001foreign good afternoon everyone um I'm calling the um board meeting for the Arizona calling the meeting to order for the Arizona State schools for the deaf and blind board of directors meeting um I'm going to ask Leticia if she is on to go ahead and call roll maybe not all right all right I will go ahead with what I've got hopefully I have everybody maybe not oh I've got her Leticia do you want to go ahead and call roll I think you're on mute all right I'm just going to go around Mike Gordon I'm here Colette Chapman here Lynn Davison Brittany Buchanan present Linda Bove present hi Catherine sianko hello president and myself suitcase knifel I think I got everybody moving on to agenda item 1.02 it's an information item presentation on accessibility I'm going
002to turn it over to Aaron and um Dr Scarborough perfect thank you and excuse me I'm trying to multitask I'm wearing multiple hats here um good evening board President Michael uh members of the Court superintendent Reitman and assistant superintendents Cooper and catch off uh for the record my name is Aaron Moya and I'm the director of media technology today I will be presenting information on how HCB is accessible via our websites and social media platforms um included within your board packets is an accessibility presentation that goes pretty in depth of how the asdb media team makes digital media accessible um I kind of like to call this a procedural presentation as it shows the why how and where some key areas of the focus really is designing developing the digital media Platforms in a way
003that accommodates all audiences with the goal to create an inclusive environment where everyone can navigate and engage with our websites and social media channels effortlessly our mission actually revolves around you know apprehending and acknowledging uh the distinctive needs of our student body and community and we're committed to guaranteeing Universal accessibility of our online content ensuring of course it is fully inclusive all facets of our digital content and here to Ada guidelines that's the Americans with Disabilities Act wcag which is the web content accessibility guidelines and also Arizona State policies um some key areas to consider for our websites and social media accessibility include quite a bit of things I'll try to keep it short um alt text image descriptions clear navigation color contrast keyboard accessibility captions and transcripts and properties of hashtags now in addition
004to these common accessibility standards that are set we actually strive to make content more accessible for our deaf hard of hearing and blind low vision communities this is primarily done through the use of audio description and embedded ASL videos now for the ASL portion of things I will go ahead and hand it over to Dr Scarborough so she could provide some insight regarding the ASL portion hello everyone thank you so much Aaron for allowing me to be part of this presentation typically for Content that is uploaded to social media or websites in ASL we do generally receive a request through our media Department sometimes the request comes from other departments throughout the agency as well we do frequently partner with the media Department those requests are typically um met by our staff interpreters we generally
005do most of our translations in-house staff handle our translations using the agency provided equipment sometimes that equipment does not always satisfy the needs of the translation process the translations are handled on the Fly generally need to be done very quickly and our staff do have to handle some of those editing those editing needs on their own so the interpreters are doing some of their own editing for the videos that they create of ASL translations so that they can be returned to Media quickly media will then add audio description captioning and other aspects of accessibility to what the the translations the interpreters provide and again that is to expedite that process so that media can get that information loaded as quickly as possible some of the equipment that are an agency approves to use does not
006allow for the expedited processing of translation requests that is one challenge that we have faced our interpreters do address and fulfill those requests as quickly as possible we do collect data regarding how many translation requests we receive and how much translation work we process on an annual basis so we do monitor that work translation work that we have done with media and social media content as well as general content across the agency has continued to increase on an annual basis we have also increased our use of cdis to complete translation work as well and that is continuing to increase annually because of the increasing demands we have increased our number of staff and we are continuing to recruit for cdis to join our staff that is a significant part of the ASL department and um
007something that we strive to do in terms of providing inclusive content and collaborate with Aaron's work and his team to ensure that everything is accessible Aaron I will turn it back to you if there's anything else you'd like to add about that thank you Jennifer um you can say the better um so um continuing on um just to show the asdb media team we we do regular reviews um and we evaluate the accessibility of all of our digital platforms we addressed you know any identified issues um well of course adapting to new trends in fact most recently we created a feedback loop and have put that into all of our public asdb websites um this basically allows for users to submit their feedback if something may come across and is deemed non-accessible so we made
008that available for the community to provide feedback to which then we would evaluate take a look at in fixed areas you know where needed um so not trying to take up too much time here but you know in conclusion by us embracing website and social media accessibility we do Foster an inclusive environment for all members of our community it demonstrates our commitment to accessibility rights legal compliance and public perception um and with that said I appreciate your attention and I welcome any questions you may have thank you both very much I appreciate it I do have a follow-up question so one of the big concerns that has been brought to the board's attention is the accessibility of the policy and I I understand that policy changes we'll say regularly and it would be hard to
009do that in a ASL visual format if someone internally a staff person or externally a parent would request that that was um translated so that they would have access in ASL is that something that you guys would consider doing um that's a great question Lynn um in fact we actually did some test runs um in relation to our online policies and how we could potentially make that more accessible uh in ASL um for this portion because there's a lot of data tied to that it might be a bit much but to answer your question yes we of course we would be willing to accommodate um in any way shape or form um Jennifer if you could shed some light on our test run that we did so um Aaron I know I believe you have
010the specific numbers uh however we did look at if we were to pull a specific um documents and provide a translation of that we looked at how long it would take to translate that document so the the entire process of translation so including the amount of time it would take to translate um as well as what it might take to hire a contracted CDI and bring that individual in with our media team they would need to analyze that policy um get clarification on meeting really translate the entire thing into comprehensible language in American Sign Language because as most of you know it's not just translating English but it's also understanding um that that becomes it needs to become a digestible piece of ASL content it needs to be digestible by the community and um just
011like our procedure at the board meeting it's really not accessible to the public sometimes they come in and they and they don't quite know how to access these meetings it may be that they're not entirely sure how to make a public comment there's a paper at the front of the gym when or the auditorium when we have in-person meetings but they may not know what that paper is for foreign they may not understand whether the statement is going to be read if they were to submit it in writing um they tell me to write this out to make a public comment but the announcement to fill that out is made online prior to the meeting so when they get to the meeting if they've missed that if they've missed that announcement then it may be
012that they missed the opportunity to complete that form and and submit their public comment generally we don't see that comment or that announcement at the meeting I I share that with the community when I'm there I make that announcement to people sitting around me but that's not actually my responsibility so is the meeting accessible well there are interpreters there yes but it's still not an accessible process so interpreting policy falls in the same thing we can't interpret the policy we can put the policy into American Sign Language yes is the policy therefore accessible so we can hire an interpreter to interpret or translate that policy yes we can upload that translation to the website does it now become accessible is that the end of the story is that what the board is asking for are
013the interpreters that we hire policy experts to then translate that policy um and there that may really cost a lot more it's it's not just simply hiring any interpreter to translate a policy so I I suppose I'm answering your one question with several of my own okay and yes Linda go ahead Linda here I do see that there is a barrier but what is it that is really obstructing our goal in our vision providing accessible policy as a board member when I receive policies I admit it's difficult to follow I represent the deaf community on this board and I recognize that I am not the expert in the room and I'm still learning but for us to understand policy there needs to be a large participation from the deaf Community for them to fully engage
014in procedures so yes having it in ASL obviously that is the obvious solution yet there's more behind the scenes that people don't understand I think it's important for even our students to be engaged in how policies are created and why they're posted in this situation so I think there we always talk about the costs that are involved and all the resources needed and I'm fully aware of that I do this type of work on a daily basis but I think this is a wonderful opportunity for cdis to expand CDI employment opportunities at the agency uh maybe we can bring in Maria Murphy to work collaboratively to explain policies throughout the run so I think that's just another perspective especially for cdis and work opportunities the class we need to stop discussing the cost of that
015aside for a moment um if that's always going to be the barrier then accessibility is never at the Forefront so student achievement deaths achievement rates need to happen because we start thinking differently on what accessibility looks like for our families for our students for community members their policies aren't easy to read generally so I do have to be assertive and ask Maria can you please interpret what this means and we have to start with making it accessible for the deaf community so absolutely I agree with your perspective Jennifer thank you and this is 2K I I I really appreciate your comparison um Dr Scarborough and I understand the complexity to this um but I think it is something that as subject matter experts in deaf education and in blind education it should be something we're
016striving for um to have that communication parody that is not always there um and I think you you brought up some ballot points some very valid questions that's got me thinking um now as well um but I'm just wondering what I I look at it from even a staff an internal standpoint um when you have somebody whose primary language is ASL and English is their secondary language and really that can apply in multiple situations we've got folks on campus that are trilingual as well the the equity is not there as far as being able to understand the content in the same way as everybody else does and so I I I am concerned about the cost involved in this and I'm also concerned because policy changes but I'm just wondering if you know this is
017something that we can continue to discuss and maybe work towards some way of leveling that playing field um I think we would have less I think we would have less issue if people were able to understand the policies and procedures that are in place and I will be the first one to admit as a state employee they hand you this handbook and expect you to understand and read it and sign off on it and it's not until later on that something comes up that you go back and and you know take a look at it again um but there should be a general understanding upon hire for staff there should be a general understanding um from an access standpoint for our community members and stakeholders as well and I agree with Linda you know this
018this is how we um get students involved in the legislative process is they have to learn these things somewhere and a great place to start would be asdb but um I'm not really asking a question here but I I do appreciate what you guys are um sharing with us today and I I do think this is something we need to continue to find ways to make things like policy which are not very digestible to anybody more digestible absolutely I agree too um reading policies I get lost I'm you know what does this mean you know sometimes I have to translate it myself by asking others questions um do you know that we are currently developing some technologies to better provide accessibility when it comes to policies um so just to make you where things like
019that are being actively worked on um not quite ready but we are aware and perhaps this kid you know have further discussions and figure out you know what is the best way we can present our policies um or access to those policies things of that nature thank you um does anybody else have any questions before we move on thank you again we're going to move on to um 1.03 which is the call to the public for agendized items we have received one um and I'm going to just quickly read it it is from Soren Nicholson current asdb stat and their their comments read dear board members thank you for your time today I would like to make a public comment regarding action points 6.01 and 6.02 addressing schedule changes for pay as well as proposed
020salary increases action point 6.01 seeks to make a conglomerate of therapeutic staff on one related Services pay scale reflecting now social workers educational audiologists psychologists occupational physical and speech therapists as a related service provider my steps per pay have been recalibrated we will soon be recognized for years of service with the agency which I appreciate appreciate very much we can now move up steps I wanted to share that during the recalibration process there are staff whose rate either did not change or went below what they currently make for those in this situation they would need to acquire more years of experience before their income increases historically a cost of living adjustment or Cola was the only way related service providers could increase their salary action points 6.02 details plans for proposed salary increases teachers some
021certified staff and other part-time full-time will be receiving a cola and it's much deserved related services and other certified staff will not receive a cola due to our recalibrated steps while the agency is moving in the right direction I would further challenge it to understand that the cost of living goes up and somewhat indefinitely for everyone colas recognized this and when offered communicate a sense of gratitude for doing a job we all love to do asdb has a clear goal in bringing forth the best when educating our children who are deaf hard of hearing visually impaired or deaf-blind asdb could equally have a clear goal about committing to their employees Financial well-being is it possible to consider extending the cola to all certified and non-certified whether full-time or part-time including related service providers I appreciate
022your time to review my comment and thank you for your commitment to our community by being here today kindly Soren Mickelson questions moving on to 1.04 information item the superintendent's report superintendent reichmann now can you see me yes we can good afternoon board president kenniffel members of the board of directors assistant superintendent catchov assistant superintendent Cooper and asdb community Welcome to our July 20th 2023 board meeting I would like to say thank you to the board members for your flexibility in transitioning our scheduled in-person meeting over to zoom we needed to do that this afternoon because we were having electrical issues at the pdsd theater that we call the SPAC thank you all for your flexibility I have two items that I would like to briefly mention before I give my reports the first is
023that I'd like to let you know that we do still have two vacancies on our board of directors if you know of anyone who may be interested please do encourage them to apply with the governor's boards and committees office the second is that I'd like to let you know that we will soon start the search for our new permanent assisted superintendent part of that search is speaking feedback from the community I will be setting up town hall meetings coming up in October there will be one in Tucson one in Phoenix and one online on Zoom [Music] I would greatly appreciate your assistance in planning at these town halls and encouraging our community members to attend and participate in these Town Halls during the town halls I will give a brief history of what has happened
024so far at ascb and then I will ask for input on the qualifications the appropriate qualifications for the next assistant superintendent with that I will move on to my reports if you recall during our May board meeting I talked about the theme accountability and during that meeting I shared a story with all of you about everybody nobody somebody and what was the fourth one anybody and essentially about not completing a project so I want to reiterate the point of accountability and I would like to go back to that theme of accountability to emphasize again the importance of accountability and if you remember at the last board meeting we talked about our operating principles accountability collaboration and transparency the importance of accountability and in supporting the other two operating principles who are we accountable to primarily
025we are accountable to our students foreign we provide our students with opportunities to learn and grow so that when they graduate from high school they are then ready for Life After High School they may choose to go to college or go into a career or a job and we are also accountable to the parents and families of those students we are also accountable to our teachers our staff our leaders we are accountable to all of you the asdb board of directors we have accountability to the governor and the governor's office as well and the state legislature and finally we have accountability to the citizens of Arizona so the question then becomes how do you know that we are accountable one response to that question is to look at our strategic plan you the board of
026directors developed that strategic plan and we recently completed the 2023 strategic plan report so if you look in your board packet available on board docs under the superintendent's report you will see the 2023 strategic plan report in that report we have as you recall four pillars Excellence communication and relationships outstanding student development superb organizational culture and effective resource management if you've taken the time to review that report you will have seen that under each of the pillars with the priorities we also have metrics most of those metrics have three years worth of data for the first time we can really start looking at that data analyzing and drawing comparisons with that data we may be even able to begin interpreting some of that data I'm going to give you some examples of the different metrics
027and data from the Strategic plan and the hope I also hope that you become curious and that you take some time to read through that strategic plan report and start to think about the data that is being presented there in terms of excellent communication and relationships most of the metrics are focused on satisfaction we do satisfaction surveys we see the results of that satisfaction survey we have a score of one being the least satisfied and five one through ten excuse me ten being the most satisfied looking at last year's data in 2022 and 2023 the parent satisfaction data was an average of about an eight in in terms of all of our educational programs campus-based Early Learning and itinerant Services about a score of an eight which is the same as two and three years
028ago so it does seem that we are pretty consistent in terms of parent satisfaction foreign looking at special education directors satisfaction data last year the 2022-2023 school year you can see that in our Early Learning Program we averaged about a level seven in satisfaction campuses averaged about an eight and itinerant Services about a seven so again about the same as two and three years ago there is some data from the community stakeholders but we do not currently have three years worth of that data we can see that Community stakeholders are less satisfied with the agency we also do employee or staff satisfaction surveys and this is looking at whether staff are satisfied with our jobs with their jobs overall staff satisfaction last school year in 2022 to 2023 did decline to about a 6.5 compared
029to the previous two and three years we also look at satisfaction with the superintendent's performance and you can see that last year um satisfaction fell in that area as well compared to two years ago and three years ago the second pillar is outstanding student development we have some really interesting metrics there and some interesting data I took some time to really look at that data and analyze it yesterday to try to understand our own data a bit better the first two metrics are focusing on language outcomes for birth to three and preschool for our deaf and hard of hearing children if you read that it says that last year in birth to three beginning language with early intervention after six months of intervention the average baby is acquiring seven months worth of language at six
030months so and that was the same as about a year and two years ago if we that's not just a struggle for asdb it is a struggle for other organizations that nationally is not available it is something that we are continuing to work on looking next at post-school outcomes this is for after our students graduate from high school our students who graduated last year we do know about a hundred percent of our students we got data from all of them of those students 41 percent are employed or in a post-secondary education program so College University or a technical or trade school so some type of higher education so again 41 percent compared to the itinerant students for itinerant students we do not have 100 of the data we only got about 32 percent response from
031students and have data from about 32 percent of those high school graduates of those 73 percent are either working or they're in a post-secondary education program of some kind we also have metrics on our state assessments and these are standardized assessments um both um we have for our campuses in both English and math for Tucson campus and Phoenix campus looking at both of those campuses most of our students fall into the category of fars fall below foreign students and again we do not have comprehensive data on all of our itinerant students in order to get that data we have to request it from the school districts and they have to then give it to us for us to analyze some school districts do that and others do not so we have some of the data
032but not all of those students for whom we have data you really have to look at that carefully and it's very interesting I'm not entirely sure what it means but it is broken down by third grade 8th grade and 10th grade and again English and math looking at third grade and eighth grade students are either Falls Far Below or minimally proficient so somewhere in there in both third and eighth grade either Falls far below or minimally proficient but then if you look at 10th grade almost all of those students are Falls Far Below and I'm not sure what that means I don't know if it means anything it per se but again we don't have enough years of data and enough comprehensive data to draw a a true comparison again we also have student satisfaction
033surveys and those students on our campuses do take the time to um to complete those and we look at their satisfaction with their academics their school safety the school culture and we do have data from our students for last year our students were less satisfied than the previous year the previous two years next is superb organizational culture our third pillar we looked at professional development that occurred at various trainings that occurred in 2022 and 2023 there was a significant increase in the number of training opportunities for our staff and most of that training focused on three things educational strategies curriculum and Leadership another metric under pillar 3 included teacher diversity and staff demographics for example we have approximately 2 100 students all together and this includes our Early Learning Program campus-based programs and itinerant services
034so all total about two thousand one hundred who are deaf hard of hearing blind or visually impaired if you then look at our teacher demographics and who they are we have approximately 220 teachers 42 of those teachers are deaf or hard of hearing or blind or visually impaired or deafblind most of them are deaf or hard of hearing so think of that so it's about 20 of our teachers when we look at our staff so all of our staff we've got a total of about 700 or slightly more what we have documented says that staff self-report on their identification and identify with a known disability our fourth pillar is effective resource management there are several metrics one of them is employee vacancies or vacant positions last year we filled about half of those vacant positions
035so that does show the challenge that we continue to face in terms of recruiting and trying to fill our vacancies some of those who we hired themed to find us because they were looking for us online they looked at our web page they checked directly with our directors or other supervising supervisors and they found that information on our website and decided to apply we do have metrics on staff ratios so for example on our campus-based programs both Tucson and Phoenix we have approximately 4.6 teachers per for excuse me 4.6 students per teacher in itinerant services we have approximately 13.3 students per one teacher we also have metrics on the master facilities plan that show our progress toward completing um the specs of that we also have a metrics on our Fleet Management that demonstrates how
036we are using our Fleet of vehicles and if we are using them efficiently we have other metrics that look at our budget the budget looks at the percentage of money allocated to instruction to facilities transportation Etc and we can see that most of our money is going to instruction we have metrics on cost per student broken down by each campus as well as itinerant services and early learning programs so again you can find those details in the report so looking at our 2023 strategic plan what does that really tell us it tells us that first of all we have a lot of tools at our disposal this is one of the tools that we are able to use in order to evaluate the agency's performance we have other tools as well but the street strategic
037plan is one tool this report has three years worth of data and in three years worth of data we can start using that to analyze the information and start asking questions about what we are doing as an agency we can also look at specific metrics and see if those metrics can give us additional information that we may need if those metrics are not giving us what we need then we need to change the metrics they're also giving us data and information that we need um in order to how to how to view the performance of the agency with three years worth of data we can establish some targets for each of our metrics I'm going to recommend to our leadership team that we start doing just that for you as the board of directors as
038well as the asdb community there is a lot of information that is being provided with the Strategic plan report the assistant superintendent reports as well for both of them if you read through those reports you will notice that each of their reports has different activities that relate back to the Strategic plan so you can cross-reference the activities that we are doing with what is noted in the Strategic plan I encourage you to do that we also have a finance committee and we have that report included as well there's a lot of financial data there I encourage you to look at that as part of our accountability being accountable with that information and it is not just our board materials and that we provide you you also have additional tools that you can look at for
039asdb and how we're performing and also be able to answer the question is asdb doing everything that we need to be doing in order to provide the best education and support for all of the students that we serve thank you Annette um I I have a couple of follow-up maybe comments and questions and then I'll open it up to the rest of the board for questions as well um a couple of things stand out to me and and you and I have had conversations in regards to this I really think that part of our data collection needs to look at when these kids are coming into us and where their baselines are starting at um I wholeheartedly agree we should be collecting the information um I know it's hard to get the information from the
040co-ops because um we are not the Lea of record for those students who are providing itinerant services but I'm I do think it's important for us to show how we are impacting those itinerant Services first of all um that's one thing but then for the campus-based students I really think we need to look and do comparison studies of kids that start with us on campus and stay with us and kids that come in at different um points within their education and show their progression as well um numbers are only as good as the story behind them as far as I'm concerned so we really need to look at where a kid starts and where a kid finishes not just as the whole but as groups of students that are more similar to each other as
041far as where they are in language development um and those types of things I think that's key um to making sure that we are highlighting the good things that asdb is doing and not just showing where kids are falling on that bell curve when it comes to State Testing I will get off that soapbox and I will open it up to see if there are any um further questions from the the rest of the board being none I will say thank you again superintendent reichmann and we will move on thank you we will move on to 1.05 assistant superintendent of curriculum instructions report acting assistant superintendent ketchup did I say that right with a name like knifel I appreciate that no worries well good afternoon board president caniffel members of the board [Music] superintendent reichmann
042assistant superintendent Cooper and the asdb community to start my report uh first I do want to thank Dr Jennifer Scarborough and her interpreter team for putting together a phenomenal phenomenal two-day interpreter Summit this week over 70 asdb interpreters attended 27 remain behind for a three day long intensive training that's a first part of a year-long mentoring program that mentoring program has been custom designed to apply the integrated model for interpreting which was developed by Betty colonos it was awesome to see all the agency interpreters in one place to see him in person watching them learn and collaborate together and the entire training was also done in ASL so uh I'm a big Arizona Cardinal fan since they came here in the 80s and similar to football similar to football I always like to look at
043each new school year kind of like a new football season and what that means is sometimes the players on the team remain the same sometimes you lose good players and you get sad and sometimes you add great players and you get excited about the upcoming season for this season at asdb I am very excited about the new talent that we've added which includes some homegrown staff stepping into leadership positions all right so let me introduce to you the leadership additions to team asdb for the 20 23 2024 season first I'd like to welcome Scott madston as the new CTE director Scott comes to us from PTSD where he's been a teacher since 2017. Scott is currently pursuing his Doctorate in Education leadership and innovation and has a master's degree in science technology graphic information technology
044next in our starting lineup coming to asdb Via the Tucson Unified School District we have Greer Martin Parish who will be joining us as the Director of itinerant services for region one Greer has over 10 years experience as an itinerant tvi and most recently has been an assistant director for the Tucson Unified School District in their exceptional education department next up joining team asdb via the Alabama School for the Deaf we have Paul Sanders who's going to be the next principal for the Tucson campus in addition to being an experienced principal Paul also has over 16 years experience as a social studies teacher as well as experience being on various committees at a state level when he worked in Georgia Rising through the ranks at asdb I'm excited to introduce Michael Olivier as the new
045director for the organizational development division or the odd DOD Mike started his career at asdb in 2007. he then left and traveled around the United States teaching at various places including being a supervisor of the ASL department at the Marie Phillips School he returned to asdb as a supervising teacher for the ELP preschool and most recently was a curriculum resource specialist with the odd Sarah sotilli our newsped director has already been introduced at a previous board meeting but we are very excited that she is part of our team this year in some non-contract positions I'm excited to say that Karen Talus a former asdb IEP specialist accepted the position of assistant principal for ASB in Tucson Sabra Taylor is joining the pdsd campus as an assistant principal she comes from Colorado where she has been
046in the education field for over 10 years and she started her educational career as an ASL tutor Sabra also has two MA degrees one in linguistics and one in deaf education Megan Boyle will be moving from a teacher at pdsd to an instructional coach at PTSD Kimberly Atkins is moving from a teacher in Tucson to be their new Tucson IEP specialist she'll be joining Abby Wagner who's a former pdsd teacher who will be doing that job at PTSD and last but not least I'm excited to say that pie of Benson who was a former asdb Regional director is returning to asdb to be an instructional coach for the ELP I'd also like to add that all things considered are teacher retention for this last year wasn't too bad um our pdsd elementary team did see
047the highest turnover the PTSD middle school and high school didn't have uh any changes that I would say are out of the ordinary the ELP only had minor changes in Phoenix the Tucson campus stayed relatively steady and the same can be said for our itinerant teachers I personally want to thank every teacher and staff member who decided to come back and be part of the asdb team for 2023-2024. Arizona has a teacher shortage I know you have plenty of other opportunities so thank you for deciding to stay here it's appreciated and please reach out to me if there's anything I can do to continue to support you in conclusion towards the end of last school year we started on focused initiatives like getting cell phones to our itinerant staff updating our language policy which we
048hope to have to the board at the next meeting we also started putting systems in place so we could provide the slpi assessment to staff to assess and then assist with their ASL group growth this year we will continue to implement those initiatives we're also focusing more on Collective professional development for itinerant staff and our Day School staff for example on July 31st all itinerant and site-based teachers will be getting together for a kickoff event our dhh teachers will be meeting in Phoenix and our tvis will be meeting in Tucson lastly to help leadership have a proactive instead of reactive start to the year all leaders on the educational side of the agency including myself are in the process of finalizing our 90-day plans these plans will be accessible for staff in the community to
049take a look at we're going to be transparent and I need to stress the purpose of these plans is not to penalize anybody but to help us all stay focused to the vision and mission of the agency as we start the new year thank you all and please let me know if you have any questions thank you Oren any questions from the board go ahead lid okay I have a question and a comment um but first I want to welcome all of our new staff um welcome back Aya glad to have you back for sure sounds like we're going to have hit the road uh running at the beginning of the year so any support we can give you let us know um question and this will probably go end up with Jennifer or somebody
050in the report um you it mentioned the Dual role of the interpreters as IEP team members versus interpreting IEP meetings can you briefly explain that so that that would be something that I would have to defer to uh to Dr skirber Scarborough I think what we want to make sure is that everybody understands um what they bring to the IEP meeting their role within the IEP meeting and that child's education uh and to have that very clear so everybody can be a meaningful part of the IEP process and speak specifically to um why they're part of that kids educational career good I was happy to see that um and also I would like to commend the ELP program I saw and hear that it was reported that on average 8.35 months growth over six months
051that's amazing good job you guys I've worked in early childhood and and that's that's the direction we have to go our kids can't make six months and six months they have to make more they're playing catch-up all the time so good job you're an amazing team yes they are any other questions hi Lauren this is Linda thank you Warren for that wonderful presentation I really enjoyed your report your introduction and welcoming of the new staff and your commitment that is unwavering and trying to elevate our community our goal is to provide the best Equitable opportunities and that's always a challenge and we will get this I would like to go back to The Early Learning Program as we know the best education happens in early programming and unfortunately we are facing a shortage of instructors
052and teachers in K-12 so can you speak to how you plan on transitioning students from our ELP into our schools by our residential schools or our day programs and how we're able to maintain our student population here at asdp is there some sort of programming that you are planning how are you dealing with the transition of our Early Learning Program students into our agency so first of all uh thank you for the kind words I do appreciate it um I think a place where we need to start is to ensure that our day schools understand what our ELP programs are doing and for our ELP programs to know what's happening at our day schools I think the more that we tighten that up we can see who the kids are in the ELP program and
053make sure that we have day schools that can meet the needs of the majority of the kids um so I I do think there's been a disconnect in the past of there's there's the ELP then there's the day schools and then there's the itinerant program but I do not feel that we have it to the point where each group can truly talk about what the other group is doing um and I feel that hurts us because in IEP meetings um you know parents and uh teachers might not be getting a clear picture of what we can provide here so I think that's the starting point is to make sure that all of us can truly talk about the agency one item I'm really excited about is this new CTE director um I personally feel that
054if we can build CTE programs on our campuses that are exciting and can lead to positive post-school outcomes parents and Educators might see that the day schools are a better placement um so we're you know uh Scott Madsen is really passionate about this and we both believe that if we build it they will come so those are the those are the two items at the moment I'm working on is trying to increase the communication within the agency and then to get Scott started on uh correctly so he can build a world-renowned CTE program here at the agency excellent thank you so much Lauren any other questions for Oren think you're off the hook thank you Lauren we will move on to agenda item 1.06 information item assistant superintendent of agency operations and support services assistant
055superintendent Cooper good afternoon board president kenniffel superintendent reichmann assistant superintendent catch off members of the board astb community and staff members each of the directors have provided to you their departmental reports there is no additional information that has come forth since those reports were provided to you last week uh to sustain our educational Endeavors we understand the importance of financial stability uh the Strategic plan outlines strategies which we're working on to optimize all of our resources looking at improving our operational efficiency as well as seeking additional funding opportunities to support all of our educational programs and in support of asdb's priorities most of the work that the team does is tied to pillar 3 superb organizational culture and pillar four effective resource management as superintendent reichmann briefly discussed we've provided updates on both of those
056pillars which have been included in the board materials more specifically in the Strategic plan is objective 4.2 which is the development of a long-range Master facility plan which also ties into our most recent Sunset audit that we had in 2022. we have not yet received an update on that six-month follow-up that the auditor's office did back in March however as it pertains to the master facility plan we are starting to see results of multiple years of deferred maintenance that has been presented in the board work study session that was conducted by our director of operations Albert Duff multiple buildings are beginning to show on our campuses excessive signs of wear and tear we're also seeing some of our critical infrastructure fail such as the lighting and electrical systems within the staff building on our Phoenix
057campus as superintendent reichmann mentioned thus the reason why we're doing our meeting via Zoom today our operations team is working diligently to correct and maintain the facilities but there is only so much that we can do internally uh the solution actually requires major Renovations and redesigns of our facilities and again this is why the master facility plan is so critical to the success of our students education and will need to be developed this fiscal year it is a priority for not only my team but the entire team for the agency as well in order to create and implement the plan for asdb we've hired Lea architecture to assist with the development of this plan The Firm was able to thoroughly review and do a walk through for both of our Tucson and Phoenix campuses and
058have drafted some initial considerations which we have included in my board report these initial considerations were reviewed by multiple leaders within the agency as well as staff who are our subject matter experts in their respective fields operations took the subject matter experts input and made necessary changes based on those original recommendations by Lea architecture over the next two months our leadership team will review the master facility plan scope of work and determine what the budget for the final product will be we're also looking at some potential funding that we will need we'll be submitting requests to the Arizona Department of administration Capital Improvement plan and we'll also be submitting a legislative decision package which is also known as a funding issue the total orkner of magnitude is subject to change as we continue to refine
059the plan during our design process the plan will also take multiple years to complete and asdb is working with the architectural firm to develop an accurate timeline please note that the Tucson campus is expected to have a reduction of utilized space from 326 000 square feet to approximately a hundred and eighty thousand square feet we have already began working within an appraiser to determine the value of any surplus space and buildings as a result of the plan this will assist the asdb board in determining the best use of our Surplus property and in order to align the process for the master facility plan with pillar one of our strategic plan I want to make sure I mention a few additional points one is that we're working towards the development of a stakeholder survey that will
060be released to parents students and staff the survey will evaluate the additional design considerations that need to be incorporated into our Master facility plan to Lea architecture will also create the initial floor pans as well as the intended use of the buildings to presented excuse me to be presented in town halls on each of the campuses that we plan on doing this will ensure we have full transparency into the future of the campuses we also want to make sure we obtain stakeholder feedback from the community and ensure that our designs accommodate the specific needs of our students we do not need to recreate some of the information and so we'll be utilizing some of the best practices that were developed by other schools for the deaf and the blind we plan to have that survey
061and stakeholder feedback along with initial designs ready for review in the November board meeting and this will allow you to vote on the initial designs so Lea architecture and the agency can finalize our Master facility plan and begin the true implementation in July of 2024 pending funding availability so now that the budget legislation has been finalized the team is continuing to work on developing the budget for 2024 as our new fiscal year began on July 1st and our agency budget submission is due on or before September 1st to the office of strategic planning and budgeting we just recently received final amounts from the state on our agency's total operating budget and that total budget with all funding sources included is 67.1 million dollars we will be submitting four funding to issues to the state which
062one I have already mentioned ties into the master facility plan the second will be seeking ongoing Transportation support to help pay for the contracted cost we continue to incur resulting from our Lea status change the third funding issue we will be working on is within our available cash balance as referred to in our finance report there is about 561 thousand dollars in our telecommunications fund which was left over from the 2019 funding we receive to expand our Early Learning Program for birth to three and as you are aware not able to we were not able to hire all of the positions we were allotted in that first year hence the money is still left over from those General funds our fourth funding issue relates to the foundation for the blind children contract that we have
063for our preschool students as you've heard me say on multiple occasions our daily rate for the institutional vouchers for our visually impaired students is less than the daily contracted rate that we have with FBC and just to put into context the fiscal year 2024 voucher rate for the 144 days for our contracted preschools excuse me for our preschool students is a little over 199 dollars however the contracted rate with FBC is right about 212 dollars so in addition to the Daily instruction that we're Contracting Services with FBC for for our preschool students we're also paying them to do psychology evaluations providing one-on-one nursing Services as well as transportation all of that we're projecting to be a shortfall of over half a million dollars last but not least I do want to give updates on where
064we are with phase two of the compensation restructure project and as you aware the goal of the multi-year project has been to ensure a consistent and Equitable practice when we're reviewing our compensation so in summary of the year's compensation adjustments as noted in the board report we are looking at one eliminating the certified salary schedule and staff would be either moved to the related services or teaching salary schedule two we're also looking at eliminating the educational audiologists and school psychologist salary schedules and moving those staff to the related Services salary schedule staff members on those salary schedules will have the ability to move each year however it is subject to legislative budget availability and board approval to ensure consistency amongst these schedules that we're consolidating staff would be granted up to 20 years of certified
065experience and be capped at a doctoral education level I do want to note that all staff were not experienced an increase this year as some of those staff are already making more than the step that they would be placed on however we will not be decreasing anybody's pay the other additional recommendation is that drivers and those staff that are paid from the classified salary schedule in grades 10 and above we're proposing would receive a percentage increase for each year that they have worked at asdb this is consistent with what we did last year for those in grades one through nine and last but not least we're also proposing that eligible teachers receive their step increase and all other staff not in a temporary status would receive a two percent cost of living adjustment as it
066pertains to the cost of living adjustment increase in the near future we will be revealing how the structure is currently and determine if there is a need to modify our current practices which will include determining if all certified and non-certified staff would receive the cola increase as we know the economy and cost of living consistently changes any compensation changes resulting from this phase of the project would become effective in August 2023 contingent upon board approval and those proposed items are on our consent agenda as 6.01 and 6.02 for the new year we've already began identifying other salary adjustments will we be looking at and we are currently working on updating the time frame as I mentioned in our last board meeting to prepare for pay increase recommendations and or salary schedules to the board before
067staff are issued contracts and before they leave on summer break so that way any pay increases will be reflected on their following year employment contracts that wraps up my report and there are no other updates to provide at this time I am open to answer any questions or address any comments that you may have at this time thank you Shayna I do have a couple of questions and I'm not sure that their appropriate for you specifically but I'm going to ask and then you can tell me if I need to wait and have this discussion a little bit later um in looking at the overall pay schedule changes the salary changes and things like that the where I'm seeing some discrepancy and have some questions and possibly some concerned is and maybe it's just not
068explained well and I'll start with that um for the classified special recruitment salaries it doesn't seem like um the grade level is necessarily in line with some of the responsibilities and I see a huge discrepancy in some of the grade levels and I'll if you want I can give you an example um for example an intravener is a grade five with an hourly pay rate of 18 dollars and we have an ASL instructor at a grade nine with a salary base rate of 17.39 an hour and I do understand from handling this with the commission that a lot of this is based on how a position is classified within the system um and then that grade is based on that I'm wondering if there is a way to categorize these different positions within those position
069categories to show maybe the difference um because I think looking at this just by grade level it seems very inequitable I am making notes as you speak and I will review with our HR team okay um and I know that that can't be done but I it is something I think we should look at because I I really do see a huge discrepancy here and then I just had another question on the proposed salary increases that was kind of a yellow flag for me um on in the documents that we received in board docs um the breakdown of the number of Staff affected the salaries the benefits and then the total I'm assuming that the salaries that's not total salaries that's the total of the increases and that the actual total at the end is
070the total of the salary increases and the benefit increases correct that is correct could you clarify to me why there is such a difference between the the total amount between the teacher group and the classified staff in a grade 10 or above group the teacher group would only be those that are not capped at the 20 years of experience so it's not all teachers and then the classified step staff in grades 10 out and above is again referring to those in grades 10 and above that would be getting the years of service based on their experience here at asdb thank you that's very very helpful I appreciate that that was all for me as far as my questions go does anybody else on the board have a question for um super assistant superintendent Cooper oh
071and um president canifo before we move on to additional questions I think our executive director of Human Resources is prepared now to answer or address your comment regarding possible inequities regarding the classified special recruitment salary schedule are you there Anita I see her awesome thank you I'm here good afternoon for president can I fall so what we can do is we can provide you a listing of the classified positions by grade so you can see that along with the um special recruitment rates as well as the salary ranges um because not all classified positions are on the special recruitment rate salary schedule in addition we made a change to what we there was a title on that uh salary schedule that was labeled trainer and we retitled it to identify ASL instructor to more align
072with what they're doing however we also know that this coming year we'll need to assess that um Market study for that position so we we're not there yet with that position hopefully that can help clarify some of your questions thank you Anita that does clarify some of my questions it it and it does make me feel good that you guys recognize this and are are looking at um competitive wages um comparison to to look at these positions and I do know um again when you look at the state system they're classified by different things and the grades are different pays within those classifications and it might be clearer I I I'm looking at the board doc um that we received it might be clearer if things were sort of classified together so there's more because
073I think when people look at this there's a natural tendency to compare and a grade five in one category is not the same as a grade five in another category and I think that there needs to be some reference to that um and I would also say looking at some of these positions we may need to consider a re-class based on the work they're doing um and the other question I had and maybe Anita you can answer this for me um in lieu of Education are we giving credit for professional years of experience for some people for example like a deaf mentor so if the the deaf Mentor I can't let me look at the schedule real quick and I'm that I'm just pulling that out of the air to be honest with you that
074was it's just okay so deaf Mentor is on the special recruitment rate those classifications on that schedule that is what we bring them in at okay okay and then do you um then compensate them for any additional education and or certification and or years of experience not on the classified special recruitment schedule okay all right thank you you've answered my questions I appreciate that thank you any other questions okay this is Mike can you hear me yes you can okay Shayna thanks um this isn't really a question yet but I I was looking at the master facility plan and seeing that the Tucson Renovations would be about 50 million dollars I think to projection is and I remember when we did the work study at Albert was uh it was very uh clear and transparent
075as he talked about student enrollment and particularly in Tucson and I think in relation particularly around how Tucson uh had being an Institutional setting or at least as it was in the beginning and with a strong residential component and I see with the renovation that the uh the new campus would have us very small residential one building would uh would house uh seemingly all the students uh I'm wondering if there's been a question to the feasibility of such a major major uh project particularly if it's only going to be about half the size of the current campus if the local area supports day programming to that level and it will for the long-term future after uh after such an expensive facility plan and if um it's interesting that there's already been uh discussion about reducing
076the size of the campus Because that's always been um being a Tucson and I I see the campus and I've been around it for over 20 years so uh that's always been an issue that I've had is that how sprawling it is for for such a low student census and um I understand getting the architectural firm in to to do some renderings and have have a plan before the stakeholders in the in the town halls um but I'm just not certain that that such a a huge project is necessary to to support such a a small group of students and I'm wondering if there is a plan that somehow would support increased recruitment because you're still talking about the primarily it's primarily going to be a day a day program primarily for Deaf because there's
077very few few blind students it's not even it's barely even a blind schools anymore uh so so are there enough deaf students in Pima County to support that type of renovation without having any type of expanded residential programming and and going to the legislature I mean I understand that's the way the approach to go uh for this type of big big funding but I guess I'm wondering if there are other have there been any discussions of other possible facilities locations building existing buildings to uh that would not cost 50 million I appreciate your comments um let me see if our director of operations um I see he popped on here um Albert do you want to go ahead and chime in a little bit absolutely absolutely board member Gordon those are very good questions and
078I do believe that there is still sustainability within the Tucson campus region um especially when you look at as you said it does have a residential component and we do still have to meet those needs of the students around the state so we still have to have some sort of component there um with regards to the cost um those are initial rough order magnitude as we get into more of the details of what each building would need those costs will fluctuate um and as we begin to work through the plan we'll be able to determine additional programmatic aspects which are also part of that plan such as uh what um assistant superintendent ketchoff was referencing being able to have a more expanded CTE program and having that in multiple areas throughout the state so we
079can better serve students and also looking at feasibility of purchasing another area while still maintaining our own that was discussed with the architectural engineering firm and looking at the condition of many of those areas would require the same amount of funding plus the cost of purchasing so by doing this we're able to avoid that cost of purchasing since we own the property and then we're able to better maximize our dollars with our current owned facilities in addition that 50 million dollars would be spread over many many years uh the initial asks that we have for both campuses that is being presented uh as part of the decision package is approximately 21 million dollars that does still seem uh quite extensive and expensive um but I think that we have to look at the opportunities to
080also generate some of that Revenue ourselves uh through the Surplus property and the potential sale of that Surplus property while still maintaining the ability to expand if things were to change with our demographic ability which have been considered and are part of the initial designs I have them tentatively drawn up for what the campus Maps would look like and that will be presented in the next board report in the next board meeting um for you to be able to look in detail to ask more of those detailed questions but I do believe that uh putting the additional funding into our buildings that we own reducing our footprint and being more strategic and precise with what buildings we're going to keep and maintain will lower our operational costs uh per student we'll reflect and meet the
081auditor General's recommendation of having a long-range facility and capital plan and then also having the ability for ourselves to potentially pending board approval be able to offer that through the sale of a property in order to generate our own revenue and hopefully that this doesn't cost the taxpayers anything directly or cost them a limited amount so there's I think it's um it's still very much in the works but I think trying to expand or centralize that just say on the Phoenix campus and not have a Tucson region we don't have the land space in order to do that on the Phoenix campus so we'd have to purchase additional land which is expensive and then purchasing a different School within the Tucson region as noted I from discussion would cost a high amount and still tentative
082Improvement to meet the specific needs of our VI blind deaf and hard hearing population now did you mention selling some of the existing property is that did I understand that right that is correct that would be pending board approval obviously um that's not something that I would be able to determine uh we have ordered the appraisal so we do have a determined area that we would consider for sale uh or even as a negotiating point with the legislature um as an option that appraisal will be reviewed actually is starting next week and then that will be given to the board to be able to have for your consideration um so it would take the campus roughly about 50 in size as a reference point the Phoenix campus is 162 000 square feet and currently accommodates
083over 250 students the Phoenix campus or sorry the Tucson campus would be reduced down to 180 000 so approximately the same size but as noted only serves roughly between 125 to 150 students depending on the school year with that though there is the consideration that whenever you do have blind and deaf on the same campus it does require additional space because of the fact that you have to have a blind classroom and a deaf classroom in order to meet those needs so it is justifiable to have the same amount of space in the Phoenix campus and the Tucson campus even though the Tucson campus has half the population and right now the campus in Tucson is what about 70 Acres uh 64. is our current uh foothold we occupy about 38 of it um and
084if you give me one second the proposed size um is that would potentially be for Surplus property um there's an error happening so I can't pull that up but it's approximately about 15 acres worth of land but we'll have a more tightened version after we go through that with the appraiser as well as with the architectural engineering firm I would like to know this is not being done in isolation as noted in in assistant superintendent Cooper's report is that we do have a list of subject matter experts that we have within the um that we have within the the area that are providing information not just on what's best for Deaf students what's best for blind students but what's the what is best collectively for all the students on our population um and whatever future
085programs could be considered um also one thing that does also make a note here is that does make Tucson a little different um is that we do house the Region 3 office um itinerant program as well as a very lofty or very large um blind program that also has our aph program that ships all of the material from the aph program throughout the entire state so the the Tucson campus still is making those considerations and has plans for where those departments would go as yes it is a campus but it's also a central hub for a lot of programs that help us throughout the State of Arizona also including our business services team the majority of Business Services the majority of Information Technology are all housed with on the Tucson campus so I I think
086it behooves us to maintain that same property also for historical purposes and do we find that having administrative um Central offices in Tucson is it effective for uh General operations as compared to administrative offices in Phoenix um I can only comment my opinion on that um so that would be something you might have to ask a superintendent reichmann my personal opinion is is that due to the technology we have today uh having some of it decentralized and actually having administrators on two different areas to maintain that is a benefit um that's my opinion I know that it does reduce some visibility in some considerations as maybe Tucson doesn't see the Phoenix administrators is often or vice versa um but I think that we expand our ability to attract different kinds of Labor such as right
087now our region one director who I'm very excited to have on board with us Greer uh is actually located on our Tucson campus and even though she's serving the North she is effective and able to utilize the resources we have now to provide supervision and direction throughout the state and um you know that if we were limited to say the Tucson or the Phoenix location only we may not have someone such as Greer join our team and so I think he gives us more flexibility to actually hire different administrators throughout the state as a tucsonant I would not live in Phoenix um and I don't think uh you as a Tucson and would either and so I think it gives us a lot of flexibility for that all right last last question um and I
088appreciate you uh answering these off the cuff um the uh the reduction I guess what a 140 000 square foot reduction uh I'm assuming there would be there's a selection of buildings that would no longer be used uh either I guess rented or at least to uh to uh agencies or companies or schools or whomever um do those buildings need their own extensive renovation I'm assuming they would before they'd be uh in in condition to be able to be leased so that's a good question um that would be part of the negotiation process as well as the determining value within the appraisal we would not advocate for doing renovations prior to sale uh if the board chose to keep the property and then recommend to go ahead and Lease out the property uh then we
089would have to go back and advocate for additional funding to renovate those to bring them up to uh the standard that is what I would like to add to that though is that the the selection of buildings would allow for the campus uh if it were the section of the campus were to be sold uh would be um how do I put this it we would select those buildings in this building specifically for marketability so that way if someone came in and they wanted to do um say a complete demolition of all of those buildings and build a new structure that is something that would be an option for them uh more than likely the selection of land would be sold more for the land it's convenience to I-10 considering it's right off I-10 and
090Speedway as well as its convenience to both the University of Arizona and Pima Community College so I think that there's a lot of marketability there for the land not so much the buildings but uh you know once again we would Market it as is uh through the state broker which would be jll and that would go through that process um just as a note and I know that this has come up before about appraisal values the appraisal value is being determined by a licensed appraiser an appraisal value and the sale or potential sale of that property we are not legally allowed to accept lower than the appraised value so whatever that appraised value is that's our minimum but that's not our maximum meaning that comps would still need to be pulled to determine whether or
091not that appraised value is low and if we could actually obtain additional funding above and beyond that oh I'm sure there's valuable land for sure okay thank you Albert Shayna thank you and one piece I did want to mention is just adding a little bit to the new hire that assistant superintendent catchov mentioned I think one of the other additional possibilities with the new CTE director is being able to expand on some of the opportunities that we have there on the Tucson campus obviously for Phoenix as well but looking at some more growth opportunities and how we utilize and expand on the program that we do have for CTE as well um sorry CTE that's a continuing educational program or Career Technical education and and what age group is that generally focused on I think
092primarily K through 12 but I will see did I say that correctly or so this is Orange um the seat kids can get credit for CTE in high school but there's things that we can start usually in Middle School fifth grade as far as career exploration to make sure that um we have a good plan and we know what we're doing but CTE does tend to be more high school-based you can get you can get credit and then ideally you graduate and you already have credentials where you can jump right into the workforce be it if that's technology or welding um mechanics and that that's where it's up to Scott to really decide what are the programs that uh are needed yeah that's what I thought when it around the continuing piece kind of a
093as a certification type of program okay I'm done thank you Albert good questions any other questions for Shayna or her team seeing none we will move on to um 2.01 approval of the consent agenda consistent with board policy to include items 3.01 5.01 5.02 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 and 7.02 do I have any comments or questions or can I get a motion this is former member Linda president kenneithel can we um move to approve all of those items can we do them all at once is that okay okay just wanted to make sure then this is Linda Bove and I move that we approve the consent agenda all of those numbers as read and go for a vote I have a motion do I have a second I'll second alrighty then all
094those in favor if you can come on screen and just give us a hand raise that would be great all right motion approved then we are moving down to 4.01 the finance report by the Director of Business Services Kimberly um bitrich good afternoon board president superintendent reichmann assistant superintendent Cooper assistant superintendent Tech Chuck members of the board and asdd community you've been provided with our most recent board report that covers the financial data for May 2022 and May 2023. the data was covered in a more detail at our most recent finance committee meeting held last Thursday July 13th with board president Kenneth and board member Mike Gordon also in attendance for superintendent reichmann and assistant superintendent Cooper in addition to reviewing the May budget to actual reports Chris Brown from the Arizona Department of Education
095discussed institutional vouchers with the committee the total student count for June 1st 2023 is 2173 a decrease of 61 students when compared to the June 1st 2022 count of 2234. there was no change in the site-based student count The Cooperative student count increased by eight while preschool decreased by 33 and birth to three programs decreased by 36. as of June 1st we have about 489 FTE which included 8.5 FTE at FPC at that time we employed 704 staff only 104 are full time with the 1.0 FTE there are currently 238 vacancies across the agency vacant positions are posted until filled and additionally many staff start at the beginning of the school year the highlights of the May 2023 financial report show the revenues of 55.6 million for 6.1 million higher than the May 22 revenue
096of 49.5 million the major difference is that increase in general funds of 3.4 million for Capital Improvements salary increases and one-time funding for transportation the increase in the institution of vouchers of 3 million resulted from the April 22 payment being received in June 2022 versus May these are offset by a decrease in the classroom site fund of approximately 500 000 the per pupil count for the classroom site fund decreased from 733 in FY 22 to 708 in FY 23. the projected FY 2024 per pupil amount is 758 dollars an increase of 50 dollars the bfy 2023 obligated expenditures of 59.2 million or 6.4 million higher than the bfy 2022 expenses of 52.8 the increases are in salaries professional and outside services including contracted transportation first to three services one-to-one nurses voucher reimburses reimbursements and contracted
097Food Services and other operating expenses mostly from the ISA with Arizona Department of Transportation for agency Fleet Maintenance and fuel there's an increase in the non-appropriate salaries and benefits from approximately 20 to 44 percent this resulted from the stipend paid to the teachers and the related Services support staff from the classroom site fund the stipends for the related Services support staff were issued for the first time in 2023 the increase in the expenditures from this funds was about 475 70 000 over last year if there are no questions on any of the information presented this concludes my report of the agency's financial status thank you Kim does anyone have any questions for Kim right seeing none thank you I'm just trying to think hi there I just would like to adjust very quickly we are
098at the two hour mark and if it's possible for the interpreters and cart services why don't we take a 15-minute break and resume at right about 6 15. okay I have 6 15 I just want to check to make sure everyone is back awesome then we're going to move forward with um agenda item 7.01 information and discussion of an introduction and possible discussion of policies IGA igd ijj and jlcd director of policy and government relations Maria Murphy good evening I'm board president knifel members of the board superintendent reichmann assistant superintendent um this is Maria Murphy director of policy and government relations um I apologize for not being able to show my face I have had a series of connectivity problems and I had to call into the meeting so my apologies for that um you
099have before you the red lines of the four policies that board president knifel just mentioned uh I I believe that you were sent that the board was sent those um in advance to have the opportunity to review they were also uh posted on the website I have not received any questions or any comments from the public or any board members but I would like to make myself available at this time if anybody does have questions regarding these policies I'm gonna recognize Linda yes hello hi Maria and thank you president can I fall I would like you to like to ask you to explain the reason behind the revisions for each of the four policies um and who made those revisions just briefly for each of the four if you wouldn't mind please certainly um thank
100you board member Beau um these uh requests were made because of they were suggestions that were um that were suggested by the Arizona School boards Association and they are in response to laws that were passed earlier this year during the legislative session to ensure that we're in compliance with the laws so for IGA um and igd and I believe also ijj um they just wanted to reiterate that textbook committees need to comply with open meeting law requirements and we already comply with open meeting law requirements however this was a suggestion that um that we make this explicit in our board policies um in regards to policy jlcv again this is in response to state laws um and in particular what was added to state laws was um seizure and seizure management plans and so you
101will see in their additions regarding how we are going to do seizure management plans we already as As a matter of practice work already with auto-injectable epinephrine with inhalers I believe with Narcan as well but the seizure management plan that is new to Arizona State law so that had to be that needs to be added as well so that is the impetus behind why these policies are being changed thank you Maria I appreciate that you're welcome this is 2K thank you Maria um are there any other questions for Maria is this an actionable item it says information and discussion on the agenda it's um specifically this this is the first read so it's just discussion and then we would bring this back for a second read in September I'm not asking for emergency adoption at
102this time awesome thank you so much any other questions for Maria before moving on thank you Maria thank you moving on to 7.03 discussion and action item election of new board secretary I am open to nominations um I'll nominate Brittany Buchanan Brittany will you accept this nomination this is Linda Bovi seconds I'll accept awesome do we have any other nominations for board secretary being done all those in favor of Brittany Buchanan um taking on the secretary position say aye aye [Music] all right um all those opposed congratulations Madam congratulations congratulations okay moving on to agenda item 8.01 call to the public for non-agenda items I do have one for today um and I'm going to apologize before I even start because I'm going to spell the last name because I'm not sure how to pronounce
103it it is from a current staff Dan mcallies m-c-a-l-e-e-s um and the subject is Union and their comments are I wish to thank the board for allowing me to present some of my thoughts my day my name is Dan mcallis and I am a high school teacher for ASD life skills students I have been teaching for 30 plus years during this time I have seen staff go through some difficult situations with very limited support this has led to staff retention problems and low work morale I feel the Arizona State school for the deaf and blind Education Association asdbea would help with retaining staff and improving morale by knowing that having a dedicated support group for staff not only on campus but representing our needs with the legislator is a positive morale Builder also a-s-d-b-e-a and
104aea can work with the asdb as a team when working with our state legislation and their representatives for the agency's concerns and and needs as well I hope the board will recognize asdbea and work together for the good of the staff and asdb agency thank you for your time Dan mcgally's that is the only public comment I have so moving on to 8.02 information and action item work session um dates or work study session dates for August and October what I would like to suggest is that we move to have Leticia send out um some potential dates for both of those months for work study sessions for the board and then we can vote on what works best for us but I want to make sure that asdb staff are available on those dates as
105well um do I have a motion um to have Leticia do that I have a motion from um Mike Gordon do I have a second I have a second from Katie sienko all those in favor raise your hand or give me a thumbs up okay awesome um that's everybody so no opposed um for those meeting dates we have a couple of things that have come up that I think would be worth discussion um I think we I'd like more information on the aea in general um as I know that there is a chapter on the Tucson campus and um I have been approached by them and would like for them and maybe aea to discuss this with us at one of those work study sessions um and maybe include our um attorney general as well
106for additional questions I there are school districts that have Incorporated them there's only a few that we know of Statewide um I would like to be open to the discussion and have the conversation and learn a little bit more I don't know enough about this to make an informed decision at this point um and also I want to make sure that this does not conflict in any way with asdb is a state agency I know in other state agencies there are certain um prohibitations around some of this kind of stuff so I just want to make sure that anything we move forward with we are doing um our due diligence ahead of time um we've also based on some of the um what's the word I want some of the trainings that have happened I
107think it's time to have a discussion again about language acquisition and the direction of asdb as an overall agency so those are two ideas that I have um I understand from Albert Duff that we are going to have a presentation and updated presentation of the master facility plan at our next board meeting um that might come up at a future work study again if we need to look into things more um in depth but I'm also open to any ideas that the board may have this isn't uh an immediate concern because there's so many other hot things that we have going on out there but I think it would be a good idea if we can bring asba and asba uh and do some training with our board um we have a number of new
108members and uh so we know what our role is what our parameters are um but just to be you know brought up on on what a board Power Board needs to function foreign thank you um connected to a previous one gave me one second um Linda um Maria if before a work study on the asdbea um and having that conversation if the board could get some information from you and asba about policy H we do not have that in our current policy and if we should choose at some point to move forward with this we would need to amend policy to include that I would like to know more about that before we make those decisions yes board president can I full um I have been researching that um asba did get back to me
109and they do not have model policies um under the age volume because it is not required under Arizona state law so we would basically have to draft our own policies if the board chooses to move in that direction and I am in the process of collecting sample policies from school districts around the state that do um have these policies awesome thank you Linda both you can come back on and let me and add what you would like yes hello sorry about that I wanted to go back to the comment about what Lynn was saying um you mentioned board responsibilities and how the board functions um I believe that's in policy I couldn't tell you the number or the letter I forgot um but I believe um obesity is it B BCD I believe um I
110believe um that we are required to have a training um the board is required to have a training in terms of what our obligations are responsibilities how we are to function plus the understanding that we are responsible to sign the conflict of interest form annually to ensure that we avoid a conflict of interest and that's supposed to be included I believe um so is that what we're talking about Lynn yes so thank you Lynn for bringing that up and if there are any other things that you're not thinking of off the top of your head today please feel free to either email Annette or myself um in regards to future work study sessions um so that we can get those things on the calendar otherwise hearing nothing else I will move on to 8.03 discussion
111and possible action item agenda items for the next board meeting Colette yeah I would like to discuss the accessibility issues in um at asp ECT thank you Colette I'm glad you um brought that that up and reminded me um Albert that was something that I wanted to ask in relationship to the Masters facilities plan because I would guess that any um Renovations would have to be brought up to current Ada standards so um could we make sure that we touch on that in that presentation as well um we received the committee's report on some of the accessibility issues and I think it would be good to have a conversation of how those will be addressed I absolutely will make sure that those items are addressed um within the presentation as well as some examples from
112other deaf and blind schools that have represented uh even more accessibility um topics so I think we have a lot that we can learn from our partners around the country great thank you anything else for the next board agenda Katie yes this is Katie Cinco um thank you based on well sorry about that my dog just wants to say hi there based on what I heard of the last board meeting was there were ascb staff that made public comments about the low morale morale um and so I would like to bring that up for discussion and potentially a work study about how we can improve the work culture on both campuses and also um including I'm sorry for The Interpreter including the co-ops as well thank you Katie um I'm going to kind of task
113um Anita possibly to talk about we we've seen some of the recruitment efforts but maybe talk about some of the retention efforts for staff as well as part of Katie's um suggestion yes please and and what kinds of things we're doing on campuses and within the co-ops to recognize and retain good staff yes definitely thank you and Linda did you want to add yes and in addition to that retaining students keeping our students from transferring out of our campus programs um I mean either or both of them and Katie's saying yes I agree is that to that as well this is Linda one additional thing um thinking about what what does asdb look like uh compared to District programs what do District programs have to offer what do we have to offer what do school
114districts not have that asdb does and can we talk about that during a work study session or something something to consider I agree yeah so and it doesn't have to be the next board meeting agenda necessarily but I think a work study session might be more apropos for that topic something to keep in mind definitely okay all right excellent thank you anything else for um the next board agenda again if something comes up please share it with either myself or Annette or both of us um seeing no additional comments moving on to 9.01 action item adjournment you're you're unmute this is Lynn I move that we had this meeting I'll second up we have awesome thank you guys I appreciate it we're all in favor I appreciate your flexibility today I appreciate the staff hustling
115to get this um online for us so that we could go ahead with our meeting I also appreciate them taking all of the time to answer all of the questions today it was a really good meeting and I really appreciate you all yeah thanks bye-bye have a great night