directors have provided report and in summary the IT department continues to work on numerous enhancing our technical infrastructure and support
036sta with VAR of set up equipment and electronic the October 1 was recently submitted to Department of Education and identified four students in our site based campuses last year the amount reported was 428 the transportation team continued to monitor the utilization and overall health of the agency Fleet and transportation of our students the Food Services team is working with campuses to implement a barcode scanning process to improve the cafeteria line at the point of sale for business services the budget and financial report for September 2024 and 2023 will be provided separately under agenda item 4.1 the team continues to work hard process Fender payments travel PS and payroll for staff and we have not yet received an update from the state officer of strategic planning and budgeting on the agency's fiscal year 2020 budget package
037as you all know we submitted various funding issues in September related to the contract to transportation and Ono one nursing service cost that we continue to increase as our operating expenses increase and the revenues decrease due to the declining enrollment and the end of funding that the federal government provided due to the effects of the co pandemic we are working hard on keeping additional funding resources the human resources team is continuing to actively address the ongoing recruitment and retention challenges and we will be bringing to the board in January for approval salary increase recommendations or any salary schedule adjustment for 2026 within consent agenda item 6.1 we have the approval of several salary schedule updates for this current year and the first is related to the classified specialist recruitment salary schedule where a recent Market
038survey was conducted for special educational instructional assistance and we have recommended an increase for the special recruitment rate if approved this will change become effective November 23rd secondly to address the minimum wage increase for the City of Tucson assist per hour effective January 4th we are requesting to approve the cified director Recruitment and coach salary schedules for all agency staff that are making less than $15 per hour and as a reminder as an agency under the state we are not required to follow the minimum wage increase for Arizona or its cities however we try to remain competitive and work to increase our minimum wages overall the agency operations and support services team is working on their priority goals from the Strategic plan advocating for levels of from the state and looking at identifying funding for
039the master facility plan as we all know there is a growing need to upgrade and maintain our facilities additionally several of our agency ke stakeholders continue to review data metric of the agency's resources as we focus on finding ways to cut and balance the agency's budget for this year and the years that immediately follow ultimately when presented with any recommendations the board will have to decide if there will be any changes made to put ASB on the pass to a financially sustainable future however we remain to move forward with what is best for kids last but not least as we approach Thanksgiving it's the perfect moment to focus on the importance of gratitude with that said I want to take this time to thank everyone for their well wishes as I continue to recover from
040my pit surgy I am appreciative and reminded of how fortunate I am for have such a dated team of staff and colleagues who truly support me and I hope to be back invisibly seen back in January that wraps up my report and there are no other updates to provide at this time and I'm open to questions or respond to any comments you make thank you thank you Shaina any comments or questions for Shaina okay thank you again Shaina hearing um none moving on to 2.1 um action item approval of the consent agenda consistent with board policy to include items 3.2 3.3 5.1 6.1 6.2 7.2 7.3 and 7.4 I will entertain a motion so moved I have a motion do I have a second I second thank you commissioner Seno all those in favor for
041approving the consent agenda items as read say I I I I any opposed or extensions hearing none the consented agenda items are passed moving on to 3.1 action item approval of new District agreements interim assistant superintendent catch off board president kifl superintendent rikeman and members of the board we do have one um renewal with the page unified if you have any questions please let me know well there a new one I'm sorry I got ahe on the agenda well sorry we have three uh new District agreements that we would like approved if you have any questions please let me know any questions on the three new um District agreements if none I will take a motion okay I move that uh that there's a motion for new agreements with Liberty Cannon and what's the third
042page is that right Arizona school for Arts okay School for the Arts I have a motion do I have a second I'll second all those in favor say I i i i i i i opposed or abstentions hearing and seeing none that motion carries thank you moving on to 4.1 information item Finance report Kim bitr Director of Business Services good afternoon board president president Kel superintendent rikman assistant superintendent Cooper and assistant superintendent CH cof members of the board and asdb Community you have been provided with our most recent board report that covers the financial data for September 2023 and 2024 this data was covered in more detail at our most recent finance committee meeting held on Thursday November 7th with board president kifle and board member Gordon also in attendance were superintendent rikman and assistant
043superintendent Cooper the total student count provided in the board report for October 1st 2024 shows 1951 compared to 2178 on July 1st of 2023 a total decrease of 227 students when we compare the student count as of October 1st 2024 there were 1922 which shows an increase of 29 students campus students have increased by three prechool students have increased by 17 birth to three have increased by 16 while the regions have decreased by seven as of October 1st we had about 522 full-time equivalent positions which included 8.5 full-time equivalent at foundation for blind children at that time we employed 733 staff the number of Staff have increased by 14 since the June report there are currently 156 vacancies across the agency that we are actively recruiting for the highlights of the September 2024 financial report
044shows the total revenue of 6.7 million was 247,000 lower than September of 2023 the revenues of 7 milon the major difference is the decrease in the general fund spend year to dat especially with the budget cuts we received classroom site fund transfer and the per pupil amount has increased from 758 in 2024 to 792 in 2025 the budget fiscal year obligated expenses of 14.7 million were 900,000 less than budget fiscal year 2025 obligated expenses of 15.6 million the increases are in payroll and employee related expenditures of 700,000 with the increase in filled positions and an increase in professional and outside Services of 300,000 with the delay of starting the birth to three programs last year with desert voices and Zimmerman offset by a decrease in operating risk management charges of 418,000 that had not been
045transferred at this time our ending cash fund balance is lower than this time last year by 775,000 this is consistent with the decreased spend from the general fund this concludes my report and I'm available for any questions thank you Ken any questions thank you again moving on to 6.3 um information discussion and possible action item education organizations at asdb uh I'll make a motion to move into executive session I have a motion to move into executive session do I have a second I'll second that I have a second from Commissioner Gordon and um commissioner Chapman um all those in favor say I I opposed get to reach um okay so pursuant to ARS 38- 43103 A1 the board may go into executive session which may not be open to the public for the purposes of
046discussion and consideration of oh reading the wrong one I'm sorry wait yes wrong one one above one above which will not be open to the public for discussion consultation for legal advice with the board's attorneys as it relates to this item way ahead of myself okay so we will move into executive session at 4:58 p.m. Rec for the you have my board my do and then it's e e e live on here um we have adjourned executive session but we are going to take a 10-minute break we will resume the meeting at 5:40 e e e you can hear it okay yay um okay we're going to resume the meeting um per the discussion in executive session I would like to make a motion to direct Annette and um Maria to present information uh um
047with examples working with Michelle and Deb R AG's um to present examples of things that can and can't be done with a meeting confer for asdb as a state agency um and have that presentation preferably in January if possible so we can then move forward with the discussion on whether or not to move uh to create an age policy I've made a motion do I have a second I'll second all those in favor say I I opposed hearing none motion carries okay I need to go back to my okay um item 6.4 discussion and action item approval of superintendent rikan's performance evaluation do we have any questions comments ly I think we're on a break no we came back at 5:40 um if you look at the video they're back okay all right I'm moving
048on to 6.4 again discussion and action item approval of superintendent rikan's performance evaluation any comments questions otherwise I will entertain a motion to approve uh I'll make a motion to approve uh superintendent rikan's performance evaluation I have a motion and a second all those in favor say I I I I I opposed hearing none motion carries 7.1 information and discussion item introduction and possible discussion of policies b a a i G A IMG and JF Maria Murphy director of policy and government relations good evening board president kifil members of the board superintendent rikman assistant superintendent staff and ASB Community for the record my name is Maria Murphy I'm the director of policy and government relations you have the um policies redlined before you I have not received any public comments or any questions about them
049these are for a first read so they will um hopefully go to consent agenda in January but at this time I'd like to make myself available for any questions if there are any any questions for Maria yes this is Lynn go ahead Lynn I have a question about JF yes ma'am okay um I would just suggest that we might consider uh where we're requiring uh me prior to placement that we also make sure that there's a current evaluation because when we have an me often times they just review old evaluations and you don't always have current information I'm getting a terrible Echo that's why I'm I can certainly take that under advisement and go back to my subject matter experts to see about adding uh that in and again as I previously mentioned it is
050a first read so we still have the ability to make revisions if need be yeah Maria this is Lynn again I'd be happy to talk to you too just from being in the field and sitting in on a number of the situations thank you ma'am I'm very happy to take you up on that absolutely great just just some suggestions from some of the situations we thank you any other questions for or suggestions for Maria thank you Maria thank you moving on to I just want to make sure 7.5 discussion and possible action items schedule possible work study sessions for febru February and April of um do you want us to take out our calendars right now or do you want would you would it be possible for um Leticia to pull us for available Thursdays
051I I don't know if I have the acdhh board calendar Katie do you have the ACD Board calendar I would lean towards this we're actually looking at um February and April so I would assume typically we do them on the same or Thursdays Le and Wendy's mics are not hot I think U mine is on now I believe mine is on now so I'm looking at the H cdhh website and on the calendar I don't see anything added to the calendar yet so would the is this and is asking about this Katie saying yeah I don't see anything there yet so could we tentatively schedule for the second Thursday in February and the second Thursday in in April for work study sessions this is superintendent rikman yes I think the second Thursday should be okay
052okay um so I'm going to go ahead and motion that we schedule work study sessions for the 2 Thursday and the second or the 2 Thursday in February and April 2025 do I have a second on that motion thank you commissioner Sano second I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I I I oppose thank you hearing none motion carries all righty moving on to 7.6 discussion and action item election of 2025 board officers pursuant to policy this shall be held at the last meeting of the calendar year any discussion any nominations I would like to Nom nominate Su to remain his president and Linda saying I second that that nomination um I would like to unless anyone else is interested I would like to nominate Britney to continue in the
053um secretary okay seconded we have a motion in a second for um the chair and the secretary position um for Su and Britany all those in favor say I I I and I I opposed hearing none motion carries 88.1 call to the public call to the public on non-agenda items uh we did get a submission of a public comment on a non-agenda item from Carmen roess is she are you here Carmen would you like to come down and comment or I can read it for you okay happy to have you hello hello there my name is Carmen Roes would you just move the mic a little closer thank you yes my name is Carmen robas and I'm from Sierra Vista and um I'm just trying to find the the comment thing that I did so
054sorry about that so I guess I'll read first and then I know there's some facts about which you probably already know that three out of a thousand children are DEA or heart of hearing and then imagine how many deaf children are deprived the fact that the brain has no preference for language input as long as it has a strong language Foundation this is language acquisition and this is sign language so on my comments um well my son elas he's a twin he's just turned six and he's death heart of hearing and he has a CER in the right ear and a hearing a in the left so um the thing about is that he can't attend asdb unless he's a residence there because there's a 50 mile radius and that's the transportation policy so I'm
055just and the thing about it is that he can't attend unless he's actually at the dorms and he can't do that he's he's been trauma traumatized and his mom passed away when he was just barely two of breast cancer and and being at the dorms is not a an option so uh I'll just go ahead and read what I had put in my comments and it says my name is Carmen robas I'm here to fight for my grandson elas roess Lavato and I I will not accept to give up fighting for him because asdb has a policy that is causing languish deprivation which means that he's not getting he's not my they're not giving my grandson a chance to grow in language this causes severe social and mental health elas needs language acquisition I am
056here to protect him and asdb needs to change the policy so my grandson can grow and i t an teacher of the death can do so much because he needs full immersion in ASL in a direct instruction of ASL in the classroom the policy states case by case so I'm fighting that he goes to asdb without going to the dorm because my grandson has lost many things in his life he has a twin whom they adore each other and they need each other after their mom died from breast cancer I can cannot take AAS away from his twin brother which would traumatize him more than ever so please change your policy so my grandson can grow thank you thank you thank you kman thank you for coming up and sharing your story okay thank you
057so much thank you and moving on to 8.2 discussion and possible action item agenda items for the next regular board meeting scheduled for January 16th 2025 in Phoenix any ideas for I have a question for uh Su um did we have something about the ELP for the Early Learning Program for the next board meeting or is that separate for the work study to that's my question I'm not sure if that's a separate item for the agenda or the work study so they are planning to present in depth in January and then after that if we need to consider another work study we can do that all right thank you for that clarification okay um if nothing here you can always contact myself or Anette to add to ask for something to be added to the
058agenda can I we we did we're just having a presentation from Maria about the I we we voted on that yes so that will be on the agenda as well um as well as the Early Learning Early Childhood learning okay okay all righty moving on to 9.1 action item adjournment this is Lynn yes I move to adjourn this meeting I know you're all surprised I have a motion to adjourn do I have a second seconded thank you commissioner Seno I have a motion in a second all those in favor say I I I hearing none motion carries we are adjourned at 5:58 p.m. thank you everyone who attended today I appreciate you being here every