001good afternoon um it is 4:00 so we will begin the um board meeting Britney could you do roll call we'll start with Linda B present uh Britney bean I am present Colette Chapman present Lind Davidson present Michael Gordon present Su K knif present Katie Cino present uh new board member Earl Terry thank you um I think we're going to skip over one 1.02 um the introduction of the new board member as he's not here today we will table that until the next board meeting um 1.03 call to the public for agendized items we have one I um agenda item um from Belinda Carol I don't need the microphone good afternoon board superintendent Anette rikman assistant superintendent Shaina and assistant superintendent Orin stakeholders and members of the asdb community a year ago I spoke in front
002of the board on May 11th and our expressions of concern still hold to this day I am here on behalf of P SD as a staff member to speak for those who could not be here or who are not confident to speak or because of fear of retaliation from the agency Administration or their colleagues I would like to talk about agenda item 6.20 that's Employment contract for pdsd principal Jill Foy we are asking you to resend her contract and re-evaluate your offer as employees under Jill voit's supervision we have zero confidence under her leadership for pdsd we understand that this position is very stressful that she took over and there were multiple do tasks that needed to be handled we were told please give her some Grace and we have we stood by her and
003we tried to support her however this year even with a strong leadership team behind her she continues to spiral and struggles to lead this campus multiple emails discussions and conversations have been had conversations were made aware to assistant superintendent Orin our top three concerns are as follows there's a lack of vision and direction of of where pdsd should be going this year at the beginning of the year everything was in limbo due to her disorganization her impulse decision making or Pro procrastinating on tasks that needed to be completed promptly this impacts all of us on multiple levels secondly no clear transparency or communication via email conversations and discussions with things that have been brought up people don't know what's going on and have been left in the Lurch when we have conversations she makes promises
004that can't be kept or that she can't follow through with often we have to prompt her repeatedly for answers to questions or concerns and it often ends up with being patronized we are often deferred to assistant principal Sabra Taylor or assistant principal Flint fears as our go-to persons throughout the year they are also overwhelmed with different tasks that have been delegated to them third extensive micromanagement she has no trust in her Administration support team her leadership teacher leaders and the staff who work at pdsd for many years to do their job to the best of their ability it reflects on her capabilities to work with us and her leadership she has taken on so much responsibility which could easily be delegated if she would trust her staff whether it's a school ride fundraiser shopping for
005PBIS St snacks or sending out parents prare announcements assistant superintendent Orin has met with many of us you are aware of our concern concerns we know you've heard us but yet we don't have an answer on how to manage this turmoil and it impacts us we need to feel confident and feel secure in order for us to do our jobs with your supports so that we can support our students and their education to wrap things up superintendent reichman has promised us more Town Halls more collaboration more discussions about the future of pdsd and asdb and there hasn't been an opportunity to do so this year before today we ask that before you offer her contract take the time to sit down with us and truly hear us thank you you moving on to 1.04 superintendent
006report superintendent rikman good afternoon president kif members of the board interim assistant superintendent catch off assistant superintendent Cooper and ASB Community Welcome to our March 7th board meeting I'm very happy to see you all here tonight early earlier today we had some rain I was happy to see that I hope that you enjoyed it as well today I'm going to start with a quote the quote is from a man named Archimedes a long time ago he was a Greek engineer who discovered the principle of using lovers and he said give me a place to stand and I can move the world think about that if we have a place to stand that place has to be solid it has to be strong and stable with a strong Foundation if we are standing on a firm
007foundation we can interact with the world and we can in fact change it that lead me leads me to the point of strong organizational culture one quality that we often Overlook is stability we have to have stability in order to have a strong organizational culture when we sense stability we are able to predict outcomes we know what could happen we have continuity we know what's coming next we have consistency we have security a sense of security stability and security come together and work in harmony but we cannot have one without the other we have to have both stability and security when we desire an organization that is focused on growth and planning for the future we have to have stability first what happens then if we have an organization that is not stable obviously we
008don't trust the organization we have feelings of anxiety of unrest of ambiguity confusion and we don't know what is going on that anxiety and confusion cause stress stress causes distress that distress leads to burnout and when people are burnt out what happens next we quit our jobs we look for other opportunities we look for organizations um that have lower turnover we have higher turnover we at ASB have a responsibility to try to keep our organization as stable as we can we do have some components within our organization that have a firm foundation for example we have established core values and beliefs we have a clear mission that talks about excellence in Innovation and educational support for our students who are deaf blind and deaf blind and that mission talks about excellence and Innovation with our
009Leadership Excellence ENT innovation in our collaborations with school districts with parents with community members and excellence and Innovation with our partners other state agencies we also have operating principles act accountability collaboration and transparency that is how we behave and interact with each other and you provide us provided us with a strategic plan that gives us a clear direction for the future all of that is included included in a stable Foundation but the other part is strong leadership you just heard public input regarding the importance of leadership listening to what the public commenter just said was very interesting because we are talking about good stable leaders what does that look like good leaders model positive behavior others can look at that behavior and copy that behavior good leaders provide clear expectations employees under those leaders know
010what they're supposed to do good leaders Focus both on stability and growth good leaders focus on planning for the future always thinking about tomorrow and what needs to be done to prepare for the future so we leadership and members of the board have a responsibility to help the agency maintain stability and as I said you have done a lot of that you've provided us with a Clear Vision for the future with a strategic plan and you've selected and given US policies for us to follow you've selected and hired the superintendent to lead the agency you evaluate the superintendent's performance on an annual basis that is your responsibility my responsibility as superintendent is to clearly articulate your vision to the community to make sure that our operations align with the principles that you have approved and
011to work with our two assistant superintendents in the selection and hiring and retention of good leaders here at ASB how do you know that the three of us have selected and hired and are retaining good leaders you read your board reports there is extensive information that details their work the different projects that the leaders and staff are doing the efforts that they're putting into preparing for the future it is all outlined for you in our reports I read our board reports as well and some of the information I learn for the first time through those reports a lot of work is going on across the agency and it would not happen without our leaders I'm not going to go through everything in detail but I do want to give you four examples of projects that
012we are doing to prepare for the future one is we are working on the re accreditation process with cogia which is very important for the agency the second is on both campuses um both Phoenix and Tucson campuses we are implementing PBIS which stands for positive behavior intervention and support both campuses are implementing PBIS and if you read the board report principal Voit talks about PBIS work that is being done here on the Phoenix campus the third example as you heard at the last board meeting is to do with our work with Arizona Department of Education to help us Implement our own educator preparation program because as we all know we are not going to be able to recruit qualified teachers to meet our needs we have to grow our own and fourth is the master
013facili plan you've been hearing about the plan for both campuses and we are preparing for the future and trying to figure out how to get the correct facilities that will meet the needs of our students okay back to you as a board I'm going to give you a fourth responsibility when the three of us look at contracts for our leaders goodbye the three of us do our evaluations of their work that's our job we are responsible for evaluating their work as Leaders at asdb the two assistant superintendents recommend to me who we should offer cont contracts for for the following year my job then is to let you as board members know who we would like to offer contracts to and whose contracts we would like to renew for our leadership team I believe that
014your responsibility is to support our recommendations I want to talk about two projects that we're currently working on little bit of an update we are continuing the search for a assistant superintendent as you know that role is incredibly critical to the success of the agency and to move the agency forward into the future we currently have 21 applicants for the position our collabor collaborations with anev have been successful and are ongoing we plan to close the position posted for assistant superintendent on March 18th that week we will in will schedule meetings with the interview panel we will give them an orientation to their responsibilities as members of that panel um as they interview each applicant the last week of March which is March 25th through the 29th we will schedule in interviews for all of
015the qualified candidates at the end of that process the interview panelists will select three finalists and they will pass those finalists on to me during the mon month of April I will work with Anie to figure out a plan and schedule a second round of interviews for those three finalists at the May 9th board meeting hopefully I will have a candidate to present to you as the board for your approval another thing that's happening is our Master facility plan is moving forward and we are nearing completion we are ready for Community input we have two open houses for the community to attend the first open house will be on Tuesday March 19th from 3: to 6:00 p.m. on the on campus that open house will focus on the proposed plans for tucon campus the second
016open house will be on Phoenix campus and that one is March 22nd also from 3: to 6:00 p.m. that open house will focus on the plans for the Phoenix campus we are hoping to have the community come and take a look at our drawings pictures and ideas and we would like to get their input and then we will finalize the master facilities plan from there hopefully during the summer and then the real work begins looking for funding that wraps up my report president Kel and members of the board I truly appreciate your commitment to ASB to our students and to our work in providing the best education and supports to our students I'm happy to take any questions that you may have any questions okay moving on to information item 1.05 assistant super intendent of
017curriculum instructed instruction report acting assistant superintendent catch off good afternoon board president kifl members of the board superintendent rikan assistant superintendent Cooper and the asdb community I know for most of our Phoenix and employees the only thing standing between them and spring break is this board meeting and work tomorrow so I'm going to keep it pretty brief uh this is the board meeting where contracts are discussed for leaders and teachers and I'm very proud of those uh for who we are offering contracts I want to thank them for their hard work this year and hope they accept their contracts and return to the ASB team next year I also hope that staff who do not require contracts also return as I'm very proud of the work they've been doing I'm proud of our blind programs
018um who were able to provide the first bra challenge in person this year since Co watching how much that event meant to staff families and students was a good reminder as to why asdb does exist I'm proud of the blindness 101 course that they've created for ASB leaders and I'm looking forward to participating in the second session in April I'm also proud of our braist and their hard work ensuring that materials are accessible to our students throughout the state I'm proud of our de programs and the hard work that they've been doing and getting the slpi assessment up and running as well as their hard work going into a second year of offering different types of Def culture trainings for asdb staff I'm proud how that program supports all of our interpreters and how miraculously
019interpreters are always available even while being ridiculously understaffed I'm proud of our de Mentor program and the important information and perspectives they provide to our staff and our families I'm proud of our itinerant programs who continue to support districts across Arizona and I'm very proud of our three itinerant directors who have been collaborating with each other to ensure that we're providing a consistent message and services across the state I'm proud of all of our itinerate teachers who travel across the inner city traffic and our vast rural highways to provide services to deaf heart of hearing blind and low vision students in literally every part of the state I've been continuing to work with the directors and Albert from facilities to try to find the best way that we can identify a sweet spot for itinerant
020teacher case loads while taking in factors like travel so we can have an idea how to identify um whose case loads might be larger I'm proud of our two day schools in Phoenix and Tucson who pretty much this year have been working with all new leaders and I'm proud how they continue to adjust to support families students and teachers while also juggling ad and federal requirements is there room for them to grow as leadership teams of course I'm proud of the teaching staff on the campuses who continue to work with leaders as well as me to come up with Solutions when problems arise I appreciate their honest and often communication with me throughout the year and I hope that that continues uh with the next person who gets to fill the seat I'm proud of
021our sped director and her team in a very short time they've put uh IEP meeting Norms in place and based on the meetings that I've been able to sit in I'm very impressed on how they're being run I'm proud how both Nur nursing staffs on both campuses continue to address issues as they arise and I'm very proud how our related service providers have been working with HR and business services to professionally and productively address their salary schedule I'm proud of our CTE director who continues to dream big and has a vision to make the CTE program at asdb be one of the N the best in the nation I'm proud of the work of the OD they continue to build supports on our campuses and I'm looking forward to next year having instructional coaches not
022just at pdsd but also ASD and ASB the OD is also responsible for making sure that all of our state required testing is completed appropriately and legally and they also track all of our PD a lot happens within that group finally I'm proud of the work of our Alp program and how vast of a program that truly is that Dr Benedict overseas uh this year I have not had much time to spend with our 0o to3 folks but I know that their work's not easy and I'm proud of their continued efforts uh this year I have gotten to know the pdsd preschool pretty well and I'm very proud of that staff how they support our students with their language development in both ASL and English and I'm truly humbled by their dedication and hard work
023to those students so that was a little longer than I anticipated um but this is the last actually there's one more board meeting that I'll be keeping this seat warm and I wanted to make sure to thank everybody for their work through this year um I hope that many do turn next year so we can continue to build on creating something special thank you there's any questions about my report please feel free to ask any questions okay thank you moving on to um agenda item 1.06 ass assistant superintendent of agency operations and Support Services report assistant superintendent Cooper you know they're going to call him back okay we can hold for a second sure e for we have you back Mike I'm here okay now I can turn it over to you good afternoon for
024president kifil superintendent rikan acting assistant superintendent catch off members of the board and the ASB Community the operations and support services team is very busy supporting each of the educational programs with planning the needs for the end of the school year uh we also continue to work on completing various other projects which consist of monitoring the spend of our agency budget finalizing the transition of our new student information system creating an agency overview video and brochure aligning student counts with staffing needs and doing a deeper dive into the ca per student by disability categories and as superintendent reichan mentioned the completion of the development of a master facility plan continues to be underway we continue to be faced with having unbudgeted expenses and financial challenges as pricing increases and shortages of qualified staff continue to
025drive up cost and strain our hiring efforts managing the limited resources is a significant challenge as we strive to provide the best possible educational experience for our students um this requires strategic planning and priority ization to ensure that our financial resources are utilized effectively we try to make every effort to ensure that the budget is allocated to the various aspects of Education such as the instructional materials professional development and student support services having adequate qualified teachers and support staff to maintain an optimal student teacher ratio and provide the necessary services to our students is another crucial aspect of the budget in our Resource Management I think we are all aware that most schools across the country have hardly escaped the Staffing hardships that have become so prevalent shortages that predated the pandemic but deepen as
026exhaustion illness and disillusionment about pay and other issues took a toll on the morale across the K12 Workforce and other Dynamics in the labor market made Recruitment and Retention even more difficult it's more challenging for us because of the specialized services and instruction that are essential to the learning and success of our students specifically I feel as if I continue to repeat myself these last couple of me meetings but needless to say we're still working on filling staff vacancies by looking at various modalities to expend our Recruitment and Retention efforts and as we continue to work on year three of restructuring the compensation and salary schedules included in today's Human Resources consent agenda items our various pay schedule changes and salate increased proposals for fiscal year 2425 and as you all are aware in Prior
027years staff were not informed of any compensation adjustments until July we listened to those suggestions received and our commitment this past year was to ensure that all staff would be informed prior to the summer break our first priority were the teachers and that was because they are the only staff other than the leadership team that have contracts so we made efforts to bring those proposed salary schedules to the board in January since they received their contracts in March I previously indicated in my prior reports that we plan to bring all other proposed salaries schedule changes to the board in March um all of them are included in the consent agenda items today except for one which is the related Services salary schedule as most staff are aware when compensation adjustments are made they are not
028included in the decision making process until they have been finalized in this instance with the related services staff there were a number of questions that were being posed to us after the teaching salary schedule was approved in the January 11th board meeting our intent with the related Services SC salary schedule was to align it with the teaching salary schedule whereby the years of experience would be expanded from 20 to 25 years and a step increase would be given the proposed changes were shared with the related services staff in an information session meeting about two weeks ago um however based on their Collective feedback it was suggested that we re-evaluate the proposed changes and bring forth their scholar scheduled changes in the May 9th board meeting we are working collaboratively with the staff and will be
029taking into consideration the feedback received as well as reviewing salary survey information to determine our placement in the market for Recruitment and Retention of those staff I do want to point out that most if not almost all of related services staff have reached out directly to me thanking the team and I for taking the time to listen to their feedback and how it has been a great deal to them and demonstrates how working together can make a difference in the agency one staff member in particular told me that in the 24 years she's been here she's never been privy to any change in information of her prey prior to going to the board and what our original tent with having the information session was to help address those questions and concerns but also to communicate
030and be transparent with them I also want to briefly address comments I've been made aware about our agency finances and how it relates specifically to how Medicaid reimbursements and the prop 301 classroom site funds are being used as most of you are aware we have various funding sources most of which are appropriated or either non-appropriated when it comes to specifically to the non-appropriated Medicaid reimbursements those revenues are primarily used to offset some of our incurred costs for nursing and related services staff and for a point of clarification when I first started with the agency I shared with the superintendent and the finance committee that the Medicaid reimbursements were not being used appropriately and in fact they they were being overspent annually it took me about 3 years with the team to monitor the activity being
031spent from the Medicaid reimbursements and now we're able to use those funds for their intended purpose as it pertains to the non-appropriated prop 301 classroom site funds they've traditionally in the past per statute been used for needs directly associated with the classroom Prim arily for teachers with providing them the opportunity to earn additional salary each school year and their participation in professional development goals if you recall in 2021 Senate Bill 11:30 was expanded to include student Support Services as an allowable expense um which has allowed our related services and other staff indirectly supporting the classroom to also be eligible to receive those sens annually when it comes to any agency staff member having any questions or concerns about the use of our various funding sources I have stated on a number of occasions they are
032more than welcome to reach out directly to me or our director of business services and they're also welcome to attend our finance committee meetings I think we're all aware that our fiscal position and finances have been more transparent these last few years and in the past in conclusion as a team and I juggle our various responsibilities to assist the educational programs and work through addressing their educational priorities and student outcomes we make every effort to try to work smarter not harder by streamlining our processes optimizing our resource allocation increasing our accountability and improving our collaboration and communication efforts by facil facilitating datadriven decision making and when I took this leadership role back in 2021 my mission and goal was to continue to improve the agency's organizational culture but also to identify effective resource management strategies
033which not only align with the agency's Strategic plan I am honored and grateful by the support each of my leaders and their teams continue to provide not only to me but to the agencies to keep up the great work team um and at this time there are no other updates to provide I'm open to answer any questions or respond to any questions that you may have so I want to be clear we've pulled the related service um increase or originally it was at 1% that is still included in today's um consent agent item to approve the step increase which is a followup of the approval that was provided last year we still want to move forward with honoring a step in increase any changes to what that percentage will be will be proposed in May
034okay I do want to give give my support to related Services I work with occupational therapists physical therapists speech therapists I share offices with them and I know how valuable the work is so they do to provide access to our kids to the curriculum and and they're hard to find yes and they're hard to retain and we want to be able to keep them and provide them with whatever we can so other questions I have a followup sha um you mentioned that you are doing Market comparisons um across you've done that with the teachers and now you're doing it with the other related staff positions just out of curiosity where are we kind of falling with those based on the initial analysis that the HR team has provided we are within the market um not
035only have we been looking at excuse me schools within Arizona but other schools for the deaf and the blind as it relates specifically to the related services staff okay um and is that what you are looking at as far as making the proposal for the percent increase for May yes that is also taking into consideration yes okay thank you um we are at 2.01 which is an action item approval of the consent agenda consistent with board policy to include items 3.01 3.02 6.0 1 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 6.20 6.21 6.22 7.03 and 7.04 go I move that we approve all of those uh consent agenda items I'm not going to repeat them that's fine I have a motion do I have
036a second you do it ly I have a motion do I have a second I'll second all those in favor say I I I I I any oppositions or abstentions the consent agenda items pass moving on to 4.01 information item Finance report Kim bitr director good afternoon board president kifo superintendent rikman assistant superintendent Cooper acting assistant superintendent Tech members of the board and asdb Community you have been provided our most recent board report report that covers the financial data for January 2023 and 2024 also included is the December financial statement for 2022 and 2023 this data was covered in more detail at our most recent finance committee meeting held last Thursday February 29th with board president Kel and board member Gordon also in attendance we were superintendent rikman and assistant superintendent Cooper the total student
037count provided in the board report for February 1 2024 is a summarized total based on the data provided by the directors and the principles the new student information system data is still being validated we hope to have the detail information including eligibility categories on the student count similar to what has been provided in the past for the next board meeting the current data shows 2,98 students as of February 1 2024 this is compared to 2,119 students as of February 1 2023 a total decrease of 21 students Tucson campus has increased by seven students while pdsd has decreased by 22 students Regional Cooperative students have decreased by 10 the preschool has decreased by 28 students while birth to three has increased by 32 students as of February 1st we had 504 full-time equivalents which includes 8.5
038full-time equivalents at the foundation for blind children at that time we employed staff only 154 are full-time 12 months death there are currently 173 vacancies across the agency that we are actively recruiting for the highlights of the January 2024 Financial board report show a total revenue of 28.4 million 2.3 million lower than the January 2023 revenue of 30.7 million the major difference is the decrease in receipts of the institutional voucher the fee for service revenue and the classroom site fund all of these are tied to the student count the fee for service billing is dependent on the data from the student information system this is offset by an increase in the spend in the general fund the budget fiscal year 2023 obligated expenditures of 37.3 million were 1.5 million less than budget f school year
0392024 obligated expenditures of 38.9 million the increase and professional and outside Services includes temporary labor used at the student health center in Tucson and the one toone nurses on the pdsd campus the increase in food is removing the expense to its own classification originally reported under the professional an outside Services the transfers out in budget fiscal year 23 are for the kitchen equipment on both campuses and if there are no questions this concludes my report any questions I do have one followup I think I've asked this before but I'm going to ask again because my memory short um um so on the the change in student count do we know where these students have gone to are we tracking that why we've lost students I don't have an answer for that but I can follow
040up with you after I talk to that's fine that would work even if you have it for the next financial meeting that would be great great I can do that thank you moving on to 7.01 information and discussion item introduction and possible discussion of policies be be d a j LH and ihbd Maria Murphy director of policy and government relations good evening Madame President members of the board super superintendent rikman assistant superintendent staff and members of the asdb community um board president Kel I do have one small adjustment um we are not reviewing ihbd today we are actually reviewing policy LH I believe that that's just a misprint in the in the agenda okay thank you so you have before you uh the redline policies and these were changes that were made um in response
041to change uh changes that the Arizona State Legislature placed into Arizona revised Statute with the exception of policy LH policy LH is simply a title change because our accrediting agency is no longer Advanced edit is called cognia so we wanted um to reflect that and then policies be and B specifically are talking about board meetings and what they're talking about is at an ASB board meeting we're required now to make sure that we can reasonably accommodate um members of the public who would like to attend the meeting and we are also required now to let um members of the public know when they will have physical access to the to the uh building finally um policy where did I go yes policy jlh we are just adding in that after a student is enrolled in
042a public school or a private school asdb is going to request directly from the previous School certified copies of the records within 10 days uh I believe that we are already doing this but we just put this into the policies to tighten it up so with that I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have this is first this is first read correct yes ma'am this is the First Street any questions okay seeing and hearing none we will move on to 7.02 legislative update okay well um I am relieved to let you know that we are actually about um at the Midway point for for the Arizona State legislative session uh I was asked to provide this update to you to let you know specifically about the ASB continuation bills both in the house
043and in the Senate Unfortunately they did not receive hearings in their respective committees and so they are considered to be um dead for this session um I am continuing to track over 150 bills um and they are they track from board actions things like board meetings public records Etc um continuations I'm tracking about 24 different continuation bills which I wasn't paying particular attention to two years ago but I'm paying very close attention to it now um I can tell you that uh with the continuation bills for the most part it appears that both of the chambers are moving towards cutting down continuations for state agencies so we're seeing a lot of them go from 8 years down to 4 years there's still a few outline ERS of um 8 to 10 years but again those
044those are big uh outliers and uh interestingly enough every time a continuation Bill comes through I can always count on um bipartisan members of both the house and the Senate to speak up and say well what about asdb why didn't you give asdb an 8-year continuation last year so we we have some very vocal members on on from both parties who are continuing to advocate for ASB and the continuation um we also have some human resource related bills a few operations bills of course I continue to track the education bills as well most of these education bills the majority of them do not directly affect asdb however they affect our partner districts so we always want to make sure that we're tracking to see what's happening with our partner districts and also for some of
045these um bills that have uh grant opportunities attached to them to see if possibly there might be an ability for asdb to be able to get um an amendment to allow us the opportunity to um to qualify for some of these grants so I've actually been working uh with my counterpart at ad uh regarding some of these Grant programs and even though I haven't been successful getting an amendment yet um I do have a commitment from ad that they will continue to work with us in the interim to try to assist us so I I see you look like you're going to ask a question I have a question yes um so I understand that the continuation Bill died in committee um also the transportation bill as well are we looking at any way of
046doing some sort of amendment to get that back in front of a committee so um specifically the transportation specifically the transportation bill so um what I can tell you um Madam president is that there are still 69 what we call strike everything bills okay that are out there and it is theoretically possible for us to um approach Alle legislator to ask if we could use their strike everything Bill to try to revive um this appropriation bill I will tell you that I don't hold out too much hope of um getting that bill through because it is an Appropriations bill Bill and as we're starting to inch closer to May and June all of the appropriation bills are going to stop moving because um that the leadership in the house in the Senate and the governor's
047office are going to start negotiating the budget in Earnest and uh my plan B is that I am going to be literally walking up and down the hallways uh in the senate in the house knocking on the door giving them our fact sheets talking to them about the urgent need that we have for this funding and how every year we go without this additional funding the problems Compound on us and what I'm going to be doing is asking every single legislator please please will you be a champion for us on this please will you put this on your priority budget list and the leadership of the legislature they do listen to their Rank and file legislators and if enough of them if we can get a critical mass of people who are asking to include
048this funding then there's a better chance that it'll make it into um into the final budget we know that um part of this funding is already included in the executive proposal the executive budget proposal from the n9th floor um but ultimately that's that that's kind of a starting negotiation and the legislature is going to come back with their with their counter offer all right thank you then that's all I needed any other questions okay thank you thank you moving on to 8.01 call to the public on non-agenda items um we have two on non-agenda items one was um posted online do you have that right away no okay so then and second we have Libby I'm don't want to butcher your last name is it brous correct it is brous hello everyone and thank you
049for your time today my name is Libby Brouse and I'm a preschool teacher at pdsd as well as the vice president of the Arizona school for the deaf and blind Educators Association as the ascb community gets ready to enter the F fourth quarter of the school year some of us are also looking forward to the 2024 2025 school year contracts will be coming out and teachers will be wondering and preparing for their future case loads Food Service workers and transportation staff might be wondering about new initiatives or planning bus routes related service providers will be considering case load sizes and hoping for positions to be filled interpreters are maybe thinking about the downtime they will have before things get really busy again it and the media teams might be planning new strategies for technology roll
050out in managing all of the behind the scenes work that make meetings like today accessible leadership I am sure is already planning professional development and ways to set up the next school year to be successful as planning begins to happen in the asdb community the members of the Arizona school for the deaf and blind Educators Association would like the board to consider what they might beol involved in planning we are requesting the board to set up another work study session to continue the discussion and consideration of creating our agencies own H policy also known as meet and confer those in our community may not know that since the 70s asdb has had an Education Association or a union we are an active body working to spread awareness in our community with all staff members we
051are looking to grow our relationship with the board through establishing an H policy Y and the way through this process is through continued open dialogue we hope plans are being set to figure out how to take the next step in the decision process for the board to enter into a relationship with asb's Union in order to continue developing plans for our community and implementing those plans that are already in action after listening to to the meeting today these plans can include working with the Arizona Arizona school for the death and blind Educators Association to include staff on the assistant superintendent interview panel gather feedback on the master facility plan communicate with staff on the information and work that's done at all of these board meetings or working with Maria Murphy and the Arizona Educators Association
052for monitoring bills in the Arizona legislature thank you thank you thank you um yes so the second uh non-agenda item we got was um from a parent of a current student first Elizabeth Smith are you here before I summarize your comments um most of the comment is um about uh parent involvement to support students and teachers um and uh parent how parents are not uh feeling slightly disconnected Ed from involvement in classrooms thank you moving on to 8.02 discussion item agenda items for the next regular board meeting which is scheduled for May 9th of 2024 in Phoenix okay um anything that would come up after the meeting you can either share with myself or superintendent wman um do we have an April work study planned yet okay um do not let let us consider that
053we might need to pick some dates and see if we can get something on the calendar um if no other items for the next agenda I have 9.01 action item adjournment yes that's my job I move that we adjourn this meeting do I have a second a second all right thank you very much all those in favor and have a good evening everybody thank you meeting is adjourned at 5 um 04 p.m. this is a [Laughter] miracle