ASDB Board Meeting 03/02/2023

001the board how important the redesign has been for the itinerant programs and how much work the regional directors the regional supervising teachers the lead teachers have put into the redesign two years of work that we have tirelessly put into the redesign and I am fearful that in not offering this contract and getting rid of the position the redesign will lose traction and stop and all of the hard work that's been put into it will have been for nothing thank you next we have Astrid goodstein on number 7.01 I'll start with 7.02 and 7.06 first and then I will move back as time allows thank you so much for this opportunity to speak to you all my name is Astrid I am a retired professor and administrator from gallaudet I now live here in the valley

002before I go into 7.06 and Beyond I would like to take this opportunity to say how thrilled I am by the new leadership of the board congratulations Sue Kay the community has the utmost trust in your leadership based on your history and we are looking forward to working with the board and working with superintendent reichmann and the community at Large we all share the same vision passion and love for Deaf children in Arizona at both of our campuses we have been thrilled by the passage of three laws that are moving us forward those bills have been SB 1092 the Arizona's version of lead k acdhh currently holds the responsibility for looking into metrics and into standards we have established data measurement and I'm happy to be a part of the task course that has reported

003that asdb is going to be taking one of the lead roles in this field which is a big point of responsibility and will put you on the map for the future another exciting expansion has been the passage of extra funding for expanding The Early Learning Program as well as family mentors that has been very exciting and it's been exciting to watch that grow and Thrive congratulations to Kendra third a small but still significant Passage in recognition of Annette's leadership asdb has always been a local education at agency or at least has been acting as one it has never been actually recognized as one and so putting that into law has actually been a bit set forward for us okay I see that in Maria Murphy's update and her legislative update and updates about what's going

004on with the legislature and how the board is responsible for policy changes Annette as superintendent it is her responsibility to let the board know what's happening within the legislator and make sure that policy is in line with different changes than things that she's responsible for making sure that things are in line some of her recommendations to the board did and moved on some have been rejected and some have simply been not put on the agenda by the former president I've seen a pattern of how her proposals are sometimes tweaked or disregarded okay I'll let The Interpreter catch a breath I would like this opportunity to speak a little bit about superintendent reichmann's background like I said I was a professor at gallaudet and at another nationally recognized College ntid we reported to Annette when she

005was in the Department of Education working for the federal government she was making sure that our policies were in line with the federal government and she was responsible for ensuring policy enactment that was such a huge responsibility and I think we're so incredibly lucky to have someone with that skill set bringing to the table not many superintendents have the background that she does and we have been excited to work more in collaboration with her and with the community at large parents included thank you moving on to Dr Harvey goodstein hello and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak my name is Dr Harvey goodstein I'll be speaking to agenda item 7.02 in relation to the amendment to 10 of 42. as I understand it many of us in the community are aware of

006this proposed bill this strike everything bill and the proposed amendments if this passes as written then that means that for asdb we will no longer be a program for the deaf and hard of hearing yes you can't see me if I stand in front of the camera though all right sorry guys the community okay I'll try my best to make sure that Miss Bove can see me she's the only deaf person up here okay wow you're good all right for understanding for I'm sensitive to access needs for our deaf people we're just going to pause so we can actually move the camera to help help out in every way that we can well can miss both see me thank you anyways so if this proposed bill passes as it is currently written that that means

007that asdb will no longer be a school or a program for the deaf this will be in direct conflict with current policies of asdb many deaf members of the community have sent letters to our representatives and our Senators we have contacted Senators already because of the level of concern we have however we are upset that this board has chosen to wait until now to act things can happen at lightning pace things can be fast-tracked and we wouldn't know I was stunned that the board did not call some sort of special meaning or emergency meeting with the purpose of making sure that this is an actionable item for our staff and we could ask them to stand in opposition to the bill that is this serious while I'm here I would like to add that as

008a former professor of Matt at gallaudet University I also served on several school boards including the Board of Trustees at gallaudet University commonly the board is a policy making board it's a group of people who make policy and the administrators of the programs are typically left to the business of running the schools whether that be the superintendent or principals based on the meeting that happened most recently the board has decided to override recommendations by your superintendent and has directed funds to other schools and agencies for example desert voices that is out of asdb's umbrella which is direct violation of current policy if I could refer you to the current policy section B code bdd the superintendent and board relations this is very simple there's three sections here as everybody can see in short the policy

009says that the implementation of the policy is the responsibility of the board correct in the second section it says the superintendent is responsible for the administration of asdb the superintendent knows what is best for our students here for our deaf blind hard of hearing students here the board doesn't work here and the board seems frankly to be forcing its own will onto the superintendent which is in direct violation of standing policy and I feel like that should be avoided during the former Administration president Sims and then most recently president Nigro the board was frankly quite oppressive not only to their superintendent but to other members of the board I am very hopeful with the new leadership with suke I have faith in her that she will lead the board in the right direction so that

010from here on out superintendent reichmann can feel comfortable talking with the board and asking for ideas and being able to design new programs and move things forward we rely on you for that thank you thank you next is Eric Cardenas related to um contracts I know yeah hi I'm in fifth grade um Carrie should not work here next fall because what happened in November when she came into my classroom and she called my friend names such as an animal and threatened to call 9-1-1 on him and told him that he couldn't act like this in the real world she yelled at him in class and my teacher Miss Emily tried to defend him and said get out please stop but Carrie wouldn't stop even though he was crying and said he couldn't control it because

011he has ticks she made my friends sad and that made me so mad Carrie told my mom what happened and told my friends told their moms told them that he was just too loud and she continues to look at me to try to intimidate me she'll stand close by and make me feel unsafe at school I stay home a lot of days because she makes me afraid to be at school and a teacher should not make kids afraid to be at school I have a safety plan but Carrie continues to violate it by being in the cafeteria because there's a new student in the cafeteria but that new student isn't even in her class she's mean to her students and to other students on campus every day my mom has talked about pulling me out

012and taking me to a different school but I want to stay at PTSD and I should be able to stay at PTSD for Middle School I just don't want to get in trouble with my friends and with Carrie she's very mean she tells bad jokes to my friends and she calls my mom for nothing but yet she's not in trouble we try not to instigate of anything but she goes out of her way to be in our face the principles should be penalizing her if teachers aren't teaching how to be appropriate and she's hurting kids around her she should be in her own classroom separated away from us and that's the safety plan but she keeps violating it she just can't stop thank you next is Amy Young related to non-renewal of contracts hi can

013you go real close how about now okay yeah hi my name is Amy I am a mother here of Brody young that attends a PTSD my son birdie was mainstream school until about 2019 when we visited astb campus we already fell in love with the campus and the culture we knew then what we had to do he wanted to go to asdb that year it was a struggle for him when he attended there because he did Miss home so the next year we knew that we had to move to Phoenix for him to attend a deaf school but also be home with his family we never had any issues with PTSD up until this year after Carrie verbally abused a student right in front of him he has been terrified he refuses to go to

014school he wants to switch to another school which my son was very excited to come to this school and now he hates it he wants to go to a mainstream school he's being bullied almost every day since this incident for standing up to his friend which is exactly what will happen if Carrie gemmer stays here and her contract is renewed next year he will be attending to a new school he does not feel safe here as we had to get a injunction of harassment against her so that my son could go to school and be safe this should never have happened if Annette Reitman would have responded fast and put her on an admin leave and communicated with the parents I also believe Annette reichmann's contract shouldn't be renewed she admitted to us that parent

015admitted to us parents that communication fell through the cracks on this which blows my mind there was no way that communication fell through the cracks when we emailed her and the board many times this is a serious situation this should have this should have been taken seriously since day one since then my art students were put on a safety plan it has been violated over three times since it sorry since then we had to resort to the law my son isn't safe here at PTSD so why should I send him here next year thank you next is Talisha and I can't read the last name Evans Nevins thank you okay coming here I thought I would be prepared but I guess I'm not um first of all we all know um what Annette reichman did

016and or excuse me what Carrie gamer did and her contract should not be renewed um she should not be in this school she's not safe she has been bullying students for years um not just my child but other other children as well um when my son had an altercation with another student that child said that he would tell Carrie on him as a threat and my son immediately shut down it is well known the way that she treats students and the way that she treats staff everyone everyone that she comes in contact with feels unsafe here it has been a constant struggle since the incident happened and I don't understand why she's still here um in a normal circumstance at a public school this wouldn't be happening I'm asking you to not renew Carrie and

017I'm asking you not to renew and that's Annette reichmann's contract either because she has not demonstrated good leadership as astb superintendent she should be providing transparent and consistent communication which she has not been for almost four months since this incident happened I have gotten two Communications the one was not personal it was just a form letter and names were switched out and it was sent out it went to three of us three of us mothers we all got the exact same letter and the walking the the next one the second one um was throwing excuse me it said Jill will see you which is throwing Jill under the bus because she didn't even she had just gotten here she wasn't here when the incident occurred and it was completely inappropriate it completely blew my mind

018she also has thrown George Martin under the bus at the last board meeting the comments that she said that were not addressed and Mr Martin said that they weren't true and I believe him I absolutely believe him if she does not communicate well she never has superintendent Martin I looked at his background he has been an educator he has done quite a bit of education and educational direct instruction as well as leadership and I don't think that Annette is capable of changing I don't think that she wants him here because he wants to change things the community some of you might have faith in her but I don't and I think it's enough of this it's time to change get these folks out of here and I'm glad that President negro was no longer here

019thank you thank you it's okay this is um I am not able to see the signing members because of the camera so I'm in a tough spot I can no longer see the public comment being made by signers can we get the camera maybe moved again that will do it um yeah she moved we can't it was signed a portion of the camera so as a deaf person on the board I'd like for it to be moved please where wherever I don't know you set it up that way I don't know what's going to be best for you as far as the monitors and people who are watching the Stream foreign can she stand at the podium please yes that's much better thank you is that okay with everyone else yeah okay next I have

020Jason Schmidt related to um sb1402 okay I'm checking my visibility here I think are we all good okay hello everyone and good afternoon congratulations to a new president sukeko all right this is my first time speaking to the board my name is Jason Schmidt and I am the Arizona Association of the deaf president I've been serving the community for almost four years for four years now I have been taking a pulse on community concerns and SB 1402 is a significant concern it is not in alignment with asdb at all asdb is designed to be a school for the deaf and blind it is supposed to be an environment that is friendly for children with sensory impairments and is supposed to be 100 accessible in American Sign Language mixing with other students that have different needs

021and don't use ASL is in conflict with our policy and our mission as a school for the deaf and blind for our students who are deaf blind or deaf and blind that is the the environment that we should um be preserving for them we have brought together the community and tried to work out a strategic plan and I know that the um that the board is working on that as well the staff is working on that but we want to keep this as a sacred place for our deaf Community there is no need to continue to change it we would like to see that it be kept the way that it is um leave well enough alone is what we're asking for our students should come to school here to feel safe they should be

022able to learn in their primary language and that should be our priority and this is the place in Arizona for our students to do that thank you thank you next is Marcy barenberg related to contracts and Senate bill 1402. hi um first I would like to make an extraction can you get real close to the mic please thank you first I would like to make a correction um I'm Eric cardenas's mom I have never been in contact with Carrie Carrie has never contacted any of us never apologized to any of the kids never called us the interpreting was wrong and that's okay he signs fast and often not very clearly um his entire comment is on the public site on the ASU website if you guys want the full of what he actually was trying

023to get across um I want to talk also about Carrie and her contract and how I feel it definitely should not be extended there have been comments that maybe she was having a bad day or something went wrong or she was super stressed absolutely not acceptable answers for coming in and berating a student not acceptable for continuing to break a safety plan whether or not she was given directive from the principal to break the safety plan she knew better three parents were compelled to go to see judges and get injunctions against harassment all three were granted by different judges in different courthouses who see it as necessary for protecting these children it's not these are not the first kids I have an envelope full of letters from people in the community that either graduated here

024currently work here had a student that was here or a student themselves who have written letters to say how she abused in the past or the abuses they have witnessed this school has continually allowed her to get away with this Behavior they have been informed and I have the notarized letters from people stating that they informed the school of this as far as SB 1402 I think that would be a huge detriment to the school president Nigro last time mentioned how we're not necessarily thriving on an academic level so it's not like we're setting some amazing standard that every other Disability should want to come here to to get to we need to continue to grow the program here and get those kids all up to Pace get them to where they're all able to

025go out into the workforce and be ready I don't know the numbers I didn't verify how far behind students here are I don't know how accurate his statements were made but there is no reason to bring in additional disabilities water down the student population here and water down the sign language available to the students on this campus this school needs to remain fundamental to these kids my son desperately wants to stay here for the next seven years I have severe concerns about this as it is and it's very hard to tell him yes you will be able to stay here and it's absolutely not going to happen if it becomes a Dumping Ground for any student who iesp didn't work out in their home District thank you next I have Doris Waltman related to contracts

026good afternoon asdb board I stand before you today to share what I see happens can you get a little closer to the mic please better yeah thank you thank you I stand before you today to share what I see happening to the itinerant program Jay Johnson has done an exceptional job bringing the itinerant program together practices and procedures professional conduct and professional practices have been his Focus as directed by the asdb administration the decision to eliminate Jay's position in my opinion is a way to avoid any discussion and input from the staff who have seen the positive outcomes from his leadership in addition since the start of the year the Administration has appropriated staff from the itinerant program for their own use they did not do their due diligent in finding out all the things

027that the administrative secretaries do for all the systems to run smoothly positions have all gone to the upper Administration all of the work is now left to less staff they are gutting the itinerant program piece by piece some of our staff are even performing one and a half jobs since the beginning of the year the assistant superintendent has splintered the regional directors and strip J of the ability to continue on the integration of the program the region II director reports to the assistant superintendent who then makes decisions on incomplete and inaccurate information this has resulted in increased stress to many of the staff in the other regions who have picked up and covered Region 2 responsibilities the assistant superintendent has and continues to demonstrate biases against people and programs to the detriment of the agency

028he has stripped off the interpreters from the regions which further fractures the itinerant program in cohesion and collaborative services to districts I've been with the agency since 1980. I have never seen the agency so fractured with such poor communication and I mean communication that is back and forth not just information this is not a place where people's Knowledge and Skills have been appreciated our staff is stressed at the lack of communication of what will be happening in the itinerary programs the teachers and the staff do have other choices and this Administration complains they're having a hard time recruiting this is exactly the reason why please reach out to the itinerant staff who provide the direct services to our districts and students you will learn a lot about what has been happening and all the positive

029changes that Jay has done to bring us together and improve the quality and consistency of services thank you the rest of the comments have been submitted via the Internet on the website and are available um on on the website so you can read everything there but um the theme was pretty much the same across the board did I miss one Astrid oh she did all right Astrid come back up I think she said 7.01 I think sorry 7.01 okay thank you so much um I just wanted to cover one more topic 7.01 I feel like this is very critical um public information for our community to have that I learned just today this is with Miss Donna Williams and her summary report um it was it was very fascinating to read this was the first

030time I learned that the community can be involved with and reach out to the ombuds person I didn't know that we often Talk Amongst ourselves and we have somewhat fragmented communication and information coming through and I'm thrilled to know that Donna is available to the community also in reading her report I learned that she is establishing focus groups for conversation and sharing of information which I think will be a wonderful asset to communication communication keeps coming up as something that the agency is struggling with so I'm thrilled that Miss Williams is new to us fairly recently from what I understand in July and is going to be making some great changes so I wanted to in front of everyone also request that there be a focus group which includes the community alumni who attended these

031schools before and former teachers parents I'm hoping already have a focus group as well but we would all love to be able to talk to Miss Williams and discuss some very significant issues one of them being the behavior in the classroom of a teacher whose name has already been mentioned also the division within the community so I am formally asking Miss Williams for those focus groups thank you thank you Astrid um and again the rest of the comments have been posted online and are available for the public view I do want to say something in regards to Senate Bill 1402 we received a lot of feedback um online regarding that oh I missed sorry somebody else um but Senate Bill 1402 please continue to contact your legislators it's important that they hear this as well

032and hold on I know that I have done yep there I know that I have PV jams as well I'm jumping all over the place sorry about that and PB um if you'd like to cover both topics we'll give you eight minutes to do that thank you president of the board superintendent and board members assistant superintendents Martin and Cooper and superintendent reichmann thank you for allowing me the opportunity to stand here and make a comment today first I want to talk about 6.16 George Martin's contract I'm specifically asking that you please not renew and I will give an explanation I have been very disappointed with how he has processed student and parent complaints there's a specific person counselor on campus using their role as a staff member to support their child in continuing to bully

033other students including my son who's on this campus we escalated that report violation of the safety plan at multiple instances we elevated that to Jill who elevated that to assistant superintendent Martin who is her supervisor we had a meeting with him and we were given [Music] reassurances that we would be providing resources and support that did not happen I also wanted to discuss the Dual role there are staff who have students children on this campus and that has led to a conflict of interest in working in their role as a staff member and their role as a parent and I was told that that would be addressed but it has not been and I have seen my son's safety plan repeatedly violated so I would like to see assistant or excuse me superintendent reichmann involved

034to finally get to resolution of this unfortunately now we have this pattern on campus of safety plans being violated for multiple students and multiple instances and it has come to the capacity of assistant superintendent Martin's ability to resolve these situations and they have not been resolved and there is student safety concern for multiple students I also want to identify a policy that was excuse me I identified policy that needed to be addressed in terms of conflict of interest that was never actually addressed so I'm asking that his contract please not be renewed next I would like to address 7.06 policy j i i student complaints they should be reported and completed within 30 days but there is no information provided to parent per policy so where is the parent involvement or reporting to the parent

035as to what the incident and resolution was that should be that language should be included in the policy as well so that parents are included in that communication regarding the ombuds person same policy jii students need clear access to the ombuds person students also should have access to policies there is no ASL interpretation or translation of any of the policies or explanation of procedures in terms of how students can file complaints or how students can contact contact the ombuds person so I ask that you please include that in the process students should have access in their first language to policy information Keb is the next policy I'd like to talk about this talks about resolution and resolutions being reported but to whom it doesn't give resolution to parents there is no mention in that policy

036about staff who have students on this campus and the potential conflict of interest that has caused as a result of their dual role there should be policy guidance on how to address dual role for an individual who is a parent as well as a staff member when their child is interacting with other students especially if their own child is disciplined or has been reported as a bully there needs to be procedure in place on dealing with that BCB is the next policy I'd like to address there is language about conflict of interest spousal limitations not having the spouse of an employee on the board and that significantly limits who is able to participate from the community from the deaf Community from the blind Community those communities are already very small and I think that that

037language needs to be removed and again there should be more language related to conflict of interest regarding dual role in varying situations my opinion and my suggestion is also to have a referral to ars38-501 through 510. Iha talks about focus of reading and language fluency in my opinion the focus should be less on reading for our very young children Kinder or preschool through Elementary age and should be focused more on expressive ability and receptive language ability communication ability expressing emotions once they are able to communicate in all of those key elements then we can move to reading they need that language Foundation First in being able to understand Concepts communicate their feelings if they can't how can we expect them to move forward and immediately start reading we can't so I would ask you to

038reconsider how that is worded and emphasize communication and it's critical foundation and language development Iha as again I noticed under h we're removing health and safety education and I would like to understand why that is important we need to teach our students about their own health and their safety especially regarding sex education and even more importantly safety related to relationships please do not remove that piece of Education observing holidays I noticed that there's no mention of deaf Awareness Week and I'm wondering why there is no deaf awareness noted in that there's no mention of white cane day there's no awareness for blind or visually impaired um so I would encourage you to indicate or excuse me to recognize those in policy as well last but not least lb I recommend that you as a board

039consider removing the language that states um excuse me for The Interpreter remove the language from the last board special session that was held last May that required the ability to end contracts without the board's approval I'd like to give that Authority back to the superintendent and the leadership team allow them to do their job I do request that if the superintendent does intend to not renew a contract or let it lapse to just let the board know thank you for your time thank you moving on to item 1.03 the superintendent's report um your name you're a non-agenda item so that's later on in the um in the agenda okay are we ready for the superintendent's report good afternoon president neifle members of the board the asdb board assistant superintendent George Martin an assistant superintendent Cooper

040and the members of the community here this afternoon with us I really appreciate you all taking the time to come to our board meeting and the time to talk with us about all of your concerns thank you for that I would like to take some time to thank two previous board members first is David Nigro he started on the asdb board early 2016. and he served on the board for a total of seven years he was the board policy expert and he reviewed almost all of our revisions of policies so he would review those policies before they were presented to the board for approval when he became board president he led the board to develop the Strategic plan in 2021 we have been using that strategic plan to give us direction for the future years

041I would also like to thank Stephen p v Jance for his two years of service on the board as well he just resigned because of a new job position as you all know during his two years PV was an active member involved in reviewing board materials he was involved in discussions he asked questions and also contributed many ideas so we really appreciate his service on our board so I just wanted to bring some appreciation because I know that this time is volunteer this is your time that you are volunteering to the agency you are not paid to do this work as members of the board and so thank you it is interesting you just heard from Harvey Goldstein and he just stole my thunder so to speak because I did plan to talk about our

042board's policies and the exact same policies that he has pointed out they those policies really spell out the role and responsibilities of the board of directors and the role and responsibilities of the superintendent so I will go ahead and comment on that as well now our policy says when you look at the Arizona Constitution and you look at the Arizona statutes you all are given the authority to govern asdb as an agency that's your responsibility so you have three functions within that responsibility the first function is legislation legislative excuse The Interpreter and that means you develop policies for the agency the second function is the executive function that is run the running of the agency and I will come back to that a little bit later third function is the evaluation you all evaluate the

043agency's programming and the agency's superintendent so how you all evaluate the agency's programming our successes and providing education support and services to students that is our strategic plan so if you look at our strategic plan it has very specific measurements and those measures depend on the data and what the data shows whether or not we are successful and it also shows what areas for improvement we have going back to the second function the executive function that per policy is delegated to me as superintendent I am the CEO of the agency it is my responsibility to implement policies and to follow the direction that you the board give us so the everyday operations of the agency has been given to me as my responsibility every major decision that happens throughout the agency is my decision as

044superintendent and that is my role and responsibility in guiding this agency so the board and the superintendent work together collaboratively and it is very important for that to happen in order for the agency to be successful and the agency must be successful for our students to be successful so today's meeting we are is a critical meeting because we are talking about contracts we have two kinds of contracts discussed here tonight one is the leadership team contracts so your decision about the leadership's contracts will impact the future and the direction that we go so it is very important when we look at the leadership contracts it includes both assistant superintendents it includes the principles of both campuses and the directors of our programs so you see the extensive list on your agenda most of those names

045you'll recognize you have seen them from years past one name is not there this year and that name is Jay Johnson he is the director for itinerant services and he did submit his resignation as for a June 30th 2023 effective date so we at this time are not planning to replace his position however we are open to have that discussion again as you know we have two new principles both of them are in their first year and I am recommending that both of their contracts be renewed for a second year starting next fall we have four new names they're not new directors to the agency but this is the first time they are being brought to the board on a contract basis so I will name them first we have Oren Chekhov excuse the interpretive

046pronunciation he's directors of the organizational development division second we have Lisa yankarelli she is the director of blind programs third we have Jennifer Scarborough she is the director of death programs and last we have Aaron Moya who is the director of media and so those four contracts will be brought to you for approval and the intent is to offer contracts to all four of them there is one person that I recommend not to have their contract renewed for the next for the following year and while I make that recommendation I do not take it lightly it was after much thought and a lot of review of documentation and gathering information and putting that all together before I made that recommendation so if necessary I will discuss that more in depth later but I will stop

047there for now the final thing I would like to mention is that you all will hear from Maria Murphy later on talking about the recent legislative information and updates we have been quite active in the legislative sessions and a lot has been going on sb1402 popped up out of nowhere we had no idea that was going to happen we've had to move quickly and we've had to reach out to the community but we really need your approval to allow us to move forward against this bill we need your support for this one so that concludes my report to the board I'm now available if you have any questions are there any questions for superintendent regman Annette I do have one follow-up um in in your report you mentioned that you have other items in relationship

048to why you are not offering a contract would that be something if we should go into executive session I believe that we must have that discussion in the public session okay all right thank you [Music] seeing and hearing no questions I'm going to go on to 1.04 the assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction report thank you board president governing board members our last board meeting um board member Jance gave a request to support the principals I walked away from that meeting thinking we have a lot of directors and leaders that need support in this agency I work with them day to day hand in hand so we sent out a survey to the director's principals to get feedback after that we held a workshop to build a support plan structure to support them through the next

049year um some of that structure I put in in play um and they gave a lot of feedback their feedback was actually spot on so we looked at having uh three meetings to Center our educational resources beginning of the year middle of the year and end of year meeting they're called bully Moline oy these meetings we will discuss how their goals and plans line up to the Strategic plan what type of resources they will need to carry that out their Staffing operational considerations this is to allow us to get ahead and not be so reactive but operate a little bit more proactively a lot of these issues that are coming up we're um we're addressing them since I've been here just as they just go off we also talked about a one of the big

050issues concerns that we needed Focus we talk about having a state of the agency kickoff meeting which is a Statewide meeting that focuses our Direction our purpose of where we're going with this agency where we're going with curriculum and instruction that will also help the directors and help with their teams as well as far as support we stress the importance of ideation sessions time for directors to get together to brainstorm to talk shop to talk about best practices I know as a leader when you're in day to day you do not have time to do that and those meetings are very important for supporting the leaders um looking in how we could also support those directors we need superintendent development as a Cabinet we need to understand what it means to be a leader what

051it means to run a school I know that firsthand nothing that I hear from the directors or principals surprises me but we need training to be able to understand what that means we've had some difficult conversations with the former principal of PTSD that was not supported so that's one of the ways that we'll support that I've also built into that plan director and principal PD they should identify as well as my office as well training at at least a minimum of 18 hours more preferably they have to get out and develop themselves they have to get out and tour schools they have to get out and evaluate programs and pick things apart again I know that firsthand educational Improvement it's one-on-one you have to do it we also one of the asks that they ask

052is um we meet one-on-one they respect and love to have one-on-one meetings monthly when I came on the agency they were happening weekly they felt a little bubble wrapped and so we have a a pretty awesome communication structure set up we also talked about a gam General administrators meeting that would kick off um about three times a year this also serves to as a source to communicate what we're doing in the agency across the board it serves to keep us focused it serves to keep us going in that direction once we lay this Foundation it's it's the problem that we do not have a foundation to support what our kids deserve so we also talked about um a retreat for educational leaders I'm a firm believer in teaming and Retreat and supporting them in more

053ways than one some of the feedback that also came out of this there were some other things but they wanted education to be the focus in the heart of the agency to drive the agency to drive the things that we need to do for our students what's happening in the classroom um there's somewhat of an imbalance of how this works currently and the education component kind of takes the back seat um I I see that I'm a true blue educator I've done it for 23 years so that's where my heart lies with Educators and what they do um this is not limited um there is a chart we put together of where how this would fall throughout the year so this is just for us collecting that survey having a workshop um and getting some

054things together um so when four former board member Jance asked that question in addition to the principles I mean they they have the principal coach but there's a lot that goes into supporting leaders and what we're doing right now is um makes no sense it's reactive and they're fighting a really tough fight so my hats off to them so that was the ask that I put together I would be happy to email that chart out to you of how we would support those leaders how we would support the foundation of asdb and the education the goal I think from all of the leaders is they all wanted this picture to change no one believed that our students could not achieve and that's certainly my my belief in principle all people have the capacity to learn

055it's just the way in which they learn that we have to figure out that's our job as Educators so they share that belief but there's also a lot of other things that we will put into there and continue to meet to build that support structure so thank you to board member Jance for that ask former board member Jance it is a complicated picture but we have picked it apart so thank you any questions any questions for assistant superintendent Martin moving on then to 1.05 assistant superintendent of agency operations and Support Services report assistant superintendent Cooper good afternoon board president kenniffel superintendent reichmann assistant superintendent Martin members of the board asdb community and staff members as the agency operations and support services departments collaborate more with the educational program and work through addressing their educational priorities

056and needs for our students we continue to work on addressing this is not a valid menu option We are continuing to improve the agency's organizational culture and identify effective Resource Management strategies which aligns with the agency strategic plan the team is very busy supporting each of the educational programs with planning the needs for the end of the school year we're also working on completing various other projects which consist of standardizing annual hours for our 10-month staff members restructuring the compensation and salary schedules for grades 10 and above aligning student accounts with staffing needs and doing a deeper dive into the cost per student by disability categories we're still working on transitional changes and filling staff vacancies that occurred as a result of the agency-wide administrative support realignment where we did centralize various positions within the

057business services operations and HR departments but we also developed a more formalized Staffing structure and structure excuse me for all of our directors and principals speaking of Staff vacancies we just completed our first two agency-wide Career Fairs which were held on the Phoenix and Tucson campuses so thank you to all the Departments that played active roles in organizing and making both of those events successful we've gotten a couple of new asdb hires to fill some of those vacant staff positions throughout the agency and as you can see through the Business Services report we still have a number of vacancies to fill so that not only addresses recruitment but we also need to be able to focus on retention as well of our staff members we have been given the green light to continue to move

058forward with the new student information system implementation with Synergy we will be hosting the student information system on our Azure Cloud via a virtual server instead of this actually being done by edupoint because of this change we have had to do a contract Amendment with the state procurement office and we are working on finalizing the project investment justification with the state department of administration so kudos to Business Services I.T and all those departments that are working through that new structure as we Implement a new student information system for the agency last but not least I am asking assistants from each of you board members and that is for at least two of you to at least volunteer to be on the finance committee the only remaining member right now is Mike Gordon so we need

059to fill two spots recently vacated by Aaron wanders and PV chance so feel free to let superintendent reichmann or myself know if you are interested so that's at least two volunteers we're looking for so at this time there are no other updates and I'm open to answer any questions or respond to any comments that you may have at this time thank you any any comments or questions thank you very much moving on to um 2.01 the consent agenda items before we move ahead with an motion I would like to pull policies BCB and lb from 7.06 and discuss them separately from the consent agenda Linda has her hand up as well this is board member both I would also like to pull 7.06 from the consent agenda the whole thing the whole thing yes all

060right any other that's all from me I would like to pull item 6.16 okay um so then do I have a motion um to approve the consent agenda item including 3.01 5.01 6.01 602 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.146.15 6.17 and 7.07 okay do I have a second a second um motion has been moved and seconded all those in favor say aye aye opposed is it Gordon there Mike are you there I am I approved awesome thank you okay moving on to 3.02 approval of new District agreements assistant to superintendent Martin thank you for president we have a contract for hermosa Montessori Charter and Region Three for approval yeah I moved I moved to uh approve the new contract a second all those in favor say aye aye opposed

061hearing none motion carries okay uh 4.01 Finance Report with Kimberly bitrich of the Director of Business Services questions good afternoon board president kennefo assistance superintendent reichmann assistant superintendents Cooper and Martin members of the board asdb community and staff our most recent finance committee meeting was held last Thursday February 23rd with board member Mike Gordon also in attendance for superintendent reichmann and assistant superintendent Cooper we also discussed this December 2022 and 2021 Financial reports the January 2023 and 22 budget to action reports the financial reports are also provided to you in a more condensed version the total student count for February 1st 2023 is 2119 a decrease of 59 students when compared to February 1st 2022 total count of 21.78 the site-based student account has remained the same however there were decreases of 21 in the

062cooperatives 23 in preschool and 15 in the birth to three programs as of February 1st we had 468 FTE which includes 8.5 ft FPC at that time we employed 707 employees only 135 are full-time with a 1.0 FTE there were currently 167 vacancies agency-wide the highlight of the January 23 financial report shows the revenue of 30.6 million was 1.6 million higher than January 2022. revenue of 29 million the major difference is the increase use of the general funds year-to-date we have already spent 900 000 of the 1.1 million appropriated for transportation the budget fiscal year 23 obligated expenditures of 37.3 million were 3.5 million higher than budget fiscal year 2022. of 33 8. the increases are in salaries contracted services including Transportation FBC one-to-one nurses and repair and maintenance for the fleet the 350 000

063transfer is to adoa for Budget physical year 23 for food service equipment improvements at both Tucson and Phoenix campuses the program increases our 800 000 at pdsd 500 000 at Tucson and 1.1 million in the administration and Statewide services in addition to the expenses mentioned earlier the blind programs were moved from the Tucson campus to the administration and Statewide services the second quarter Financial reports reflect an increase in cash on the deposit with the state treasurer of 4.9 million the major difference is an increase of the prop 301 funds of 2.3 million and the Cooperative service funds of 2.4 million this concludes my report of the financial status and I'm available for any questions thank you any questions thank you thank you moving on to item 6.16 intent not to offer fiscal year 2024 employment

064contract to George Martin uh this is Lynn um I would like to have a little discussion I believe I've talked to a number of Staff members who have been very positive about George's performance and these are some of the upper level staff members um I also feel that this is a big agency he had a lot to learn and was told in December that that he would no longer he would not be offered a contract um I think there's a lot a lot to learn about we we gave a net time to learn uh the agency and I think you know given the parameters what the goals are what the expectations are I'd like to see how he can grow and how he can pull the agency forward especially with the background he has thank

065you Lynn um does anybody have any additional comments go ahead yes I would like to ask superintendent reichmann her perspective of George Martin's performance as superintendent as assistant superintendent I'd like to understand her perspective and why you're not recommending the renewal of his contract assistant superintendent George Martin started at the end of June I had High Hope high hopes I thought he was a good choice I recognize that it would take time for him to learn about the agency and about our system and about deaf and blind education also knew that he had a lot of experience in general education that he would be bringing to us but then in mid-semester in the fall we had a series of crises starting with the principle of PTSD resigning essentially quitting and not able to continue her

066work so immediately we had to find a replacement principal to principal we then have a November 4th situation which just blew up and we were heading and needing to address that it took me about six weeks and that's all I did in those six weeks was a dress that blow up related to the student and the teacher so it wasn't until December where I began to think the the rest of the year through so mid-year review at that time was held in December it was a time for me to look at our leadership team and to see their work and to review their smart goals and what they have done so far and that is when I finally began to realize yes George is new is new he does have a lot to learn there

067were many different little things that have occurred so if you add them all up and you actually see a pattern there are different kinds of issues but they all are tied together and I have the sense that he does not have a sense of urgency so that is what I had communicated with him in December after that again after full consideration in going back to all of the meetings that we held that we had on a weekly basis I had agendas I had items to review I pulled them all I put them all together and I reviewed all of the documents that I had from these meetings and I pulled out major themes there were four outlying themes first is failure to lead second failure to identify risks to the agency third failure to properly

068communicate and fourth failure to give support to his leadership team those were the four themes I can give you specific examples I have an eight page synopsis of the work that we did and the time and the consideration in reviewing all the documents that I have compiled together I've actually never done this before to be honest I've never had to in my years I want to say since 1985 in the years that I have been a supervisor of so many individuals over the years I have never done a deep review before because this is such an important decision for the agency this is board member above thank you so much for that information Annette I do have full confidence in your judgment and your assessment your ability to fairly evaluate an individual and see that

069full picture um I'm not there on a daily basis to see what's going on but I do have confidence in your decision making and your recommendation not to renew so I will give my support to your decision to not renew his contract so that we can move forward move onward to uplift and continue to improve our agency at the leadership level and U.S superintendent need to be able to do that rather than be distracted by those incidents that come up on a daily basis your intention your attention should not be diverted to things like that we need to leave you free to run the agency so can I make a motion okay this is board member Rove I move that we do not renew assistant superintendent Martin's contract for the next school year foreign I

070will second all those in favor say aye aye opposed nay Mike motion carries uh we moved down to agenda item 7.01 the Ombudsman report good evening board president nifel board members superintendent reichmann and assistant superintendents Cooper and Martin asdb family and Community I am honored to be here presenting the very first Ombudsman report it's it's hard to believe I've been here since July that is the truth I have been here since July um and so I just wanted to call your attention to some of the activities that the ombuds person has been engaged in since that time I mean obviously the first several weeks of my time here I really spent time getting to know the agency in its leadership team and really getting a sense of of where I would fit in in terms

071of my role and what some of the needs were I also had to kind of fill in the structure of the office complete with our mission and all the documents and things that we would need for people to use to access the service and so there was a lot of kind of researching that was happening and a lot of creating of of things that I would use in this role in that time period but once I kind of got up and running and started actually engaging members of the asdb community I'm going to share with you just kind of in the aggregate what I've been seeing and the work that I've been doing so to access the services well first of all we created a website page I know the community is not aware I

072heard comments about that there is actually a full page on the asdb website about the ombuds person and also the form that you can fill out to access the services so we wanted to be able to have a way of capturing kind of usage and so that's one of the ways that we're able to do that so users are directed to fill out the form when seeking Ombudsman services and that form really captures information for me not only to give me a sense of kind of what the needs are but also so that I can report back to the superintendent and the board as to what the usage is so we capture name title we talk we capture just Minor Details about the concern and then I'm able to reach back out to those individuals

073and then set up a time for us to take a deeper dive into what those needs are and so from the time period of July of last year to December of last year that six-month period I'd probably um had and there's probably a time where there were people who reached out to me who didn't fill out the form probably because it wasn't fully operational at that time so I wasn't able to capture everything but for the most part the 20 users during that time period I'll just give you a breakdown of kind of who they were so of those 20 requests that I recorded through that process 18 or 90 percent were staff asdb staff five percent or one was from admin and then I also had a parent contact me during that time so

074of those individuals most people were reaching out to me about interpersonal conflict that's not terribly surprising um I've been a mediator for 20 years and generally when people come to see me it's some interpersonal issue that they're having with another individual so that wasn't terribly surprising at all three of those individuals wanted to hear more about the formal complaint process or were either in the formal complaint process pursuant to asdb policy a couple of those individuals had procedural concerns and actually there's been more individuals that had questions about process and procedure and I'll talk about that a little bit later informal complaints as well hey I'm having a problem with my supervisor you know dynamic issues like that and then policy concerns and then the seven other requests I'll talk about in a minute so

075the the seven other issues are really about I would say it covered the gamut really but if I could summarize it it was scheduling issues so it was kind of like how work is distributed how much work is distributed those kinds of questions personal safety issues unfair treatment issues and things of that nature a small number of those requests were people who were like recurring users who had a preliminary conversation with me we developed some strategies and some next steps and then they engaged in those next steps and they came back and said you know reporting on how that went it went well or if it didn't go well and then we talked again about what they could do next and so my Approach has always been not necessarily resolution because my role here is

076much greater than that but really being helpful number one being an ear for people which I think is helpful and also getting people um to the next step of where they're trying to go so they're here and they're trying to get here how do I get them there and I do that by listening to them and then by letting them know what asdb policy has to say about that and if they're not familiar with it I will share that with them and then I'll send them a copy of it so that they're aware as well and so my goal is always to that people leave the ombuds person's office better than when they arrived that's always been my overarching goal um so regarding the people that didn't fill out a form there's also an ombuds

077person email address and people do use that as well and sometimes they're able to just ask that question and I can answer the question so it's it's fairly routine to do that and that happens you know several times in the week and so I was able to capture some of that information as well but it didn't really result in a consultation or an appointment outside of that email exchange and so I just wanted you to be aware that that is happening those kinds of interactions are happening as well um in terms of current projects it's already been alluded to about the focus groups you know just based on what I've been hearing and some of the subject matters I wanted to have a greater understanding because I have a small subset obviously of asdb people

078so I want to have a greater understanding of kind of the climate and so I took a look at the employee satisfaction survey which was administered before I was an employee here at asdb but you know it was very insightful right and there were several buckets that I thought that the comments fell into and certainly one of those overarching buckets was communication we've heard that a lot this evening and so I recognize that as well even in the small subset of folks that have used the ombuds person services so what I thought was focus groups would be a great idea to kind of take a deeper dive into what that really means I don't know that employee satisfaction surveys really get at what people are really talking about when they say they're not being communicated

079to or communication is not effective I mean that's such a huge topic that there's always a need to drill down deeper and focus groups allow us to do that so I made that proposal to the superintendent and she agreed that that would be a great idea to really get some actionable things that we can do in communication something that an employee satisfaction survey doesn't necessarily reveal so in the coming weeks um we're going to put out information about how to be a part of the focus groups we've got our questions already set out and we've got our groups I got some more suggestions to add to those groups and I will discuss that with the superintendent but we're going to move forward and I hope that there is some interest in participating because I think

080that there's a need for people to have a different environment other than a survey to express their concerns so I look forward to engaging the community around creating a more effective Communications at the agency so overall in that period of time I logged in over 200 hours establishing the office and protocols as well as addressing the needs that came my way I think the volume and tenor of work was what I expected but I all also think that it will increase over time obviously this is a very public explanation of what I do and so as people become more aware I think that the usage will also increase as well um so for now I'm collecting data to report out every six months but if the usage increases maybe that becomes quarterly maybe it becomes

081monthly but I think right now twice a year will probably be sufficient for the work that I've done thus far so that concludes my reports I'm happy to answer any questions are there any questions yes hi this is Linda Bove hello Miss Williams hello I am thrilled to know that you have this plan in place to implement these focus groups I am often approached by various members of the community because as a board member I am a representative of the community and there are a lot of things that I am being asked to address lots of different directions that I'm being pulled in so I'm very happy to see that you're establishing these focus groups and I do want to see the the community involved in that I'm looking at the pillars of our strategic

082plan and it says excellence in communication and relationships in my life growing up as a deaf person communication has always been an issue unfortunately um communication between the deaf and hearing communities has been challenging and I suppose that's life but I would love to see asdb make the best of that situation by bringing those groups together helping us to avoid misunderstandings that um often occur in miscommunication we really need to drill down into like you said what communication means let's get to the heart of where those problems are and I think that those focus groups will really help you and the agency to see where those issues are much more clearly so I'm very uh very much looking forward to seeing the participation um also under priority three it says engage the community under excellence

083and communication so I would love to see improved Community engagement and I look forward to seeing you over the next few months and see what you're able to bring to the board thank you looking forward to learning more thank you yes thank you thank you so much and noticing the time we're going to take a 10-minute break to allow the interpreters and our cart reporter some down time we will resume at 5 45. foreign where's it at foreign it's 5 46 now do we want to get started pretty soon can I please get someone to interpret to the audience I'm needing microphones now okay we are back in session and we are moving on to 7.02 an information item the legislative update Maria Murphy director of policy and government relations good afternoon acting President Kennedy

084full members of the board superintendent reichmann and assistant superintendents and members of the audience so uh members of the board you have before you my abstract on the legislative update the first bill that I would like to discuss is House Bill 2642 as you are are all aware um this bill was introduced to as part of our request to update the transportation and capital outlay amounts that are within the institutional voucher on Arizona revised statutes title 15. um it was sponsored by representative cook he's a very strong Advocate very vocal on behalf of asdb but um unfortunately the bill did not receive a Committee hearing in the education committee um however we're not completely out of the game uh Governor Hobbs did actually propose our funding requests in the amount of one-time funding for education

085for next year's state budget so what the plan is right now is for me to continue to Advocate on behalf of the funding and go to individual members of the legislature talk to them about the importance of this funding request and that it is important that it not just be funded one time that we receive ongoing funding because we know the need for buses is not going to go away we know the need for building repairs is not going to go away so I what I will be doing is handing everybody information packets and asking each individual member of the of the legislature to please place this on their list of budget priorities when it comes time in May and June to start negotiating the state budget so we will see how that goes the

086next bill that I would like to brief you on is House Bill 2456 this is our continuation Bill colloquially it's known as our as our Sunrise bill and I actually have updates to offer even since I gave this abstract to Leticia last week so the bill did pass out of the house unanimously it was transmitted to the Senate that having been said it did receive a first read on Monday and it was assigned to a committee um however it was not assigned where we expected it to go we had anticipated that it was going to go to the Senate education committee instead it was assigned to the Senate government committee um it appears that asdb is the only agency who received an assignment to the government committee so this is a little bit unusual and

087I am trying to run down some additional information as to why it was placed in government instead of Senate education so we are but we are prepared to continue to advocate so that asdb can um have their uh their statute renewed for another eight years so um at this time does anybody have any questions for me about those two bills um yes Maria I my question is the same for both of them um what can the board do what can the community do to support you in these efforts at this time so thank you board member can I feel that's that's an excellent question so what I would always recommend is sending letters and making phone calls or even requesting meetings with your local legislators so find your state senator find your state representatives and

088continue to advocate for this funding issue and for asdb's continuation so um we you can find your legislator online at www.azledge.gov if you need the specific link please feel free to contact me and I'm happy to figure out who your local legislator is and and just get in there and and Advocate and um when the continuation Bill comes before the committee for a hearing we would love to see a really robust turnout in favor of a clean bill meaning to pass it as it's written as it's written not with not with any amendments okay and you will keep us up to date on that I commit to keeping you all up to date because the um the updates happen sometimes on a not just a day by day basis but it happens on a minute

089by minute basis so there there have been updates just between yesterday and today and I just received an update here in my chair about an hour ago and are these updates also posted on the website on the ascb website or on the AC ledge website on the asdb website I am not no we are not currently posting it on the asdb website we do have to be a little bit careful about the use of um State resources and state time to engage in advocacy activities at this time I am the designated public lobbyist for asdb and then Annette as the superintendent of asdb also has the ability to Advocate but um if parents the community students and staff would like to Advocate on behalf of this funding issue and on behalf of bills then it

090is something that they would need to make sure that they are doing on their own time and using their own resources so of course we encourage everybody to participate in the legislative process everybody has a voice but in particular for our staff we do have to be mindful that we're not expect sending public resources on advocacy activities thank you for that clarification does anyone else have any questions for her on those two yes yes I have a question about azleg dot gov um is I believe you have to register to comment in person to help the capital is that still true some folks have wanted to they thought it was easy to register to speak online but rather you have to go down to the Capitol and they have a kiosk or some sort of

091system that you have to register to and then after that you can then register to speak from your computer so that is something to keep in mind for our community especially when we're talking about the I get confused sunset sunrise whatever that one is called the sunrise Bill rather that you were just talking about the education committee has historically always been the committee for us but now being transferred to this government Community government committee rather I'm very interested in knowing why because we've been renewed for several different um iterations and yet now we're being moved over I'm very interested into finding out why what information have you been able to gather so um I I was able to speak to our Prime sponsors assistant earlier this afternoon and uh when I asked as to why

092we were told that the government committee and the education committee are both large committees and because asdb is a state agency and there was agency language in the bill that it could be assigned over to the government committee um what I find interesting about that is that there are other state agencies boards and commissions that um that are also going through the continuation process this legislative session and none of those agencies thus far have been assigned to the government committee uh so so that is unusual to me and um it is somewhat concerning to me so I am going to continue to keep a very close eye on the situation and I am in touch with um Senate staff I'm in touch with Senators themselves to try and figure out what exactly is going on

093so that we can come up with an effective strategy um when the bill comes up for a hearing are we likely to get more support from the education committee or the government committee um like you said this is odd and you have concerns are we less likely to get support from one of the other I don't have a pulse on that myself um I I cannot speak specifically to the government committee but I can speak to the education committee because I I know everybody on the education committee and I've met with them and worked with them um you know off and on for years and I do feel confident that we would have had a um a warm reception at the education committee I I am not as certain with the government Committee just because

094I have not had the opportunity to interact with them as frequently so it's a little bit difficult to predict okay I want to make sure that we don't get any surprises like 1402. yes and that was a bomb that was dropped on us yes and and how can we be prepared yes and and that is my concern as well which is part of the reason why I am um encouraging the community um students anybody who would be interested in taking part in the legislative process to please participate and you can participate by sending emails making phone calls coming down to the Capitol to be heard at at a committee meeting so you did ask about having to go down to the Capitol and signing into kiosks and um board member both what you're referring to

095is something called the request to speak system so the very first time that you want to log into the request to speak system that is something where you have to create that account at the kiosk at the Capitol once you have created that account at the Capitol then any member of the public has the ability to go ahead and file what's called a position of opposing supporting or neutral on any particular Bill and you can also include comments in that as well if you believe that you would like to actually come down and speak in in front of the committee you would have the ability to request that as well using the online system the request to speak system thank you for the clarification any other questions regarding those two uh Mike I have a

096quick question go ahead Mike hi Maria hi Mike hi I have a question just there's a certain level of ambiguity around 1402 when it came to public comments typically when it was at that cause I know that as it seemingly as an official position ASAP was neutral and and uh uh I think I don't think I saw other people who were in support or are certainly who are against the bill and I think from my position I didn't quite know how to respond if it was a board position or an AFE position as a centrality as and maybe you mentioned this before maybe it was and apologize if it's can you explain that a little bit to me please yes definitely it's an excellent question um as Annette previously mentioned we had no idea that

097this strike everything amendment was coming we found out about it at five o'clock on a Monday afternoon for a two o'clock Wednesday hearing and we were in a mad scramble to try to first get in with the Bill's sponsor to try to figure out what was her intention in introducing this language and then trying to tease out some of the potential consequences of this bill because everything happened so quickly I as the government relations director really do not have the authority to take an official position about an asdb Bill until the asdb board tells me what I what I can and cannot do so when I went up there on Wednesday to testify what I did was I explained that we filed neutral simply because the asdb board has not given me the authority to

098go ahead and file a support or opposed position having said that I did note that there were a lot of potential unintended consequences of this bill and even now two weeks later we are still teasing out consequences that we had not even thought of from two weeks ago and what I can tell you and what and what I feel confident in telling the board is that we know that the blind Community nfb is opposed to this we know that the deaf community in terms of Azad and NAD is opposed to this my counterparts in the um in the general special education Community have serious concerns the Arizona Department of Education has some serious concerns and then even as recently as day before yesterday we found out that the University of Arizona has concerns because this

099could potentially affect some of their students who are trying to get certificated through the intern certificate program so there's a lot of people who are extremely concerned and I have been trying to work with legislators on an individual basis to say guys this this bill is not quite ready for prime time we you know this this bill needs a lot of additional work if it even passes and um I I did also reach out to Senator wadsack and say senator wadsack we're willing to talk to you we want to continue to have these discussions with you because um I agree with Senator wadsack that funding of special education in this state is abysmal it's underfunded um and and I agree that we need to be doing more for special education students in the state of

100Arizona where we differ with great respect is whether this bill is the vehicle to go about addressing her concerns I personally do not believe that this is the appropriate vehicle to address her concerns but until you asdb board give superintendent reichman and myself the authority to go say no we were opposed um I have to work um a little bit more behind the scenes in a one-on-one does that answer your question yeah oh it certainly answers my question a follow-up okay um sure go ahead year to implement at the very least and even then would be very difficult but nonetheless what is current right now though um didn't something come out today around another hearing next week that that I don't know if the bill is is going to individual senators or you know I'm

101not really privy to this kind of uh process but is there something that's particularly current right now that was different than um than what occurred at the uh at the the hope to education hearing and then uh the one on the following Wednesday so I I am not aware of any other bill that has come up I hope there's no bill that's come up right now otherwise I'm gonna have to go and and take a look but um 1402 I'm associated with it I'm sorry I'm talking over you go ahead oh okay um so Senate Bill 1402 did pass out of the rules committee last week as being considered constitutional and in proper form and typically the next step for a bill like that after it is passed out of committee and after it is

102passed out of rules is for it to be placed on the consent calendar um if it is pulled off of the consent calendar it would go to something called Committee of the whole and Committee of the whole is basically where the entire floor the the entire Senate would debate the merits and drawbacks of the bill I have been watching the Senate agendas the committee of the whole agendas like a hawk since um since it passed out of rules the committee of the whole has not placed 1402 on its calendar they have adjourned for the rest of the week so now the earliest that it would be able to come back and be considered on the calendar would be this Monday before you um Brittany had her hand up as well oh yeah sorry let me

103process for one second um obviously Maria we are concerned about 1402. How concerned should we be about 24 56 and how concerned should the community be about 24.56 I'm concerned about 24 about about 24 56. um I I am I do not want to panic as of yet because there's just still a lot of unknowns is there anything that you can clarify since we do have a lot of the public here that has already spoken about 1402 is there anything you can share about 2456 with maybe the public to make the um so that maybe they can understand why you and we would be highly concerned about something as benign seeming as our sunrise sunset bill um well the reason that I would be highly concerned is because if the Senate does not pass this

104bill or if they do not hear the bill in committee then the bill will not pass it will not go to the governor's office and then technically asdb would Sunset meaning that we would roll up the sidewalks and all go home it would be the end of asdb in its current form um there but it's very premature I don't want to cause a panic but I do want the community the board and everybody to be aware that this is happening and we need to be watching and we need to be highly involved with the legislature so that they understand the importance of the work that asdb does and that it is absolutely critical that are that our Charter essentially be renewed for another eight years thank you Marianne you're welcome Linda this is Linda I

105have a question for Ade speaking of again 1402 I am curious because when we're looking at children with disabilities other than deafness blindness visual impairment Etc are there existing programs organizations schools that provide services and meet the needs of children with other disabilities under Ade and just this is more for informational purposes so the community is aware yes um there are other private schools specifically for other disabilities call it those are how how many roughly sorry Lynn how many roughly would you say programs schools 50 100 like what are we looking at Statewide you know I don't have that information but I could 96. oh there's 99 96. 96. 96. the differences they're private yes they're well they're also PL I'm sorry all of them are private they are um children are placed by their

106IEP team in the private school and the school district's pay yeah and the school districts pay for that placement correct okay okay and I just want to make that make sure that we're all clear on that that there are other programs that are meeting that need and um to co-opt asdb to provide those Services just doesn't make sense to me when they're already being provided and so now that you have confirmed for us that there are multiple programs um like Lynn said that districts are supporting um there are services available and it would be wonderful if we could be left alone to focus on serving deaf hard of hearing blind visually impaired deafblind students as a top priority in our school system um are quote sensory impaired children and that is what we do here

107thank you for that information Colette you're welcome Lynn did you have anything you wanted it okay um what do you need from us now I would absolutely love it if somebody would make a motion to allow me to file an official position I got you I would love to have the honor of moving that the board opposed Bill 1402 and direct the school to do is the same I second that all in favor say aye aye opposed I hearing none motion carries thank you here's my okay okay this is Mike did I ask Maria one more question of course you may um Maria is is it possible for Senator watsek to include 1402 into 2456. yes it is good amend 24 um theoretically it is possible and um that is that is a concern I

108think that's what I was referring to before this is board member both can you can you explain a little bit more of how that could happen give us an example I'm I'm seeing and hearing some chatter out in the audience as well so what are what are we saying that that could look like Maria um so that we know what to keep an eye out for so theoretically it is possible for a senator to file an amendment to amend 2456. and theoretically it is possible that it could include the language of 1402. so yes it theoretically it it is possible and that is a concern Maria um as part of your discussion for 2456 with the legislators can um is it your is it asdb's position that that passed cleanly without Amendment I would like

109to take that position yes especially since the board has already taken the position that we would be opposed to the language in 1402 then I think it would be a logical extension to say that we would be opposed to any amending and that it would be our preference our strong preference to see a clean bill clean being unamended passed as it's being presented and then with 1402 that it is not supported and not passed correct go ahead Brittany um so to kind of just so I can recap really quick what you're saying currently is even though we oppose 1402 um the senator can choose to add 1402 to our Sunrise bill and hinge the longevity of our school on if we will include 1402 is that correct that is correct and we are um but

110we don't know that that's going to happen true very true but we are concerned but we are concerned and I am actively investigating other avenues to make sure that our Sunrise bill passes cleanly so you would need us as the board to do a motion to support 2456 in its original form is that correct I am actually not certain if that it because you have already approved 2456 at the January board meeting in that form so I don't so I don't know if we would need a second motion for that I just really want to ensure that 2456 stays in its original form and that is our position and and you authorized me to take a position on that and you authorized me to do that in January and so my position is that the

111board authorized me to take a four position and the board's position on the language of that bill has not changed okay fantastic thank you that's how I interpret it so any other questions comments for Maria we're going to move on to 7.04 the discussion and possible action request to state legislator to adjust Group B weights for students with disabilities I'm going to guess Maria that that has something also to do with you actually um former board member Nigro requested that this item originally be placed on the agenda but um it actually dovetails very nicely with the discussion that we've already been having um you have the the abstract before you and you also received a copy of the Ade cost study that was commissioned last year and in conclusion with that cost study um we're

112seeing that current special education funding it's just not sufficient to to address the actual student needs so special education students on average are underfunded by about five thousand six hundred dollars per child per year so um what what uh what board member Nigro wanted to do was to just highlight that for the asdb board to say this is this is not just an issue for you know deafblind low vision hard of hearing children this is an issue Statewide and and again this dovetails with what I think um Senator wadsack is with the point that she's trying to get across is that special education funding is is not adequate and um and that more needs to be done for special education students in the state of Arizona so we that that's something that we can agree

113on so that and that is why um former board president Nigro wanted this brought to the attention of the of the asdb board at this time is there any action you need us to take on that as a board an Eiffel uh simply because of the fact that there's not an active bill out there right now that is specifically addressing the group b funding but if there is a bill that starts moving through the legislature that specifically addresses Group B funding um for instance like the budget bills or something of that nature then it would be good if we could just go ahead and file a position because we should be filing a position to support our counterparts in school districts and charters because they support us so we should be supporting them I'm not

114sure if that answered my question would I mean I part of me feels like if we would motion to allow you to take a position in support of increasing or adjusting Group B weights for students with disabilities Statewide that would give you the latitude if you should see a budget bill or something to that effect surface yes it would it would give me latitude and it would give me authority to to take a position and I informally take positions when people ask me but if you want me to actually file an official position testify at a Committee hearing or something like that it it would be better if I had the the boards Authority I so move that do I have a second I'll second all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed hearing

115none one opposition um motion still carries moving on to I believe we are now on to 7.05 foreign introduction and possible discussion of policies Abe A to Z so um board members you have before you the policies which are being brought up for uh introduction and possible discussion what I can tell you is that these policies are being brought forth in response to the um the report from the auditor general the recommendations were made in regards to our complaint policies that we needed to have timelines associated with those policies so that we were responding in a relatively timely manner and that is essentially what these what these policies are doing these are our complaint policies and the the change that is being made is is we are adding on a timeline to respond by Maria

116in in regards to the comments we heard um for example on jiin I believe it was Keb um is it possible to add language to make sure that parents are parents and or Guardians are kept in into that communication Loop absolutely if that's if that is the sense of the board then certainly I'm happy to do that yes please um move in that direction okay thank you moving on to 7.06 um which was pulled from the consent agenda I would like to take this policy by policy and vote on them separately starting with policy BCB which is the conflict of interest policy I did not print it but I did submit um some recommendations for amendment to this policy to include the board members are supposed to be signing a conflict of interest statement upon

117their appointment but I think that it should be reviewed on an annual basis to make sure that it's current as well as moving out go ahead if I could oh I'm sorry I don't mean to interrupt you I'm in support though of what you just said because I serve on other school boards and I have to sign that contract on an annual basis to make sure that you're doing that self-reflection to make sure that there is no conflict the second part of that is I would like to see the language about spouses serving on the board mirror the dependent language and that because we again this is a very small community that we serve and we are for lack of a better word cutting off our nose despite our face by eliminating any potential good

118board candidates so I would like to see that language altered so that we can consider that with Governor appointment and board approval my only concern with that is that board member would have to abstain from a lot of the voting that had to do with staff and that we would not have a full board vote on some of the the items that come up and historically we have had folks abstain from those types of things and I but I still feel it's better if we can have a full board vote rather than yeah two or three people can't vote on any staff right this is board member I yes I I understand your opinion but like um Dr Harvey goodstein had mentioned um and also PV and I have seen for my own self um

119the people from the deaf Community who are qualified to serve on the board are often the same people who have worked at the schools um we know best where to draw the line we are professionals and we've become accustomed to drawing those lines for example like Dr goodstein said he taught math at gallaudet University while his wife was working within another department of the university and today we see all these PhD doctor and doctor spousals but they're working at the same University because the community is quite small but we value those people with expertise in this field so I think with that conflict of interest on an annual basis being required we simply don't have the plethora of candidates like a hearing board would have when it comes to the governor's office or appointments for

120other boards or even running for your local school board there's a lot of different candidates that people can choose from but when it comes to representation from our community we shouldn't limit ourselves and so that's why I would like to see that language changed so that instead of prohibiting any sort of working relationships that we maintain professional boundaries I'm a member of the community but it's not that I can't represent the community while I'm here on the board I am a representative of the community and in that I have to be a member of the community in order to gain their ideas so we have a lot of mature and smart people who can know where those boundaries lie and know how to cross them if necessary or when not to so that's why I

121would like that language changed you can always recuse yourself you can always recuse yep yep you can always recuse or abstain so in regards to BCB are there any further comments or questions BCB this is Mike yes Mike uh I I think you know particularly I I mean I understand in the blind Community it's important to to have the most qualified people in position but this is more than just people working together in a university or at an agency this is a in a governing role in making decisions at times that can affect um their you know their spouses and or family members I'm not opposed to to a change on this I just heard the word recuse it's a a lot more than abstaining to what happened to automatically recuse himself to be in

122any discussion or decision making particularly when it comes to uh to salaries or or authority issues so it's a lot more than involved than just profession and and I do understand the necessity that people small the the labor labor horses change but I also want to recognize not just a casual thing that uh that you know that you can you can just you know have good reasoning and Mike this is UK I I agree with you which is why my Amendment included that it would not only be by Governor appointment but it would have to come in front of the board for final approval before they were accepted knowing that conflict because even though the governor's office may be aware of that conflict they may not understand it in the context of being on this

123board thank you any Marie so Maria um I I would just also um like to a member of the audience just point it out to me that um the language in the policy regarding uh spouses that is something that does apply the the that language is pinned on Arizona revised Statute that is for school districts we are a state agency who also happens to be a local educational agency so there is no statutory impediment that would prevent us from taking this out so um but I but I I do understand the conversation that the board is having on making sure that the board is setting the appropriate guard rails so Maria could all right so I'm going to do it this way I'd like to move that policy BCB be um revised and brought before

124the board again with potential changes and don't just you know you guys all send in your comments as well for Maria to make sure that she's getting the essence of what needs to be in place as far as governing that so let me go back and say I move that we um not pass BCB as it currently is written and have it revised and brought back to the board for evaluation after the amendment is made or the language has changed to make sure that we are within the statutory do I have a second I'll second all those in favor say aye aye opposed hearing none BCB is not past um moving on to gbeaa I did not pull this one so I'm going to ask Linda to bring her cons start maybe with her concerns

125yes this is board member both I did want to pull this um like you mentioned suke I would like to go through each of them um baa is one that I wanted to address um it's hang on it's not there it was actually on um it was on the agenda two meetings ago no um baa is one that I wanted to address it was on a previous agenda and let's just let me give you a little bit of background this policy was established a while back and it states bored hold on please Linda my can I interrupt you really quickly if if it is not one of the policies that are on the agenda we need to agendize it and be able to talk about it at the next meeting so right now we're looking

126at gbeaa but remind me at the end to do to add baa for the agenda for discussion gbeaa okay so any we can go on sorry okay are there any concerns or questions about g b e a a okay is hearing none I move that we approve gbeaa as um as currently written do I have a second second all those in favor say I I opposed hearing none it's okay yeah hold please Linda wasn't looking when we called the vote this is um board member Vogue You said g b e a a and that's related to I'm sorry I wrote notes here and I'm trying to see is that the conflict of interest for staff no no that was BCB no it is conflict of interest but it is okay uh right this is for

127staff yes for staff okay okay right oh goodness okay Maria can you give us some background about gbeaa please how did how was that differ from BCB so uh the the policies differ in that the b c b policy is specifically for board members whereas gbeaa is specifically for staff members so the employees of the agency okay is that okay go ahead please answer no no you go uh so basically it's it's just saying that no employee um no person employed by asdb can be directly or indirectly supervised by a close relative unless it's by consent of the asdb board um a dependent of an asdb board member cannot be hired by asdb except by consent of the asdb board spouse of a board member cannot be employed except by consent of the asdb board

128and then it also goes into business relations and vendor relations so they're what we're talking about is if you have a relative who has a substantial interest in any business that asdb is carrying out then you need to refrain from participating in that decision um and then it is also adding language ensuring that we are training um on an annual I believe it's yes on an annual basis and that we are getting the form on file to acknowledge that the staff has been trained and that they know what they need to do in case of a potential conflict of interest okay thank you for that Maria you're welcome okay I'm okay there's a motion and a second on the table for GBE AAA to pass as is do I have we've I've got all the

129eyes do I have any opposition you've got my eye Okay g b e a a passes as is moving on to gcfc gcfc is the fingerprinting requirement and the change that is being made here is that it is not only staff members who need to be fingerprinted as a condition of employment but contractors subcontractors or vendors also needs to be fingerprinted as well this is something to ensure the safety of the students any questions or concern for Maria on okay I move that we accept gcfc as as written all in favor oh second thank you second all in favor say aye aye aye opposed hearing none gcfc passes moving on to Iha I only had a quick question on this one um could you just give us a reason why the health and safety piece

130was taken out of that um that is a good question and I presume that it is because this is what the Arizona school boards Association uh requested so it must have some kind of a statutory thing that's that's related to some recent legislation yeah does this preclude us from providing health and safety education to students and are we providing health and safety education to students it does not preclude us um I believe that we are providing health and safety education assistant superintendent Martin is that correct a knowledge we are okay thank you any questions or comments or concerns related to Iha I'm just not sure what to do here I'll call for a motion in a minute I just want to make sure that anybody who wanted to ask a question or had a comment

131would could put it in here I guess I I have a comment this is for remembering um we heard from the people in the community about how this one lists uh the uh recognized Ace yes if we wanted the other days that maybe that specific Community member asked for what does that look like um so uh board member Buchanan um the only ones that we are required to observe under Arizona revised Statute are 9 11 education day and Sandra Day O'Connor Civic celebration um this bill was actually I believe initially introduced I I can't I I think it was introduced in in January um and uh former board member Jance requested an observation of disability awareness week and an observation of a Helen Keller Celebration Day so I went and I looked to see when

132disability education awareness week is and um and I looked at Helen Keller's birthday and so I selected the dates that were closest and I added that in in response to to the board member's request so we could do the same thing if we wanted to so we um again the what the legislation requires that's the floor but we can always go above and beyond or or I should say the the board can always choose to go above and beyond so and that's what we would be doing with disability awareness week and Helen Keller Celebration Day thank you I do know that the campuses um do activities for like deaf awareness week as well as for white cane day I know that we've had students participate um I and maybe someone else on the board could

133speak to this I I know that it's a specific week but is white cane day the same day every year that that I do not know and unfortunately um Ms yankarelli is not here to answer that and she would be the oh this is Gordon this is I can answer that it's it's October 15th every year could we could we then table Iha to also include deaf awareness week and um white cane day yes I'd like to do that and excuse me Su Kay this is board member both I'd like to clarify something else um September is typically considered death Awareness Month nationally so um some schools do activities throughout throughout the month or pick one week Etc um but they're just like we just celebrated Black History Month and now we're in women's History

134Month Etc so deaf awareness does have the month of September um is that something that we can include should include I know that the deaf Community um does like a big weekend in September where they have activities and lectures and and some fun things some educational things with families and and students they engage with the school and that activity um so is that sort of related to what we're talking about here do we need to put it in policy should we put it in policy um is that necessary I guess I'm looking for some clarification that that's a really good question um if we start looking at for instance like deaf awareness month or um when we start going longer than a week if you look at the language of the policy it states that

135you're going to be observing a portion of the school day um educating on this so if we would be looking at for instance like deaf Awareness Month are we spending every school day of that month doing uh you know educating on deaf awareness so um the one thing that I would probably tell the board um just to to think about when you want to make those types of decisions is are these potential activities while they're very appropriate for a deaf and a blind School are they potentially also taking away from the other educational activities that are going on during the school day so so maybe there there may be other ways to commemorate I just our teachers are already under so much pressure as it is that I I hate to throw one more thing

136on them and as president neifle said um I I would say table it and let's let's um look at it next time the um Maria the only thing I would say is even within the month of deaf awareness month they have an A recognized week There's an international deaf week and a deaf Awareness Week within the um month and I think this speaks to a lot of um what it is at the heart of the school we need to make sure that kids feel like they have things that they can accomplish beyond beyond here absolutely and I think um you know highlighting within the you know within their school day um deaf and blind people who have made contributions not just to their own Community but to the World At Large would be an appropriate

137use of that type of time and I think if we could add that language I would like to see that table to include at least those two pieces okay well um Let me let me see what what I can do to massage that language and bring it back in in May thank you you're welcome do you need a motion that that does not pass since it was part of the consent agenda I think so yeah okay I move that we table Iha to include deaf awareness week and um white cane day um revisions and we will review it upon um those revisions a second all those in favor I opposed I sorry Mike opposed hearing none motion carries ihbf Maria can you just um explain to me what the addition the intent of the addition

138was this just something recommended through asba no actually this was not something recommended through asba this was actually requested by our own staff basically as as I recollect the reason why is because there may be certain instances with homebound Services where the campus-based programs would not be considered the least restrictive environment we asdb in general does not provide homebound Services except for the the um you know the Early Learning Program where we do uh where we have services in the um in the homes with parents and infants and toddlers Maria since we're an Lea now does that change the look of that wouldn't the brick and mortar schools be responsible since they are registered students unless you go through IEP process and change of lre that is something that I would want to discuss with

139our director of with Melissa DeVries our director of programming on that because I do know that she was the one who actually made um made this request for change I would check into it um yes I agree on that Lynn yeah I am you are hearing it loud and clear I motion to table uh ihbf second all those in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries ikf I feel like I have to that sounds credits I I have some additional clarification on the previous policy I'm so sorry I just found the additional clarification is it too late to go back go ahead um so the so the reason that this was requested is the homebound provision under Arizona revised statutes it only applies to funding under ADM so we do not receive ADM and

140and that is why we're requesting the change so this this does not apply to us because we don't receive that funding so if you want to I apologize I'm sorry was not um quick enough on the draw to look that up so we would need a motion to approve that even though we've or just put it back on just put it back on next time we'll just put it back on next time my apologies that's okay no worries and then ikf the graduation requirements as much it's the civics I I'm going to assume this is because of Statute yeah um it is because of Statute and this is um in regards to the Civics portion of the of the test um that is part of graduation requirements for the State of Arizona and at the

141time board member um Jance was concerned about ensuring that we were providing accommodations to ensure accessibility for the test for those students that were um that were going to be taking the Civics examination and yes so I I added language to specify that we would do what we needed to do to ensure that we were providing accommodations to make the test accessible and those accommodations all have to be in the IEP prior to taking the test because they understand that they can't just oh we're going to give them the accommodations because this test is hard it has to be in the IEP film thank you so do I have a motion to pass ik f as is I so motion I'll second all those in favor say aye aye opposed hearing none ikf passes and

142then lb I asked you um I ask to remove I would like to table this and have further discussion about the additional language um I think this is where we need to start looking at where that line is between the Board responsibility and the operations that the superintendent should have um I'm open to hearing anybody's comments or concerns though board member Beau from the last few meetings I have recognized that the board is taking on more and more responsibility as far as decision making that actually belongs to superintendent reichmann and we are taking the responsibility that rightfully belongs to her for ourselves I don't want the board to be a micromanaging board which has been what's happening recently as a board member it makes me feel uncomfortable taking away responsibility after responsibility as far as

143when contracts are renewed we have to get permission when we review or change contracts she has to ask permission I want to give her all of this ability to make these decisions she's got the experience she has the experience from DC at the federal level from those Department of Education days and I'm quite comfortable with letting her make the decisions that she needs to make in order to run the agency because she does have the larger picture of what the agency looks like while we as board members have a quite microscopic view we don't we're not in the day-to-day trenches we know one or two functions but like she mentioned earlier tonight I would strongly disagree with this language in this policy I mean so what do we do how do we get rid of

144this so Linda part of the reason why I pulled this is because asdb is a state agency they have to follow State procurement laws and so any contract um that they enter into has to be with a state approved vendor um they it they have to follow the state procurement laws and so in my mind this is taking away um the day-to-day operation responsibility of the superintendent when they are already heavily governed by the state procurement office and those checks and balances that are in place within the payment unit and things like that um I mean there's a system for Grants there's a system for contracts they have to use a state approved vendor there if they buy off contract they have to go through a bidding process all of that is already in State

145Statute and so to my knowledge and and superintendent Cooper please let me know if I am if I am wrong in this um we've not violated a Spoke contract or any spell law that we State procurement office statute that you are aware of that is correct and we are also as I mentioned last board meeting looking to receive an exception um being that we operate as an educational environment so although we are our estate agency we want to be able to have some exceptions to the state procurement roles and so we are still waiting to receive feedback from SPO on whether or not we can do that but to answer your question that is correct so I would like to propose we table this and have this language look closer to its original I do

146I would like to see um for lack of a better word more information in regards to those contracts I don't know that it's that is something that we need to approve though I I mean I would like to make sure that we are aware of that um but I I would like to allow the executive team to run the day-to-day of the agency so I move that we table lb and have it revised to more accurately reflect the responsibility of the board and the agency that that Line in the Sand so to speak um getting back closer to its original language I'll second all those in favor say aye aye opposed hearing none that motion to table lb carries okay moving on I think that's that's the last one on 7.06 moving on to 8.01

147call to the public for non-agenda items we have a list um so this is for non-agenda items the first uh request we have is Lester I'm sorry I don't want to butcher your last name knife hurt thank you good evening uh respected board members I'm Lester nipert I'm a distance itinerant teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing so I'd like to thank you for allowing me this time to come forward and voice my concerns on a matter that was brought to the distance itinerant staff's attention which is the possible dismantling of the distance program and being placed under separate regions by allowing the distance itinerant program to be dissolved from its current status and placed under the separate regions and regional directors is a disservice to our students and teachers that we serve relationships

148have been built fellow students as well as staff many of our students have multiple disabilities so change is not good but rather having continuity is by allowing us to be placed under the separate regions brings up many questions such as will the teachers continue with their current caseload or would that be adjusted according to the region second how is the data gathered to determine that placing the distance program under the regions would be a good idea and lastly why were none of the distance itinerant staff questioned as to the program being successful or non-successful why it was being managed by Mr Johnson or as its own entity it is understandable that doing what is best for the agency is important but when a program has been making positive progress why dismantle it why make changes

149without communicating with your staff the ones uh accomplishing the mission I understand that there is a lack of communication within the agency especially the at the two upper levels but again to make a decision without communicating with your staff is unprofessional communication seems to be an issue at all levels case in point I've addressed issues with leadership in a letter to the board dated January 19 2023 and received not one reply in the world that I come from we don't discuss issues with leadership in an open forum so I at least wanted to provide that respect ultimately we need to put our students and teachers first not as an afterthought or no thought at all if this is the way that asdb conducts business and will continue to conduct business then I will need to

150question the acceptance of the contract for next school year thank you for your time thank you the next I have um is bonal amen amen thank you president knifel for allowing me the opportunity to comment I'm so happy and relieved that you have voted to oppose 1402. my name is benell Amman I've worked here for 40 plus years my husband and I love this school we love asdb and we have been worried but we wanted to share in the successes of our former students who have graduated or who are alumni from this school and I'm happy to send you some names there are probably some board members who simply don't know about the successes of our former students and I'm proud to say and to name just a few names that I can remember I'm

151probably missing many from asdb Larry The Interpreter missed the last name f it perovich graduated and is now a professor at RIT Juliana upfell is now a PE teacher at gallaudet Julia knapfel is a PE teacher at a school for the deaf I honestly can't remember where Steven Smith is a managing chef at a restaurant on 4th Avenue in Tucson Colin Denny most recently gave a great performance of America the Beautiful at the Super Bowl he performed the just this year in 2023. and he is a professional photographer as well Brian bilyu is a track driver Nathaniel Amman who happens to be my grandson is a corporate lawyer with Watkins and Layman law firm in California from the Phoenix area Jennifer Ann cook is a coordinator and promoter for California school for the deaf in

152Fremont and just accepted a job on the east coast and has been called to be the emcee at many national conferences every year Jody Amman is a professor of deaf studies at California State University Northridge Randy Noriega is an Intel innovator at Intel Michael delveio is a radiologist at a hospital near my home Robert hatch is an administrator here in Mesa Katie florich is a manager at Chase Bank Steven de Silva is a teacher at gallaudet University and his brother Kevin De Silva is a real estate agent he's a broker here in Phoenix Megan tellefson teaches here she's here somewhere in the audience the reason I share that and why I'm so glad that you have decided to oppose SB 1402 is because the potential ramifications of that bill being passed is that I don't

153know that we could be able to make more success students like I've shared let's celebrate together and oppose SB 1402 together oh gosh Harvey just reminded me I forgot one of the most important ones Troy Troy kotzer I'm sure you all know who he is our very famous American actor Troy who just won the Oscar last year he was a student here at PTSD believe it or not so thank you so much next I have Addison Castro okay hello my name is Addison Castro thank you for calling my name why I submitted my paper to speak is because I want to stand up against what has happened to my best friend Kaden he was oppressed by a teacher I'm from a different school now but I went to third and fourth grade here and I

154decided to transfer to a different School instead of PTSD I go to a Pembroke Elementary School now and it's a mainstream school but I decided to do that and then I heard what happened at PTSD and I decided to get involved and find out what was going on because pdsd is my old school and this school is very valuable to me it's an important part of my life this is a very important part of my life and I don't want to see this happen I heard what happened with that teacher and it really made me very mad it made me cry I was crying that night and I was not happy I want this situation to stop and I wanted to tell the board that this system that this is not a game that we

155are not playing around this is not play time we as deaf people members of the deaf Community we are a family and we are not easy to be tricked by hearing people some hearing people are fine and they aren't bad but some hearing people do want to oppress deaf people and we do not accept that when a hearing person oppresses a deaf person in a deaf School we do not want to allow that kind of thing to happen we do not want to be oppressed in this environment I am not happy about what happened here and there are a lot of people who are not and I'm very sad for my friends um my friend Kaden that goes here still I don't want to lose him I don't want anything bad to happen to him

156and I don't know what's going to happen if he's going to transfer to a different school that his mom said that he wants to um I just don't I don't want him to go but it might be better for him this system is not okay we are not okay with this happening here Carrie gamer should not be allowed to be in the cafeteria and around the students she doesn't seem to care she is violating these um boundaries and she's going around these students that she's not supposed to be around and being around them for more than 30 minutes when she's been told not to and that is not acceptable I support this school but I want to speak out against what has happened here on behalf of my deaf family and I don't want things

157like this to happen to my friends this school is a very important and treasure part of my life I'm really nervous but I wanted to be brave because I want to help these students stand up against what happened here laughs I don't want this to lose this school and I don't want hearing people to take over it this is a school for the deaf remember again this is a school that is very important and valuable to me and to my community and we do not want to lose it it is my old school I don't want to lose it a lot of my friends are still here I know these teachers I know that these teachers that have had a positive impact on my life I want to help them protest I want to help

158them speak out against this hearing people or taking over the school and turning it into a hearing school and that is not acceptable I don't want people to lose their jobs but I heard that some people are are leaving they're going to different schools we don't want to see that what happened to the teacher who's oppressing students who did that to Kaden that is not acceptable you called my friend a wild animal I do not accept that I am angry it's infuriating that Carrie didn't listen to the other teacher and continue to call Caden a wild animal and told him that he shouldn't be in this school my friends have special needs he and he's deaf he can't hear himself making noises is very very frustrating and um really upsetting for everyone involved and he

159tries to stop um but he's still my friend and we shouldn't allow people to hurt our friends thank you I just don't want people to to hurt each other thank you thank you thank you for allowing me to speak [Applause] uh next up to speak is Amy Young my son would like to say something first I'm going to share my time with him if that's okay I'm just really worried because my friend Kaden is really depressed because of the way that Carrie treated him yelling him at him in front of this class for like half an hour and you called him she called him a wild zoo animal said she was going to call 9-1-1 on him that's not kind it's really rude and Caden didn't know what to do and he's like I can't

160control it and I know that and the other teacher tried to tell her tell her to stop it she just kept going she just kept yelling at him and we've been worried this has been a problem every day it just feels I'm just really worried like Carrie Carrie's just not the best teacher for this place um I just wanted to make a comment about Annette reichmann saying that George Martin was at fault for what happened on November 4th uh the other parents and I did reach out to Annette reichmann the board and Jill and George all in an email and the only response that we got from Annette reichmann was to please refer to Jill that Jill the principal would answer our questions which then Jill every time we had a meeting with her said

161no uh there's this is all I can do it goes above and beyond me never once were we told to speak with George Martin so I think that it's very sad and unfortunate that they're cutting off his contract and not renewing his contract for next year since he was not we were we never were in contact with him we were never told to contact him and also I have no idea why Carrie gammer's contract is being renewed as you've heard from the students themselves they do not feel safe there they we have three injunctions against harassments to this teacher and you guys still continue to allow her to be at this school we as parents and as the students we're not we're in the staff members we're not going to accept this my son Brody

162as he just spoke today he will be pulled out for next year because it's an unfortunate event so thank you next to speak I have Keon Abbott can you see me clearly okay hello everyone my name is Kian Abbott and I am a former employee of bdsd and I wanted to speak because as you know there is a teacher here um as a teacher we don't leave our work on campus we we take things home with us we hear things the situation happened with Carrie gamer that everyone's aware of now and it and it made waves in the deaf community and what was unfortunate to me well several things really we're holding the wrong person accountable um we're holding George Martin accountable for this but Annette is the one who should be held accountable that

163situation that happened with Carrie um this was not the first time there was a long history of this and everybody knows it like there is a long history of her behavior and nothing had happened so when Annette was here the whole time George is knew he still was learning the system he wasn't even given a chance the deaf Community obviously responded um and made their comments about not understanding why his contract was not renewed but wow you chose not to listen to the community you chose not to listen to the students you chose not to listen to anyone here and Linda both who's representing the community that's this is really disappointing what I would like to see is that you revisit this decision of non-renewal for George's contract that needs to be Revisited you need

164to listen to the community listen to these people first listen to the staff that actually work here first without the community without the staff you don't have asdb you don't have PTSD thank you [Applause] next to speak I have Elizabeth iberra foreign make sure that I'm visible okay should I move over is this good okay hello everyone my name is Elizabeth I graduated from PTSD I'm an alumni in from 2014. I have three children I have children in preschool here I have a child in second grade I have a kindergartner and my baby my son is in preschool so I have three children and for kindergarten and preschool we have had a significant struggle with my son um he was left alone he needed to go to the bathroom and he he was left on

165his own and he did something happen with the metal lock and he was left on his own I think outside because there was some problem with the door getting locked accidentally and with my daughter my one of the staff members grabbed her and she fell and hit her head and was bleeding so I had to come to the school take her to the ER um she had to get four Staples in her head and with my baby he was running and he ran up to a gate and the gate hit him and he was bleeding from the head and there was blood all down his shirt so we've had three very concerning incidents and the teachers didn't communicate well about what was going on the doctor said that this you know didn't really make sense

166the nurse called my mother not me um twice called my the children's grandmother not me their mother and I did talk to the nurse and say that is not she's not the point of contact these are my children you call me you tell me what's going on my mom has a job she's she's busy that's not her job to worry about my kids the preschool I feel like at this point we're talking about teachers abusing children this looks like abuse the safety of our children it should be priority when my when I come to get my kids or when my kids come home I'm not getting communication as to what's going on um I got a kiddo in preschool who's still not signing fluently and I don't know what's going on with that I'm very

167frustrated and I hope that as we move forward this school will prioritize the safety of all of our students especially our preschoolers with the nurse calling me um on on FaceTime she explained that my little one had hurt his head and was bleeding um and I you know needed I had to tell her at that point don't call my mother about my children call me so that's what I wanted to say [Music] uh next I have PV Jance foreign and assistant superintendent Martin assistant superintendent Cooper and superintendent reichmann I'd like to touch on a few things that are non-agendized and I would like for the board to consider first this may be a policy Edition but any board member who is appointed to the board who is not familiar with Deaf culture or not familiar

168with the blind or VI Community should be mandated to take training on Deaf culture awareness Etc and the same goes with VI essentially those training experiences that are offered where they expose individuals to what it feels like to be blind or visually impaired that I think would help to educate board members and make sure that they are well aware of the impact of the decisions they're making on these students I also suggest that you consider a policy that would have a student government be involved with the board students should have a voice in their school the board is making all of these decisions for them where's their voice where's their involvement they should be part of this process any action item that the board is voting on that directly impacts the students the students have

169a right to contribute their Viewpoint their experience their perspective whether they support it or don't not just parents they're not the only experts here these kids are on this campus every day let them be engaged let them be involved teach them what it's like to Advocate from a young age teach them what teach them what the Civic process is from a young age because it's important for them to engage in that so that they continue to do so when they grow up and they can be successful adults and Advocate push for Change and Improvement in their own community I also suggest suggest drafting a policy um specifically about a dual role training I again staff have conflict of interest what happens when a staff is bullying a student what happens when you have a staff

170member involved protecting their child on campus for inappropriate reasons there should be a policy drafted to provide guidance on how to address those kinds of situations because we have a pattern of abuse we're taking advantage of the lack of policy where we need to document what appropriate procedure is in those situations my son is an example of these issues another student came to him and said you know he's he was a perfect example of this as well last but I would say most important there needs to be a policy establishing help with formal ASL instruction we don't have that for our little guys for our young kids where is their formal instruction in ASL where how are they learning it how are they improving their reading skills how are they learning to appropriately Express themselves

171reflect on their own feelings and opinions how yes they're they're learning but um the only formal language that instruction that they're receiving is in English and that's not a bilingual educational model we need to be following a bilingual approach and philosophy of education which values equally both cultures and languages thank you for your time next I have Jose Ramirez hello my name is Jose I graduated from PTSD I'm an alumni in May will be my 10-year reunion I grew up here this is my home A.G Bell as an organization how long has asdb partnered with A.G Bell I didn't realize that most of our students get hearing aids and we had teachers who would use microphones and primarily instruct us using their voices ASL wasn't a priority how did that impact our language development teachers

172carry gamer specifically to decide to renew her contract means that you're supporting an abuser it's quite obvious I remember when I was small Carrie's room was the place to go when you fail the test she would line up the students force them to study while she would be joking and making fun of us on the sidelines and to see that this is still going on today it's time to stop this has to stop this is hurting your students I'm glad that you've decided to oppose 1402 but we need more action thank you and last to speak I have Marcy Brandenburg Eric also had something to add so I'm going to share my time so you're going to let Kerry keep working here next year why don't you care about students our students should be safe

173here but Carrie bullies us students don't feel safe our teachers don't feel safe other staff members don't feel safe the school doesn't feel safe Carrie is so mean to everybody every day and year after year I have a lot to say and I'm I know I'm going to run out of time first it it really sucks to hear George Martin being used as a scapegoat to see the bus railroaded right over him and Annette not to take any responsibility for what has been going on he has been here since the summer this has been going on for decades that is a completely unfair position to take for him on this account as far as policies we have a ton of policies I'm a hospital worker I'm a nurse policies at my work are like the

174flipping law here they're like we follow them when we want to if it's a little bit convenient we follow it if not we don't follow it and that's unacceptable in my opinion I have been told that there's a lot of red tape and that the adoa is involved but the policy says that Annette could have taken action on this it specifically says it would have been left up to the superintendent for discipline I have started nearly memorizing these policies because it has become important for my child's safety this is my child's safety what do we know about School shooters in this day and age this school is raising them by allowing abusers on campus God forbid any of these kids ever feel the need to take such an action because this campus allows abuse on

175it you guys welcome the abuse and you actually ask for it to continue by extending these contracts you are negligent towards these children these are our kids they are important members of this community and you show them absolutely no regard by allowing her to continue to work here people should not have injunctions against harassments on teachers for their behavior on campus that is absolutely unacceptable for you guys to completely ignore what these kids have told you to ignore what the community has spoken out about to ignore your own policies and procedures to not compel adoa or whoever would be stopping you from getting her off of this campus that's unacceptable you guys are bystanders in this and you are allowing it to continue in addition I want to talk about the jii that PV mentioned

176earlier it does state that these complaints should be handled within two weeks and in fact it does say that students who submitted complaints and discussed should have the conclusions discussed with them and actions be taken as a result so that they know what came of it I filed one of these Annette failed to let us know so did Jill that it was completed we didn't get to know what was found that wasn't shared with us again failure to follow policy um where the Ombudsman is concerned I did submit a request I did ask for help I asked for policy explanation she told me we understood the situation better than she did I asked for additional help I told her when I submitted the jii complaint never heard from her again we did start going to

177lawyers and they just told us to take that off the plate because she wasn't helping us and she didn't think that that was going to get us anywhere it's very unfortunate that parents have to spend a lot of money on lawyers to get consultations to figure out which directions to go OCR is now investigating this school because we were able to find that as a contact option because the school didn't take any appropriate action towards Carrie they didn't communicate with us Annette has refused to meet with us as a group of parents that's unacceptable the board did not feel compelled to meet with us and I made those requests I don't know if that will change now that the president has changed but these actions are completely unacceptable from this board and from this Administration

178leadership is failing students my son deserves a safe education all of these kids deserve to be safe at school stop protecting the abusers [Applause] um eight points thank you 8.02 discussion and possible action items agenda items for the next regular board meeting that's scheduled for May 11th in Phoenix we'll need to put on the agenda um the election of a new president okay Leticia are you um taking these down awesome thank you um I would like to have Maria um maybe send out for review policy b a a perlinda's request um and I have two things specifically I would like to um and I don't know if I need to have this it wouldn't be for the next meeting I would like to call a special meeting before the next regular board meeting possibly over

179Zoom very quickly to really be informed on the legislative update and what we as a board can do to take action um and then the other thing I'd like to maybe have the I.T Services talk to us about a little bit is website access I know that videos are done descriptively and I'm hoping that things are at least closed captioned but as mentioned today I would really like to see that there's full access in ASL to any any of that web content including the policy um and and if there's an employee handbook separate from the policy I think that also needs to be done in ASL those are my um things that I'd like to see is there anything else this is board member both I've got a couple three things one is to change

180the policy regarding uh establishing a new committee currently it's my understanding that the only standing committee is the finance committee and I would like to change that language in the existing policy because it says only I'd like that removed and I'd like the policy to reflect that committees um can be established where three or more board members serve um and particularly I'd like to see a policy committee so that we can really thoroughly go through all of these trying to do it at the board meeting it's difficult to ask questions discuss understand and fully um prior to the board approving them and voting on them I would also like to add baa evaluation of the school board our self evaluation as a board I'd like to talk about how we do that how do we

181do that self-evaluation as board members what does that procedure look like following ethical practices and responsibilities the the power and authority of the board are we in compliance with the way that we should be operating so I'd like to look all that there may I do believe that there are things in policy regarding ethics and self-evaluation but we are not currently following them so those are the things that I would like on the agenda anything else oh it's okay one more I'm sorry I would like to have an agendized item regarding hang on talking about rfps and the contract with desert voices for example I would like to um go back to that conversation and potentially retract the changes to that policy I would like to have that conversation at the next board meeting in

182some depth how can we go back and potentially retract what we agreed to at previous board meetings because I believe with rfps there's something to that I'm not a lot sure if we're allowed to do that or if um the ascb does that but I would like to have more information about that okay hearing nothing else um 9.01 I move we adjourn this meeting seconded can I make a comment before we adjourn absolutely this is where member of a Canon I just want to recognize all the young people that stood up and spoke for us to us today and just shared like it makes me I'm a mom it makes me so proud to see young children just standing up and advocating not only advocating for themselves advocating for their families their friend and their

183Community you guys are amazing and thank you so so much for being brave even if it was really scary to stand up and do that you guys are amazing you guys are going to be changing the world and I'm so proud to see you guys do this thank you so much we are adjourned thank you foreign