ASDB Board Meeting 01/19/2023

001okay this is a one minute warning one minute warning okay it's four o'clock we're gonna get ready to start in five seconds five four three two good afternoon uh it is now four o'clock now is the time set for the regular board meeting of the Arizona State schools for the deaf and the blind we start with 1.01 call to order um it's okay president Dave David girl president Brittany Buchanan debow present Colette Chapman president Lynn Davison present Mike Gordon president Lillian Lee present PV Gents present and myself suitcase thank you next we have 1.02 information item introduction of new board member and recognition board member leaving um as uh you all know Aaron wonders uh was on our board for several years he was appointed by superintendent Kathy Hoffman um superintendent Kathy Hoffman left that

002role we now have superintendent horn he has appointed a new board member from Ade her name is Colette Chapman and Colette is on the phone today Colette if you have any comments and want to introduce yourself that would be great yes thank you president I am an associate student s uh adult education health and nutrition and Career and Technical education and I will serve on the board and I'm very happy to be here to meeting all of you all right uh thank you very much we look forward to working with you our next item is 1.03 call to the public call to the public on agenda's items and we have through um how many uh or in person okay um so we have uh we again as we um uh coming out of covid we

003have an email submission route uh that everyone knows about you can submit online comments that are posted on the website and are retained on the website for a period of time and then we also have the in-person comments today we have four for the agendized port in terms of the time allowed it's going to be three minutes for spoken comments four minutes for ASL communication and the suitcase is the first one back at Bailey all right Becca Bailey um I will stand when the time is up I have my timer here so I'll stand when the time is up to communicate that you'll need to finish and finish your comments hello everyone foreign [Music] who graduated back in 2017. there are a few things I'd like to comment on on today's agenda welcome to related

004to board members I just wanted to I not sure as many of you aware over a year ago as a foreign [Music] what the terms are but I would like to acknowledge that I'm available for 3.04 regarding early intervention I'm not sure what's going to be discussed so I may be able to add comments to my non-agendized item comment if something comes up as you're addressing that but I just like to um state that in terms of early intervention I strongly support funding and resources for language acquisition for our preschool as well as are and training opportunities for our experience and rural area teachers who are working with our youngest children there is a high high needs for services in the rural areas for our campus to children I'll jump down to 6.04 I have

005been out of the loop a bit since my son graduated in 2017. I'm doing my own thing but I am back and want to be part of this community pbsd will always be a second home to me it was my son's home from the time he was three years old and I don't know that that's ever going to be able to let go of that I wanted to acknowledge um superintendent right command's hard work over these many years that I have gotten a little bit behind but I have seen your tremendous effort and you faced many many challenges so I'd like to thank you for your work and I hope to see you continuing on with the agency and I hope that your evaluation resolves are positive regardless of some of the challenges that the

006agency has faced I will hold an account and other challenges and that is all I have to say thank you for your time and I will see you thank you Karen Feldman good afternoon can you hear me as the microphone on hello ah there it is um good afternoon board president Nigro superintendent reichmann and members of the asdb board my name is Karen Feldman I'm the supervising teacher on the deaf side of the house in Region Three it's that time of the year to conduct performance evaluations and offer contracts as one of the agenda items for the board to discuss leadership contracts for the 23 24 school year I'd like to give you some first-hand insight on the itinerant programs and the work that Jay Johnson's been doing we were requested to provide feedback last

007year on um J and Senior leadership however we have not received a request this year for directors nor any other senior leadership to give feedback on performance two years ago the board moved to recommend on the on the recommendation of the associate superintendent and superintendent to create and hire a director of itinerant programs Jay was hired we were right smack dab in the middle of covid yet Jay hit the ground running and worked to start the redesign of the itinerant programs his message was clear we need to align our efforts across the state while making sure we do right by students Jay diligently worked to learn about itinerant services and the needs of sensory impaired students he's traveled from one corner of the state to the other change is hard yet change for the good

008has happened my entire career has been spent at asdb all 27 years of my teaching and Leadership career has been with the itinerant programs I've been a teacher and the last 20 years a supervising teacher so I have lived and worked with the many Changing Faces of asdb administration and the itinerant programs over the years this is the first time as a supervising teacher that I've worked collaboratively with other leads and supervising teachers across the state various roles within the itinerant program have been tightened up processes and procedures that make sense and work have been implemented Jay has been Forward Thinking supportive while doing what's right he believes in communication leadership and compliance Jay hired two regional directors who are phenomenal leaders who support and execute the redesign he's been doing exactly what he was

009hired to do I don't believe the board receives unbiased truthful reports on the work of that Jay is doing or the progress of the itinerary programs it would be a mistake not to offer Jay a contract for the 23 24 school year all of the work that has been done will be dismantled before a decision is made about offering Day a contract please solicit feedback from the staff who work with him directly don't rely on the biased views of the administration thank you Doris Waltman good afternoon superintendent reichmann president Nigro and members of the board my name's Doris Waltman I'm one of the supervising teachers for region 3. I've been employed at asdb in many different capacities from teacher to top Administration I have seen the agency at peace and I have seen it in

010turmoil I've witnessed change that has been poorly implemented and when it has resulted in greater communication effective change and positive growth toward the future I'd like to share my observations and experiences working through the implementation of the solidity of the itinerant programs under Jay Johnson's leadership the board and the superintendent had a vision for itinerant services that would bring them together and move them along the same path with the same procedures and processes through this process the Attorney Services would provide excellent and consistent Services Statewide this Vision has been formulated shared and implemented through the outstanding leadership of Jay Johnson the executive director of The Cooperative programs Jay has followed the four pillars of success the superintendent reichmann established with the support of the board as with any restructuring progress can begin Rocky with resistance

011from staff who do not like change with consistent vision and wisdom Jay has established excellent communication and relationships with staff and districts across the State of Arizona there's clear communication shared that does not waver and moves itinerant Services forward toward a positive direction following the four pillars this has resulted in greater team building collaboration and service to students staff from across the itinerant programs offer support and instruction to one another traffic staff travel to different itinerant programs to provide services and support this is due to the establishment of an organizational culture where staff are encouraged to collaborate and share their experiences and expertise Jay has modeled this approach by demonstrating respect to staff with knowledge and experience and sensory impairment Jay also carries out the fourth pillar of effective Resource Management he streamlined systems of

012data collection and documentation his vast knowledge of special ed law has led to Greater compliance with idea Statewide all of our processes and procedures have been examined to assure continuity in implementation his comprehensive accumulation of information has resulted in greater fiscal management across the regions Jay has done exactly what he's been hired to do align itinerant programs and services across the state he's Faithfully carried out the four pillars of success under his leadership the itinerant programs operate cohesively and effectively Jay has made me a great believer in the power of excellent leadership I've seen changes in increased success in the operation of itinerary program there is much to celebrate and greater achievements to come with Jay Johnson as our director if any of this isn't a doubt please do not hesitate to reach out to

013the director's supervisors and the leads that work with Jay directly thank you thank you Marcy berenberg my comments most of them have to do with continuing a reichmann's contract and that I feel like it's not a great idea she has not engaged with parents as we have had severe concerns with child safety on the PTSD campus when we have asked to meet with her she has denied she has said that things are out of her control and that things are within the board's hands however that is completely opposite to what the policies and procedures in online are we have asked her for reference of what policies and procedures they're following in regards to these issues that we're having on the pdsd campus and nobody will respond to that she recently put out a letter stating

014that the Ombudsman is available to help families who have concerns on campus and we have reached out and got very minimal responses that we can only assume came from Direction not to engage with us in finding resolutions to the problems these problems are so severe that three kids on the PTSD campus have safety plans naming a teacher as an aggressor that should never be the case my son had to stay home from school for four days because the school would not determine what a reasonable distance would be for it and when I was guaranteed he would be safe if he returned to campus two other students went home in a complete emotional breakdown that same day this should not be an issue on our campuses the board has been aware since the beginning and I

015realized that I didn't know the policies and the progression at the beginning however even with not knowing that I feel like it was the right way because this issue is huge this particular instructor has been allowed to torment children for years and many many people have come out it is the pdsd metoo movement and nothing is apparently being done or at least it appears not to be done my son has come home from school and said they care more about the teachers than the students that shouldn't be the case he is a deaf student this is the place where he should be this is the place where he should be able to learn I have learned that many students have left because of this and teachers similar to her they bring about what the culture

016on campus is because she's in a leadership role yet she has been retaliating against teachers who speak out against her leaders need to be able to accept some criticism leaders need to be honest with their staff and they need to engage this isn't happening for us this isn't the first time I dealt with this with Annette either back in 2020 with the covid policies I complained about issues when things were in an english-only format and she and Courtney ghosted me back then and then acted surprised when we went to the media I was very forthright this time that I didn't want to hear any surprise when we went that direction I know that there are teachers that are embarrassed to be working for this system now because it has become such a social media outrage

017and nobody has an idea of what's going on with it no parents have felt updated [Applause] thank you yeah the remaining of the um agenda items will be posted online there were emails thank you next is 1.04 information items superintendent's report superintendent Reagan good afternoon president Nigro members of the board assistant superintendent Martin assistant superintendent Cooper and members of the asdb community welcome to the January 19 2023 board meeting today I am going to be giving a brief presentation on the state of the agency I want you to know the year 2022 was a challenging year for all of us if we look back at the beginning of January 2022 that is when we had the omnicron covid variant increasing dramatically we had many teachers and staff and students fall ill and then when we

018were back into the classrooms full time we discovered that our students who are already behind were even further behind because they were missing so many of the in-person activities within the classroom and especially our younger students preschoolers the kindergarten to fifth grade those students did not have appropriate social emotional growth and development like we expect from our students so we have had some significant behavioral issues on campus within the 2022 year it was challenging we all know that we Face challenges but I would like to take just a little bit of time to talk about our accomplishments because we do have some accomplishments from 2022 and I asked our leaders to send me their accomplishments they were most proud of in 2022 and I got so many I can't list all of them here for

019you tonight or else we would probably be here until midnight but I did select a few of these comments that I would like to touch on and share with you the board to show that we asdb agency and our leaders and our teachers and staff have been working hard every day we've been showing up to work showing up for our students our staff's there our bus drivers are there every day our people are committed to providing the best education and support for all of our students So speaking of pillar one that is effective communication and relations and in 2022 we successfully hired a new ombuds person and that is Donna Williams she started last fall and she has already been working with our staff our teachers and some other members of the community to provide

020them with information and support and mediation so what you just heard I am a little puzzled fine because I know that Donna is busy working at the next board meeting on March 2nd Donna will provide you with the report of her work and activities since she has begun with the agency we have added a new agreement with school districts and if you notice in 2022 from our last board meeting you all approved three new school districts that are charter schools and so we now have agreements with these our itinerant program is continuing to expand and serve more and more students throughout the State of Arizona Lisa yankarelli sent me her ideas and they are going to be teaching a braille or they have taught excuse me interpreter error a braille literacy class two parents and

021which we have never done before so many parents took this online Braille literacy class and began learning the basics of Braille so that way they are able to help their children who are visually impaired with their homework and then the fourth thing I wanted to say connecting with pillar one is that the Tucson campus has been working with the National Park Service in order to design the Anza Trail footpath and that trail is right next to campus on the east side and I think next week on Saturday there will be some sort of celebration of an opening ceremony for the trail and that is in collaboration with Tucson asdb campus and the National Park Service pillar two one thing that you asked us to do and we weren't able to successfully accomplish is collecting data

022from school districts all over the state about their student assessment scores of course this is for the students we serve and so we've been monitoring our strategic plan report and the dashboard you will see there on the dashboard that we have now collected data on itinerant students and their assessment it is not for all but we have enough I think about half of our half of the itinerance of students that we serve the odd organizational development division have been working with both campuses and teachers who teach grades first through fifth to learn how to teach and conduct assessments with the bilingual grammar curriculum so that is teacher trainings that we have been started that we have started as of last fall and we'll be continuing into the spring and that emphasizes the BGC curriculum for

023our elementary students for both Tucson and Phoenix we have done intervener trainings and interveners are those individuals who work with our students who are both deaf and blind and our deafblind student population is growing on both campuses including six deaf-blind preschool students here at the Tucson campus so we really have a need for more interveners and so we will be providing trainings for them pillar three we are currently in the third year of the emerging leaders program currently we have 23 liters emerging emerging leaders within the program and they all have different projects that they're working on if you are curious and would like to know more about that please ask and I will be able to get together a presentation about what they're doing and how they are developing their skills one example I

024can give you I will give you a little bit later on we've established a language policy committee and that a language policy committee was established about a year and a half ago so we're starting to have discussion we were starting to have a discussions about that long prior and it has taken that responsibility very seriously the committee has taken that responsibility seriously and taken the time to collect a lot of research and information from different schools of the deaf and finding out what their policies are and collect all that information together and figure out what is the best collection of policies that can be put together for us so they finished the first draft of that report and hopefully soon we'll be able to present that policy to the board to overview to overview for

025overview and approval and that language policy once it's established that's not the end of it it's the beginning so it's the beginning of the process of how we can create a cultural shift that needs to happen to align with the language policy before as you know we have have the sunset audit in 2022 we had one finding that one finding was that we needed to do a multi-year capital plan and we've already gotten that underway in the agency so I wanted to discuss with you about the beginning developments of that Master facilities plan and we're working on setting up a new student information system our current student information system is antiquated it doesn't need our needs anymore so we've been working very hard to establish a contract with a new vendor and we're going through

026that process now with the state procurement rules and making sure we're going through all of the lender providers and trying to transfer that project to the new sorry to Pardon The Interpreter transfer the information to the new student information system one more thing I would like to mention is related to pillar three the organizational culture one of our emerging leaders Karina Johnson developed a training a training model rather with others on deaf sensitivity and awareness and that training curriculum has been finished they reached out to me to ask me to start with the leadership team last fall we already did start to plan a schedule for that for that cultural training to be provided in the spring semester and you would have seen the email on this February will have a two hour training and

027in March and as well as in April so six hours total of deaf cultural training and all of our leaders will participate in that training and you are also invited to join us if you would like pillar four coming back to POA four one really creative idea in region one I'm in itinerant services they recently closed their central office and instead it was replaced with UPS so that means that they have agreements with local schools and teachers who live and work in that area where they're working they can go in and use those office spaces those computers printers equipment and have smaller meetings in those areas I think I don't remember how many hubs there are in northern Arizona in that region but it's a very unique way of approaching how we provide support to

028our itinerant teachers who live and work in rural areas of the state so we'll see how that works so now it's 2023 so looking forward what will we be working on we're already working on developing relationships with state legislators the governor's office we've reached out to state legislators and let them know what we're working on and what we need we will have a meeting with the governor's office with David I think next week president macro on Monday yes next week Tucson and Phoenix campuses are looking at re-establishing the parent staff organization Phoenix has an active parent staff organization or had part of me prior to coven and when the equivalent outbreak started that was put on pause and so now we're trying to re-establish that get it going again and we're hoping that the parent

029groups parent group will meet in February for that so we're hoping to see that established as well in Tucson again so pillow two for this year some of our staff and teachers have taken training with the Arizona Department of Ed on PBIS positive behavior intervention support to learn how to provide more positive behavior supports to students in our classrooms and that process the PBIS system establishing we're hoping to contract with what's called the ber that's also part of PBIS it's an approach to student Behavior so that the assistant superintendent Martin has been working on that so perhaps he'll mention that in his portion we will be working on re-accreditation so five years ago we got our first agency level accreditation from advanced that's called cognia so every five the every five years we go through

030the process again of getting reaccreditation and we will be focusing on school improvements if you remember the title one we got that four or five years ago there was a lot of work that we had to do to meet those requirements it was in that process and we're starting that process again we're starting with the assessments we're developing an education plan so all the elements of that process are starting again and we are actively looking at And discussing site plan step Pardon The Interpreter CTE plans and transition support from high school to post High School and as I just mentioned Deaf culture training those will be happening so I think I'm going to wrap up with starting the work on the Master's facilities Master facilities plan and also in year two with analyzing the Compensation

031Plan and staffing needs for the agency so I just listed quite a few things touched on different areas that's not all encompassing if the just it's just an idea of the work that we've been doing so far and we'll continue doing this year in 2023 so 2023 is going to be a very busy year and I'm excited there are very positive things happening in the agency maybe I don't do a good job advertising about all those positive changes and saying hey let's look at all these cool things that we're doing maybe I don't do a good enough job of that but I'm going to try to do better now so I'm hoping that we'll be able to collaborate continue doing this important work in 2023. thank you thank you are there any questions for the

032superintendent okay uh hearing none we're going to go to 1.05 information item assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction report assistant superintendent Martin thank you president Nigro governing board thank you assistant superintendent Cooper and superintendent reichman we've been busy in the education sector we have worked with our interpreter and went to a Statewide model our educational and public interpreters are now under the leadership of Dr Scarborough this will hopefully allow us to reduce attrition provide more consistent focused PD for all interpreters across the board and most importantly this was an issue brought to my attention by one educational interpreter that would allow educational interpreters to earn additional pay with certifications so Dr Scarborough was actually getting that underway there are some challenges and bumps but she is um dead on target we have also in the itinerant

033area um led by Jason Lilly Stephanie Johnson and Rosie Hicks and dhh Leeds we've been trying to rethink how to use teachers Statewide we this was echoed by all three regional directors to get away from looking at the itinerant space as borders our border quoted by Stephanie Johnson is just the State of Arizona so we have come around the table the dhh leaves did an incredible job of how to look at geographically where our teachers are located and provide service to schools in that fashion that serves one purpose um makes us a little bit more efficient and it reduces travel for itinerant teachers which is a very huge factor and sometimes them leaving that work has progressed we are in phase one of that and we will be moving forward the feedback that we've received

034so far from teachers with the new schedule they're actually loving it for our schools and sites bar we I have been working with bar we have everything set up with the bar model we are now the the contract is with the procurement office and so we're waiting for that they will need a three-week lead time for implementation so as soon as we have the contract back we will um Implement right away um that model is a very Progressive model that helps teachers deal with students more respectfully and students to deal with teachers more respectfully so this is a model that we will use in both schools the high school and middle school will probably keep PBIS in the elementary but that will be the principal's choice um we have hired um glad to say we

035have hired a sped director we've recruited uh pretty talented eager sped director this is huge because this is the first time we've ever had a full-time sped director and we're at school with 100 spread rate we have a lot of internal candidates and I want to say thank you you guys made it extremely tough we have also I believe identified as of today a bed teacher to write IEPs for the PD pdsd campus so as we on board the sped director which will be July 1 she's currently under contract now we will start re-envisioning and creating this this sped department for asdb her and I have had some conversations that will probably touch base little by little between now and July 1 just to kind of get the ground running we are still moving with

036portrait of a graduate that work is led by Mike Olivier he is now working on focus groups and setting up the committee there is also bumps in the road some things that he had to recalibrate but I am confident as to where he is I have offered um myself as well as other staff members and resources but he is plugging away on it EOP with Dr Benedict she she is um she's on it we will start meeting about restructuring which I I had to chuckle because I'm most excited about this work because they're they're little kids and they just get me every time but we'll start restructuring ELP um with her and her team and she has some phenomenal creative ideas and how to do it so we'll start that works he's also plugging some

037of the holes in ELP that is needed before we actually can start that work this is probably the case with our sites as well the high schools there are positions that we have to fill that present prevents us from moving forward with some of the work but we we are making progress odd um guys odd has been involved with a lot of tasks across the board one is working with the regional directors team building working with the schools and training they've taken on the LMS implementation and odd is what I usually call and say hey Lauren I need you he's there um goals that I have coming up and this is not an exhaustive list I only have so much time but we still have to get out for our sites both campuses prior the

038principals and I had planned this dream team meeting but we have to go to our schools I've also opened that up for itinerant directors as well we still have to learn about what's being done and do it right and then that Focus that I kind of let people know that it is we do this for the students and it's all about kids that's all I have for you questions thank you are there any questions it's me uh this is where remember Brittany I'm a superintendent Martin assistant superintendent Martin I just had a question when I was reading for your report um you touched on the importance of attendance at the PTSD campus um up to and including that it looks like you guys might be instituting a new policy uptune including a jpo officer Vernon

039Powell I just had a couple questions about that first off I'd really like to know if this officer is deaf himself or has had any training in Deaf culture if he'll be dealing with our students and our families I'm going to bring up our principal and let her give you some additional context on there it's a boy hello everyone thank you very much for your question um he does not have any current training in Deaf culture but he will be attending the meetings with me with the parents and we will we're working side by side together and he will be um getting that training throughout as he works with our school I have a few questions so I mean don't run away um so I was reading I kind of Googled through some of this

040program that looks like that you're instituting as far as truancy Grand attendance and it looks like up to and including that this officer could be going to the student family's houses and interfacing with them about their true students is that correct not at this time all all meetings will be happening at the PTSD campus and that has not been discussed yet because obviously I have concerns that if he's going to be going out and he has no doesn't speak ASL and doesn't have any training we have a quite unique culture here and that could very much interfere with that absolutely no not at this time he'll just be meeting with the families and myself and I'll be running all of those meetings he will just be present there with me has he been working on

041our campus at PTSD for long or is this a completely new to us higher this is this was brought on by the principal the former principal and I just found out about him and I reached out in October when I first was appointed as interim principal and I started my work then he's met with myself he's also met with the attendance team and the nurses um and we have established this relationship and now we're moving forward under about [Music] truancy and absences um right now you know we're still kind of we're just in it a huge pandemic absolutely and this winter I my background is in healthcare I'm actually a healthcare worker okay um so I have seen how terrible that this winter especially has been yes flu RSV covid coughs colds and I just

042wonder how enforcing a very very strict um truancy policy is going to actually help our students instead of hurt absolutely and I was wondering if you could shine some light on your thought processes for that absolutely um any medical reasons for absences are exempt we do not hold that to the student or the family we reach out with communication with our nurses to see how we can support those students and get them back here and work with the Physicians as well to make sure that we have a safe environment at our school when they return we're talking about students who are truant in excess of so many days um where there's no medical reason present so by medical reasons being exempt to the student themselves would have to have a medical reason to be exempt

043is that correct can you please say that again for medical reasons being exempt the student themselves would have to be the person with a medical reason is that correct that is correct what about our students that maybe are not sick themselves but maybe live in a household that have maybe a medically fragile person in the house and you know especially during this winter it's been so bad like I know we I had a former medically fragile child myself and sometimes we would have to keep my son home from school because it just wasn't worth a risk to my medically fragile child um and I feel like this can be very punitive especially to families like like us and I mean our population and our culture is a little different than say you know my neighborhood

044school down the street absolutely so I just have kind of big concerns about enforcing this and the timing of it okay now okay um and my other follow-up concerns are the fact that this officer may or may not be familiar especially with our culture and our population that we serve okay okay um thank you very much I would be happy to sit with you more and discuss um how we're moving forward and our action plan I'd be happy to do that I'd also be happy to write I also ensure all the documents that I have and working with the officer um and I also when students are at home because they're medically fragile or they are dealing with maybe something like a family emergency at the house we we help students by providing technology to

045them and then they're able to zoom into our classroom as well and also documents and resources are uploaded into their Google Classroom so they can access that education at home as well it's very good to hear thank you so much you're welcome thank you are there any other questions for assistant superintendent Morton okay first I noticed that there was no mention of any additions or changes or comments so I'm wondering what is happening and what action is being taken in order to provide additional support or resources for our principles on both campuses our assistant principal position is still big into remote campuses if they are still vacant what is being done to help and really do active recruiting efforts for those positions while they're making it until they're filmed how are those principles being supported

046thank you board member chance both principals still work with the principal coach that we hire they have a schedule that they meet that principal coach pretty much guides them along in what they want to do with the school how they want to grow it how they want to change it my feedback to the principal coach is get them to imagine get them to just go crazy in their thoughts the AP positions are still open I have to say the principles were a thousand hats and they move a thousand miles a second I do not say that lightly because I do worry about their stress they have utilized their staff they have delegated at Tucson campus principal Waddell is rethinking those roles and wants to do it to make sure it fits where she's going in

047the future so she's putting thought into all of her positions that she has open PTSD we there's some other challenges that we're dealing with but principal white also is recruiting for that as well we have had no luck we are now working with HR and our new recruiter so we are hopefully we'll start making some Headway I really would hats off because they could have um taken just a warm body and threw it in that position and made their life somewhat easier but they both chose to not go that route do the additional work and wait until they find the right person that matches their vision and where they're going but they are still being supported by a principal coach who's a 25 plus year veteran principal and District administrator and as coach principals for

048over 15 years you mentioned the principal coach which I am aware of and I appreciate you and where do you fit into that support system for the principles I am you know I'm the guy by the side I believe a school is it's the principal's canvas if they have challenges or they have ideas I'm there any time of day and night where they bounce ideas off of me I also guide them as well but I do not cross that line because being a former principal myself I know what it means to be able to Create and Craft your school according to your vision so I support them 120 in everything they do and typically when they come to me with an idea it's never known it's let's figure out a way to make it happen

049and they usually I can say both principles which I love um will out-think me they're very creative they're very they're on point so we have this relationship that operates in this creative realm we think about not where we are but where we want to go and I do Challenge and push them but very I have to do that very little they are great in doing that themselves they do want the best for their campuses and they do have a heavy lift right now principleship is difficult okay I'm sorry um can you can you give me a little bit more context when you say administrative burden board member chance so for example or um staff resources to them so that they can delegate some of their duties what are you giving them practically speaking to help

050them have the space on the energy anyone else that's an opinion report you mentioned that Jill is implementing PBIS with her leadership team and that includes School administrator Joe Voight and that's the only thing that I see there's no other administrator or administrator support working this campus listed um and then you have pbsd staff who have already um who are already occupants so what can you do to help both of the principles not just think creatively and generate ideas and actually half the time yes um PTSD Jill Voight is is listed um there is staff that she has delegated that to because she cannot be in every place at one time as far as support um you know we have a relationship I understand and know what they're doing and why they're doing it typically

051if they need a position or need additional help they will reach out without hesitation and say hey George I need this and we go back behind the scenes and find a way to make it happen some of it is systemic organizationally and we have to get people to think differently but it's usually I leave it to what they need and I trust and I have no reason to doubt that because they come to me every single time when they need additional support as far as anything that the schools have need that they need we found out when I started that the schools were a little bit understaffed and we've been chipping away at that the difficult part is we just can't go get a Genet teacher or a person off the street to fit our

052schools we are for me anyway we're thinking about when we do hire some of these people like the sped director their ASL fluent because we're thinking about the culture and the community so they have for me every resource available and that is when they say we need this what do you need it for how we're going to use it and then I figure out how to make and today knock on the wood we've done an excellent job at backfilling and getting these schools a little bit whole in that way but it's driven by um what they need but I've never ever had to say no to them it's we've always figured out a way to make it happen I hope that answers your question board member chance yes how many admin secretaries do they currently

053have according to the restructure they will have three admins in each office this restructure and I'll let assistant superintendent Cooper I think she's going to speak on it on her portion but if the schools need something this is the ground level of looking at how we can be more efficient um we um if there is a need and I've shared this with both principles if there is a need after we get through this restructure I'm okay with going um and fighting for it and that's been the behavior ever since so if there is a need I'm not a fan I am a principal um proud and true I will fight for schools and what they need and staff them correctly so I know them pretty well and I know the systems and what they're dealing

054with so we're getting through the this restructure of the admin once it settles if there is a need I will not let them do without because we have to get away from this this cycle of we're just running around like crazy and people will burn out and they're quitting and they're leaving so we're trying to do this the right way with quality in mind and people in mind so that's my focus and that's what I will continue to fight for when they bring something to me so thank you and I agree it is one of my concerns we have already lost a former principal and as the board that it looks like we eat our principles and so I'd like to make sure that they are getting the support that they need to clarify you

055said that there will be three NH office that admin for the principles or is that admin it the the each principle will have a dedicated admin and then there will be two additional admins that service the office and the school needs again if there is something that um after that settles and they say hey George we just can't do it then we come back around the table this process happens pretty quickly when they bring it to me um and I'm I'm pretty much a thorn in assistant superintendent Cooper's side but we come to the table and we we come up with a solution um so and I agree losing a principal sets back a school three to five years and so it's devastating when you lose a principle because a lot goes with that that's

056where we are right now is rebuilding both sites and my last question is what plans or actions or comments do you have regarding to helping retain our current principles campuses if you can't comment on that currently I would like to see um a potential actions anymore to retain both of our principles for an effort today if you're able I would like to know a little bit about what we're doing it to help keep our principles um you know yes I will add something on there formally we I have thrown um at both principles um trainings that I have identified development opportunities that I've identified both principles respectively said George we we just we can't we're swimming we're underwater we're trying to keep our sights going and I gave them the the Comfort to say Okay

057so we've had there's been a lot that the two principles that we've set down and we again our Dream Team we have a lot of names for it but I understand what it is to be a principal I understand what it is to turn around schools I understand what it means to go into school as a brand new principal and everyone's against you I also know what it feels like to have support from an assistant superintendent that helps you grow and lets you make mistakes as well as look out for opportunities for you but challenge you to find them for yourself so some of it is is more spoken than written for me PV because um that's something that's that's near and dear to me I I I've been in schools where I haven't been

058supported as a principal and I know what that means and I've been in schools where superintendents said you know George go create I'm here for you you can do everything but spend money everything else go go at it so both principles um to me they are they are the epitome of what a strong principle is I've seen principles break I've seen principles fall apart throw Tantrums run out of the schools the things that they're faced with are some of the things that I've faced over my career and I've stood the test of time with it but they have my full support I will always watch out for them some of it will be informal because our relationship is very informal because that's the space they live for them it's all about people School culture and

059they balance and juggle so I will put something down formally but I'll develop that with both principles because I do want their input on what they need I will suggest everything for them and anything but I leave it to them to also look into it and say what's right and they have no issues with saying George or we don't like it so but thank you for that board member chance thank you and like I mentioned I do want to see some more detail um if you report from the next board meeting regarding specifically what will be done what actions and ensure that we are able to retain those principles now the other question I have was on a different topic is this related to the Bedrock vocabulary curriculum it says that odd staff continue to

060develop interactive dual language vocabulary instructional materials for Elementary classrooms uh and you know what you mean by dual language vocabulary instructional materials so that that mean that they are developing Which languages in terms of dual visual language I'm going to bring up Oren from odd to provide more context good evening board board member PB dance so with the the BGC curriculum and the Bedrock it starts first with ASL of teaching the concept in the word in ASL once that's solidified then it moves to English the written English um thank you so that means when a teacher is teaching in ASL they're just teaching and self or are they also teaching structure are you teaching grammar are they teaching big hand Shades the five parameters so the details of this would be better answered by Tina

061scharzer and Michael Olivier as they're the ones doing the training but what I can tell you is that it does start with American Sign Language it does take the hand shapes it takes the grammar and it treats ASL like its own language um as soon as the concept is learned in ASL then we move over to English we look at the spelling and we look at the grammar of written English it's to clarify it does respect both languages it tries not to intermix them but to truly start in one language and then move that concept over to English thank you so again to clarify you mentioned Mike correct and I'm sorry who was the other individual so we have three people on the odd who are helping when we look at um anything that has

062to do with literacy and language we have Michael Olivier this is his first year working with the team very excited to have him as he is an expert in the BGC he's done it out in Boston and now is is here we also have Tina scharzer I'm here in Tucson as well as Rose Andrea Cola they're both veteran educators they teach me on a regular basis about ASL linguistics um three phenomenal experts that we have set up to be in positions to truly help get this curriculum up and running and that is done correctly and with fidelity so those three are are they directly teaching the students in this dual language model they are not so what they're doing is they're creating they're helping create materials and then Mike has been going in and working

063with the teachers directly okay so again to clarify we have materials and an individual going in to assist teachers and is that are they kind of in and out of the classroom assisting or are they focusing solely on assistant teachers all the time I think both with the BGC there are some materials that have been pre-created out of Boston we've identified in the last couple years that there's a lot of holes as far as materials that need to be there to support the curriculum Tina and Rose have been working Lord I'm trying to think it's pretty pre-covered so easily for the last four years and trying to create materials um with Mike on board this year he is also helping create materials but he is going in and working with the teachers um either when

064we're Crest when sorry when requested or when time permits okay and so who's providing the formal ASL instruction portion when the BGC is being taught to the kids that would be on the classroom teacher they would be responsible for the curriculum any of those teachers meeting the requirements of ASL fluency that that is a good question prior to covid we did start working in trying to get every teacher to have a formal ASL assessment so we could see where they were where they were scoring and what things are taking place what we could put in place to support them that did lose some steam during covid um this Monday myself Michael Rose Andrea Cola and Chrissy Voyer who is doing some Consulting work for the agency will be meeting with an individual named Molly um

065drawing a blank on the last name at the moment about the vcso I believe training and putting that in place to assess staffs ASL proficiency the reason that we're doing that instead of the aslpi is that they're from what we've understood is that with gallaudet there is quite the backlog of trying to get them to come in and evaluate ASL proficiency in meeting with Molly she has a plan of how we can train internal staff to be assessors once we have staff who are trained to assess we can expedite it we won't have to worry about gallaudet we can do it on a much quicker basis um that meeting that is it is actually perfect timing that you mentioned it because it's taking place on Monday um as soon as we have that in place

066we can discuss how many evaluators we need and what's the best way to do it in the agency so nobody feels that there's favoritism being given so for example could it be that Tucson staff evaluates Phoenix Phoenix evaluates Tucson on all of that we haven't thought of yet we're just at the beginning of um discussing how would we do it what it would cost and then at that point at that point we'd approached the superintendents with it and hopefully get the green light to make that a reality for the 23-24 school year okay and how many ASL Specialists does the agency currently have that would be a good question for the principles I believe that we have one ASL specialist on each campus as well as an ASL teacher um but if I'm incorrect okay

067so for the specialist there's one on each campus okay so we do have a BGC meeting every two weeks the ASL Specialists are part of those meetings they tell us what's going well they tell us what they're seeing what materials they believe need to be in place um areas of the curriculum that might not be moving as fast as as they would like or that we would like so every two weeks we do have a meeting from eight and nine in the morning where we discuss what's going on look at the data that's collected and then come up with additional steps on what's needed so those ASL Specialists are part of those meetings every two weeks [Music] we're struggling um I'm struggling to understand is if you have those things in place why are ASL

068skills not improving on micro campus I think we need to one area that we're hoping to do with the BGC is that this is one of the first years that we're collecting data from both campuses to see the vocabulary Improvement based on the Bedrock vocabulary lists in a future meeting we can share with you what we have so far and we have seen some great gains in some classrooms in the classrooms that we haven't uh that's where we get to ask really good questions about what additional supports are needed um there's that old saying a visit it can't do or won't do as far as the implementation of the curriculum but this this is the first year that we have been collecting data across both elementary schools and getting close to 100 participation so when

069you I'm trying to think of how I want to word this right when you're saying that the ASL is not improving I'm not sure that we're all looking at a constant data point and a constant assessment to make that decision I'm hoping with the BGC we can start using that the assessments that come with that as the indicator to collectively either say this isn't working what do we need to do or it is getting better and that's why we need to keep doing it and putting additional supports into the BGC and the bilingual curriculum um so thank you for providing that extended explanation my only concern with your answer is in reference to data and you are correct that you don't have a full picture of the data at this stage because we did have

070a significant impact in that area I know it has been a struggle however I do think you're correct there are some areas where we might be seeing a camp and others where we might be saying won't so with that in mind with one ASL Specialists on each campus is that sufficient are you documenting how much is how much time is dedicated to formal ASL instruction and formal English instruction what about other students whose households speak other languages such as Spanish or native languages are they receiving a similar approach and similar supports or is it exclusively as L right now it is exclusively ASL and English do you know the population of students whose own language is Spanish uh we do we actually have that assuming that their language intake form when they come in is

071correct we do have a very large population of students where their home language is Spanish um okay so the BGC is not being implemented in our blind School our School for the Blind um any additional supports that they had they would have would come from that it's called the float a phlot it's the home language survey if they've been identified as on that float for not having English as the primary language that's used at home or their first language uh we are required by law to give them what's called the Azela test um we continue to do that and as part of the the findings from the azealot test it is up to the school and everybody involved with that child to really focus on how to improve their English skills um and that's that's

072a federal requirement that's not an Arizona thing or an asdb thing um as far as using something like Spanish from the home language to support um they're learning that would be more of a bilingual approach in using Spanish in order to learn academics and that really hasn't been the emphasis here at asdb at least in the six years that I've been here okay thank you very much thank you as as you're aware on the boards where there is no off-the-shelf curriculum that we can get for ASL that's aligned to the Arizona academic standards which means that this small faithful team that's within the odd has to build almost everything from scratch we're very great when I when I started there was nobody I'm very thankful for the support that we've had with superintendent reichmann to

073see the need and to continue to build that team larger and larger because it's necessary we can't we we have to build everything because you can't Pearson doesn't have anything none of the major Publishers offer something in ASO which means that it has to be homegrown we we are and I apologize but we are also working with other schools that are using the BGC to try to partner with creating materials we've had multiple conversation and by we I'm talking about Mike Tina and Rose have had conversations with the Hawaii school for the deaf as well as other schools that are using it to see if we can collaboratively fill all the gaps in the materials so we're not all doing this independently as well no we can move forward thank you all right thank you

074uh thank you uh we're gonna move on to 1.06 information item assistant superintendent of agency operations and support services assistant superintendent Cooper good afternoon board president Nigro superintendent reichmann assistant superintendent Martin members of the board ascb community and staff members each of the directors have provided to you their departmental reports there is no additional information that has come forth since those reports have been provided to you as we continue to strategize and roll out our changes to maximize resources in the agency while at the same time meeting our mission and vision and alignment with pillar 4 of the Strategic plan I wanted to just give an update on a few major projects that the directors and I have been working on the first project consists of the administrative assignment realignment that we've been working on

075with each of the administrative assistants which started in the fall of 2021 where we began reviewing the structure of our administrative support staff across the agency which consists of over 35 individuals at that time it was determined that many of the administrative support staff tasked could be completed through a centralized shared service model through that shared service model we identified tasks that were either being shared or duplicated across various departments and we determined that a lot of that could be substantially eliminated from each of the individual support tasks that each of the admins were doing and so we've identified quite a bit of inefficiencies we've determined an increase in need of providing more customer service and also looking at how to better streamline our processes in addition we have been focusing on centralizing and consolidating

076some of the administrative support staff with the intended outcome of ensuring that those processes are optimizing and providing better agency support to ensure that we are effectively making sure that our students are being served I'm glad to say that we actually finally completed phase one of the project so again we started in the fall of 22 21 and now we just completed phase one we were able to fill almost all of the centralized support service staff positions and those are housed within my area which is at the agency Administration and support services we're now looking at filling the educational administrative support positions and realigning those positions in addition to filling those that have been vacant so we've also identified a more structured approach and how to standardize when a principal or a director comes and

077asks for an administrative assistant historically we've just approved the request and that is why we had got to almost 40 administrative assistants across the agency and as I mentioned earlier we've now identified a standardized structure some of which assistant superintendent Martin had already discussed for example what the principles we've determined that there's three administrative support staff half one which would consist of a registrar one an administrative assistant directly supporting the principals and then an administrative secretary so that's just one example of the area that we've looked at we also had administrative assistants that were actually working with the student information system they've traditionally been called administrative assistants but we have looked at identifying or reclassifying those titles to registrars since they actually do the work specifically with the student Information Systems so we hope to

078have phase two completed by the end of this month and then we'll work on the Final Phase of that project the other project that the directors and I continue to work on is the compensation restructure which you heard a lot about last year we actually looked at um grade nine and Below staff we've increased their salaries we continue to look at how we can ensure internal equity and external competitiveness across the agency not only looking at recruiting but also retaining staff and this is also in alignment with the workforce analysis that we're looking at making sure that we do have staff and student ratios that are working more optimally across the agency in addition to us looking at now grade 10 and above we are also looking at various salary schedules across the agency and

079determining how we can either combine or modify some of those salary schedules I have already have staff reaching out to me and asking me when we expect that project or phase of the project to be completed we don't expect that to be completed until probably May or July when we will bring that to the board for implementation for Effective school year 2024 contention upon board approval so as a assistant superintendent Martin also mentioned we've been busy working with our newer recruiter that we hired within HR um we also have identified and hired a consultant to help and identify ways on how we can improve our recruitment efforts and so that's just to give a quick update on a compensation restructure project that we've been working on and over the next few weeks we'll actually be

080gearing back up to work with the Auditors which will be back here in March as they begin their six-month follow-up test work from the sunset audit finding and recommendation and so we'll be working on that we just had our hearing this past week with the house and that was pretty successful in addition to when we met with the Senate a few weeks ago there are no other updates that I have at this time to provide uh thank you are there any questions for assistant superintendent Cooper okay um here hi grow thank you for your patience I do have a quick question for you assistant superintendent Cooper in your report you mentioned Food Services and the expectation for Ade review and needing to collect some additional information I'm recalling a few board meetings ago making a

081request of wanting to see some student input on their thoughts and feelings about the food and whether or not they're satisfied with our food services do they eat the food that's been provided to them do you have any information if you can't speak to it right now are you able to provide information as to whether our students are eating and satisfied with our food services or should we change vendors if they're non-satisfied not satisfied board member chance I will ask that our director of operations Albert Duff come up and provide more context for you foreign thank you for that PV um Yes actually we do collect a lot of informal data just right off the service line also seeing what is eaten and what is not eaten a lot of times what we see is

082in the trash can tells it all in addition to that we also have Global bites and some other tasting evaluations where we expose students to new tasting options and then we incorporate those into the menu so on average what percentage of students are liking and eating the food as compared to not well every palette's a little different um so and once again that would be each meal so as they look at once again I know it seems kind of informal but going through that trash can and deciding that most of the students threw this away that's whenever those items are actually removed off the menu and then we don't do that again we also work with our vendor to try and keep that varied within our palette we also have to meet a lot of

083special dietary restrictions that do restrict some of the offerings that we have so what we are planning to do as part of our health committee is actually sending out information not just to students but also to parents within we're hoping by the end of the school year so that way we can collect from parents their input of what their students are saying whenever they come home whether or not they like the meal whether or not they don't as well as out to staff members within our agency to gain their opinion as well so that is part of the health committee which is also part of policy and so we will as part of that administrative review have to enforce the those policy recommendations it is a 5 30 so we do need to take a

084break for The Interpreter so we're going to take a 10 minute break thank you okay go ahead president negro yeah we're ready to come back now it's been 10 minutes uh so hello everyone we're um back now um into our meeting don't ask me okay we're starting the meeting now everyone yeah if I could have everyone's attention um we are going to resume the meeting now to make me use the gavel so we are back on 1.06 . so so we're back on 1.06 are there any additional questions uh for assistance use the gavel use the guy the gavel appeared here today I know I didn't ask for it it just appeared um uh so we're back on 1.06 um are there any further questions for assistant superintendent Cooper yes this is board member dance

085I did have a follow-up question for Mr Duff I apologize Mr death not a problem thank you one thing that I've been thinking about and would like to make a possible suggestion on this is there any way to potentially set up any kind of QR code or quick poll or a survey where even during lunch that students can get their lunch eat it scan the QR code and give a thumbs up or give an immediate thumbs down or a neutral it's a myth for me today something like that if there was a way to use a social media approach to it using QR codes or something like that to get quick and instant feedback we may get more engagement for student feedback if we use that route I think that that live data may help

086provide more of a comprehensive picture some students because they struggle with food at home will show up and eat because they are hungry it doesn't necessarily means that they like the food that's been provided to them there are some people who come and do not receive any food because they already know that they simply don't like what's offered so it doesn't even show up in the trash they just skip the meal completely and so I want to make sure that students are not skipping meals that they're con encouraged and the their active parties participation is included so something just a thought if possible absolutely we can definitely look at that when we first rolled out the transition from in-house to contracted services our primary focus was two items which was one compliance within the nsop

087program and second food safety and making sure that we're beating the dietary restriction requirements of all of our students that we don't put anyone at risk so those were our first two items obviously higher participation rates or improving food quality of what what is wanted within those for example surveys those are obviously things that we would like to to get onto which is right now we're focusing on that administrative review for compliance which we're very excited about in order to make sure that we're fully compliant with the federal program and then absolutely once that is complete we can definitely take a look at how we improve our surveying of our students regarding those items what I will say though is that prior to the Food Service Company coming on we saw an average participation rate

088normally in the 80s which is actually pretty high for most food service programs bringing on the Food Service contractor we actually see participation rates in the 90s so we did actually see an increase in participation underneath the Food Service Company and those are submitted as part of our reimbursement so that's how we're able to track that information so we are seeing a little bit higher participation which to me would suggest that we are seeing more engagement within our student population within our food service program there's also just quite a bit of a change of administration this is my first real year kind of looking at Food Service and bringing on a new food service director as well there was a lot of change in that management and change in the direction and the thought process

089of food service and so we're we're having to build Rome and that isn't done overnight but we are definitely making those first critical steps with compliance and food safety great thank you okay thank you we can move on to 2.01 action item approval of the consent agenda consistent reward policy to include items 3.01 3.03 5.01 6.01 7.03 and 7.04 is there anyone that wants to remove anything from the consent agenda okay 3.03 and 6.01 and 7.03 specifically policy jlda sorry so say that again 301. yep 3.01 or six point [Music] seven point zero three specifically jlda okay so what's left um 5.01 and 7.04 is that it 3.01 is okay yeah okay yeah 3.01 is still on there all right so three points just to clarify it's just three point six point zero one and

090seven point zero three specific to that is jlda okay all the others good to go right we have to do it by um agenda item so it all comes or goes as one um is there uh so you you've made a motion to remove those from the consent agendas they're a second to that motion I second that motion uh all in favor say bye thank you uh any opposed that would be me um and any abstentions no okay thank you all right so um do we have a motion to pass the rest of the consent agenda so moved is there a second I second uh all in favor aye aye folks on the phone is that Lillian and Colette and Colette okay that was cool um all right any opposed and that passes okay so

091we're gonna go on to action 3.02 action item approval of new District agreements assistant superintendent Martin thank you president Nigro we have one contract in Region Three with Florence Unified School District okay um if there are no comments on that I uh we approved that is our second I'll second uh all in favor aye aye aye any any post any abstentions okay then we're going to go to 3.03 approval of additional out-of-state student travel this is dependent Martin or PV did you have any any comments on this so I moved to um approve 3.03 okay PV did you you removed it did you have any comments on it okay it was only for the purposes of abstaining from this I I second all right uh all in favor um say hi hi hi any opposed

092quick question this is foreign yes um could you please clarify for me um so we've removed it from the consent agenda okay um my eyes cannot follow it my eyes aren't what they used to be sure yes removed and now when we're voting on it I'm just a little bit confused okay so when we remove items from the consent agenda that means that we talk about them specifically it's typically because of the board member wants to talk about it or make some statement about it or ask a question um so we still go through and we still talk about it and we can still approve it we just do so individually instead of all at once so we typically put General housekeeping matters and consent agenda things that are generally going to be not controversial

093so that we can you know expedite the meeting and get through housekeeping items more quickly if a board member wants to pull them off they have to ask the board the board has to vote like we just did to pull that off and then discuss it individually um and so now we're talking about 3.03 yes 3.03 this is the approval of the additional out-of-state student travel as noted in the agenda there are some documentation there that describes the as they travel that's proposed and now we're either going about to approve it or not approve it so just a for procedural purposes if a board member decides and makes a motion to remove that and has no comments what does that mean for procedural uh it doesn't mean anything I think it I think that it

094was done for the purposes of abstaining from this vote if there's no comment or question but I don't know because we'll we'll finish the vote in a minute okay thank you okay um thank you for the clarity oh no for any time um and then any no and any abstentions of course so um now we're going to go to 3.04 integration action item class 4 proposals for early intervention for children who are deaf and hard of hearing so um this one let me take a drink of water so we all know the history here we have seen this issue arise this is now the fourth and fifth time that this issue has arisen once with Flagstaff unified in 20 late 2018 early 2019 um again with uh the Early Learning or the the preschool contracts

095that we talked about back in May and now with two contracts on um I'm sorry third and fourth time now in the two contracts for early learning um they were we had two contracts with Early Learning providers that provided services to early interventions zero to three to support language acquisition for uh deaf and hard of hearing children zero in the zero to three bracket that that discontinuation of services was set to end in January of this year the parents were notified in late November we all received a number of emails about it there were 42 families that were affected by this 42 children and their respective families that were affected by this again the the same factual fact pattern that we saw back in May where the the superintendent chose not to proceed with these

096contracts and and not replace them with you know with other services or alternative services and these are supplemental Services these are not services that are done in performance of the ifsp these are kind of above and beyond the services that are provided in the ifsp uh to support language acquisition um it's language acquisition is a big part of pillar too it's so big it's right underneath pillar too is language acquisition um that was a goal that we have as a we said as a board um we've made the agency aware that that's a key uh goal of ours is to support early language acquisition because that is in many cases the root of of issues that we see down the road so we want to make sure we get children that are in that critical

097stage of development for language on that zero to three range and make sure that they get the support they need to to acquire language so we had these contracts with these two providers um again performing these supplementary uh Services now um we the the parents and rightfully so were angry when these were discontinued um I think the board was not aware that they were going to be discontinued until they were the first we heard about it was the emails from those parents and all those emails were exactly the same my child is doing great they're acquiring language I see progress we have a great a great time at um you know with these Services because we're seeing that our child is progressing and we have some hope uh we were notified that the state is

098not going to be supporting this anymore after January 1st and we're told that these providers charge thousands and thousands of dollars and that's not something we can afford and our child is going to suffer because of that um and I would have written the same letter I you have to remember I'm a parent too um I I've filed OCR complaints multiple ones I filed State complaints um I've done it all um for uh you know in support of getting school districts to to comply with various laws regulating to this area of education so certainly I uh I I feel you know quite a bit for these parents and you know the uh we asked the superintendent um why you know why this is completely by surprise and no by the way back in may we

099changed our policy lb and we said if you're going to terminate or not renew that you're going to let us know you need our approval because this has happened too many times before uh and that you know you you're cutting down these services so the superintendent wrote to us all of us um and said well and on Janet I'm reading from our the email that we received uh that on January 1 2021 ACP entered into a new IGA with a zip and uh in Prior years as it provided a small amount of funding to assist ACP and setting families to these two providers being that this practice because that you know that money was was reduced um and now I'm paraphrasing uh the azip stopped providing those additional funds at that time but the family's

100going to continue to have their ifsp served because that's what we're legally required to do we're just not going to do the above and beyond work um the superintendent didn't believe that she canceled or not renewed the contracts with these providers because she she believed that she just allowed the contracts to expire notwithstaying the fact that in the response of these complaints the superintendent did in these contracts for another five months through the end of May of this year I think just to satisfy some of these parents for a short period of time but you know just forget that that happened but at the time she told us that uh that she didn't consider her actions to be a cancellation or non-renewal but nevertheless we're in the situation where we've you know we have services

101that have been taken away and and by the way um if that reasoning is funding I I just don't accept that we we have plenty of money um in 2019 um the superintendent and others went down to the legislature and testified for additional ECFE funding early intervention funding there's a nice picture of superintendent and former president Sims and Governor Ducey um you know getting this 1.6 million dollars in recurring funding that first came through a telecommunications fund that's now folded into the general appropriation and we talked about all the language acquisition efforts we were going to do with this money but apparently and we still get that money we that's folded into the general Appropriations we still have it um you know where's it go not here um it's it's not being um it's not

102being it's not being used to support these services for uh these children they're they're going to be they're going to go away by May uh you know I was happy to see that that contract was extended for a few months and those children are going to get some more services at least until May so if there's not quite the urgency that we had um you know last time in May when the services were cut in uh you know May and there were three families that in August had to find new schools for their children so you know why are we here after having the same fact pattern happen two other times before and now it's happening this third and fourth time I don't know that raises broader questions but you know for now and in

103this agenda item the the way to solve this to support this or to support our families in early language acquisition again these are children in a critical period of language acquisition zero to three is to direct the superintendent to issue an RFP for early intervention services for deaf and hard of hearing in the ages of zero to three we can tell her to do that she'll go through the RFP process with the same services that we had in the previous contract and if whatever whoever providers in the state want to you know reply and go through that process they can they don't have to they can just maybe they're frustrated with us who knows um but that's the that's the answer so uh that's where we are that's why we have this this item um

104I uh I would like to you know at this point uh move that we direct the superintendent to issue an RFP for deaf and hard hearing children aged two to three using the same criteria that was used in the past in the previous RFP that small on the contracts that these these providers used um so there is a motion on the floor but if there's any discussion or questions we can certainly do I I have some questions whether or not our Early Learning Program capacity to be doing some of this stuff on campus I would also like to see that if we do provide that directive to superintendent reichmann that we include that providers need to come in and be um part C approved um why would you want them to be part Seafood um

105because I think we actually have more staff on campus currently that have the skills to provide these services and why would we contract out if we've got the capacity to do it internally well I don't actually don't think we have any right I mean when we had this talk in may we were told that with the agency had no LSL certified personnel and the closest one was at least 18 months away and that was in May of 2022 was at least 18 months away from getting their certification and the others were 24 to 36 months away so we we don't have that now and the outside vendors do you know at this time and I'm not sure that that is the case with both outside vendors and and that's I mean I I believe that

106it is but that's something to sort out through the RFP process um uh tsuke is um I think suitcase dollars still would like to to have the ability to know whether or not our staff feels they have the capacity to take that on in-house okay um you you understand and again just the point the the same point that I raised again I don't want to rehash May again that was a three-hour meeting just in this one point um but you should understand that it costs the agency far less to use the vendors than it does to produce its own its own programming as the vendors told us that you know Dan Chapman came by from Desert voices about a year ago maybe a year and a half ago and showed us pretty clearly that the

107agency at least in those existing contracts paid about seven thousand dollars a year for those services and it cost them somewhere around 10 or 11 000 to put those on so and that's the case that was also the case as we saw in May with preschool there was a difference of between 26 000 of the contract rate and the actual cost which is about 32 000 and they go out and they they fundraise the rest um so I mean we certainly can look into that but in every other area that we've looked at and even in May when we did this direct comparison to our preschools you know we were in a preschool too and it cost us forty thousand dollars a student um that was one of our that was one of our questions

108right why are we can't send contracts before a twenty four thousand dollar preschool that's costing that the community is subsidizing the state is leveraging the community generosity um to get a 32 000 education um but this if we were to do it ourselves it would cost us forty thousand dollars right we you know that's that's the difference so um that's not any different here the numbers are less it's not a full-time preschool costs much less it's you know it's it's again around seven thousand dollars a year for that for that existing contract I don't know what the new contract would be for if we had one foreign [Music] uh you've got the email that I did and that's the email that's the explanation you got it back on December 12th um I I mean I

109don't know who else asked I don't know who superintendent reichmann I didn't ask her to send this email if that's what you're saying if you're asking me did I say write this email I did not um I don't know who else talked to her I don't know who talks to her but she sent the same email to me and you and everyone else on the board [Music] the I would think that the board would wonder why I don't even know why you're asking this question to be honest um the superintendent gave us an answer as to why well yeah the board didn't ask because we didn't have a meeting at that time [Music] so um [Music] this is this is ridiculous PV this is this is pure don't waste our time please if you have

110a serious point you make that point [Music] board member members of Connecticut [Music] so I want you for science again the public comment was made saying we are to the community that before collectively not why and that is not okay that is not true I understand not so common I want to finish all discussion really you're responsible so after important we've already dropped to life and we've already established that we are towards the economy so I want to make sure that's good for the community my next Point here that I want to get off here um directed argb to conduct with the back of the financial resources and not include utilizing an in-house Church it is my understanding throughout the history that we have been building our new conference foreign [Music] foreign [Music] for that

111moment why would we come back out [Music] you made the comment that the agency had plenty of him I do not recall you the father of the Lord I've ever seen on the financial committee and I could assure you that board member for it and myself and we do not have anything anything million dollar s because of all the infrastructures [Music] first person if you recall the last two board meeting we were talking about communication doctor especially when we mentioned about everything now [Music] here again that the comparison that you made with other girls are just not relevant in your future no offenders according to State your children are often think and choose which student s June 3rd so if they had a student at that very high needs that are expensive they don't lose

112until they come for sure about students [Music] foreign [Music] do not need to be Unified State achievement law does not allow [Music] ance it expired at the end of five years [Music] okay we're gonna be equation I don't know what your experience [Music] they are not good they are not gone they are not here and if you are wanting to forward abilities foreign [Music] so I would really appreciate it about the poor not only can you have their discussion on equal footing but also with equal and mutually understand [Music] something is ridiculous [Music] therapy especially in the community groups of energy I also want to talk about to put your actions and what's been happening especially if we did board meetings that you are talking and understand that you're not going to another female board

113member you are not often to understanding to a death River and you know it's interesting I wanted to mean that what we have going on here here we are award that soldiers are going to do with Pacific disabilities document blindness Eric that one and if we are the board are showing the community that it locate the board members to treat each other a different way why are we migrating issue [Music] so at the end of the day please I have 3000 conversations [Music] and give everybody the time under your appropriate platform to express that discussion equally [Music] equally thank you see there are you finished so um here's here's a situation uh the statement if we were to direct the superintendent to do this RFP she does it like any other RFP the board's not

114involved she does RP's all the time what she did here was she didn't do another RFP to renew those services and she didn't tell the board that she wasn't going to do it she just didn't do it nowhere in her prior reports did she mentioned oh by the way this RFP that we've been doing for a while I'm not going to do it anymore to get this new contract that's that's what she did she did extend the contract when I say extend what did she do technically she worked with State procurement to get a I don't know emergency contract for five uh five months that's right what's the effect on the families the effect is you know all of a sudden now we have this new contract that we can we can still get these

115services um you mentioned providing faith we don't provide favor to zero to three no one provides fate to zero to three idea um it doesn't RDA part C applies to those um they uh these are these are zero to three they get fake when they age to three so we can direct the superintendent to do this and she'll do it like any other RP she does RPS all the time the agency does rfps the whole time we have ton of tons of contractors and it would be fine and whoever answers answers whatever vendor answers will answer and all of that goes through through the agency again we have a whole department that does that so there is a motion on the floor um already is there a second can we just review what the motion

116was I'm sorry the motion was to direct the superintendent to issue an RFP for zero to three uh deaf and hard of hearing children using the same criteria that were used in the previous RFP that resulted in the in the two contracts that were not renewed or lapsed or whatever term you'd like to use um before I feel confident in voting either way um there seems to be some debate on if we can provide this in-house or if we cannot provide this in-house is there somebody that we can have stepped down and tell us for sure that we provide this in-house um we certainly can ask I do know that we last I was told by the agency we don't have um the same Personnel the same certifications uh that these two agencies provide um

117so you know we have certified teachers of deaf but we don't have the certifications in this listing and spoken language um yeah [Music] and who can speak to this right now I would think that the superintendent Martin or or Kendra's catcher here doctor oh there you are oh Dr Benedict yes good evening president Nigro and board members superintendent reichmann assistant superintendent Martin and Cooper um I can answer whatever questions you'd like I'll do my best to answer them I do not have a presentation prepared for these for the evening more than happy to do so at a future date um what can I ask answer you off the bat all right this is where we Cannon I think the first question is do we provide LSL in-house we provide LSL services at the preschool level

118we have teachers at the birth through three level that are trained as that in that as well actually more that more in LSL than ASL to be perfectly honest um so yes um but it's it's more it's more than that it's also that even these providers and they will tell you as well as PCH Phoenix Children's Hospital they do not have providers either there are waiting lists pages long for services across these providers and so in response to this what I can share tonight is that we meaning PCH Zimmerman desert voices the ear Foundation we have gotten together and Lila zolson with ear Foundation has submitted a grant to the America to the Arizona Community Foundation um to for the next year work on building the state's infrastructure to have skilled individuals in LSL available

119not just at asdb but at pch in private practices asdb by ourselves cannot solve this problem and this group believes strongly that this needs to be a community effort if we want it to be sustainable and so um superintendent reichmann and I and others worked with State procurement to come up with some mechanism by which we could continue to support these families in the short term while we work with this group to come up with something for the long term the result of this planning committee what we hope to then see is to be ready come next spring to the early hearing detection and intervention Eddie the state Eddie coordinator will submit a grant to an additional Grant the same Grant it's the board maternal and help me out here guys do you know what

120it is I can't recall offhand I apologize but it's the same Grant I believe that supported us during covid when we had all of the um technology provided to support our birth to Three Families from a virtual platform and so if we were able to get that then we can continue to build a sustainable infrastructure across the whole state right now only children in Maricopa County are privy to these Services nowhere else not in Tucson non-emplexed death not in Colorado City nowhere and so we see it as very important to have these services available ongoing in every part of our state and that is our goal as a group and that is what has resulted from all of this which I see as a very positive outcome uh Dr Benedict I know back in May

121um told us that we didn't have any LSL certified staff is that any different today they are trained in LSL strategies we have we put out an RFP in Oren you can correct me if I'm wrong here we put out an RFP a year ago um four LSL Trainers for individuals to come in and certify ours and work with certifying our staff no one in the community responded to that RFP no one right so we still have zero certified there no we still internally are working no we have one certified LSL staff who is formally working with three to four other um individuals and who were like you said earlier who are on their way to full certification um I don't have it in front of me but desert voices and Zimmerman would say that

122they too as well have individuals working toward their certification they just don't exist they're not out there and there aren't even that many programs across the country that support certification in that there are very few and so that's why we need to look at this this issue on a broader level and then what we're hoping to do is the work that we that results from this Committee of PCH does their voices Zimmerman all of us we hope that that can provide a model for building additional services in other communication modalities whether that be ASL whether that be queued speech whether it be augmentative and assistive technology for our children with multiple disabilities we need to be reaching all of these populations all over the state that is our job as asdb and that's what we're

123endeavoring to do with our Community Partners and Dr Benedict I know that you're you know you're working with these Community Partners towards you know a more sustainable solution that's that's great these contracts are usually one year they're granted and then they're one year with four extensions right so if we were to do an RFP and again those families have those Services through Bay so we have a bit of time and and I know that the agency can expedite things and stay you know adoa can connect with other things if we were to get those in place assuming that whatever vendors reply reply if we were to get those um and in a year you have we've all agreed on some sustainable solution that's different or that takes a different form or that requires a different

124RFP or whatever form that that takes we can Transit we can have a plan we can transition to that new sustainable model and then we cannot renew the the you know the potential contract I'm talking about in a year or two years or whatever that that period is um and then you can come to us and you can come to the parents and say we've you know here's what we were providing we've realized that there was some you know we can improve that here's our new model what we're going to do here's our sustainable model and these are the services you're going to have and then transition those students to to the sustainable model so we don't have a discontinuity of of services to students who again I mean they age out right you know

125if you're if you're one and then you have a year of District of disrupted services and then you get something else when you're um two and a half uh you you lost out on critical time and and we don't want to do that for our children um so in other words if we were to do an RFP now that doesn't commit us for five years it commits us for a year at a time and we can plan for a transition to whatever the next delivery model is this is 2K um from a procurement standpoint we could continue with amending or not amending but extending the current contract for another year without doing an RFP we've done that already I well we've done the five months right I I right I mean we can renew and

126not renew and you know you throw these terms around and it depends on who you talk to but um you know can we do another year I think that it can a net might tell us that you can't I don't know the real answer um the fine dealings just from my experience working with procurement if if the need is there and we are anticipating that we are going to try and do this for a year and have something else then rfped they will they will extend that they will renew that for that additional time how long have we done that with the Des with yeah yeah this is Mike Gordon um thanks for your Insight towards the global issue being that there is a shortage amongst asdb staff and the community providers which makes eliminating

127contracts even more difficult certainly in a very quick decision seemingly to the extent that we have impassioned families reaching out to us you know by the tens maybe dozens telling this that they've had such good success with a community provider and now that's over obviously with for some reason not having that confidence to immediately feel that asdb will provide the same level or ability to so when you talk about a a community effort to reach the full state that's the kind of work that needs to be done a five-month contract and practicable uh that's a unusual length for sure and not enough time to get something through procurement so I don't quite understand what that's about uh those can be extended from what we see but primarily because procurement can't get them done in time

128so they have to be extended it's not a matter of of trying to make it better it's trying to get it even straight so I see this issue and it's obviously coming from a lot of different angles but having a community provider being a director of a private not-for-profit from a from a community provider if we get a letter saying that our contracts ending and uh and you know find uh find another Agency for your people uh that's a difficult spot to be in and that's to some degree I think what the issue is here is that this has kind of occurred before that these contracts have ended quickly without a lot of discussion that we're having right now after the fact with with a level of passion so I think if we have the

129opportunity to glean the information that you and your your focus group or however you want to call it can provide combined with the efforts of asdb possibly with a even by default extension of a contract impractable then that might be worthwhile in the overall run of things but when I do receive emails as we all have God knows we've received emails on multiple issues when we hear from families that don't know what they're going to do immediately that causes problem to me because we have talked about no student Left Behind when we talk about three or four students not 42 families so how are we going to resolve that in the short term or in the longer term particularly when you say as we know in the blind Community there's a shortage of providers there's

130a shortage of qualified teachers and and service providers so so I welcome and appreciate what you say to give some clarity to a discussion that has is multifaceted and if I may take to take this opportunity to respond to a board member court and I appreciate your comments and I do want to publicly apologize um it had been the intent to get this information out much earlier in the semester I was in and out intermittently all fall for family reasons so I take that onus um when we saw foresaw that the news wasn't going to be shared as early as we had wanted we inquired as to whether or not we could do any sort of extension because we knew that the five official extensions were out we were told no okay and then we

131were subsequently after some additional research that SPO did found this means by which we could do this the not practical to quote and so what we have been told to this day is that there we would have to go out for RFP maybe there's something else I don't know but that's the information we've been given today by the people that work with us at SPO and they've been very helpful through this whole process um and so I was I was happy that at the last hour we were able to find at least something for these families but I do want to publicly take on us for that and apologize well yeah and I wasn't directly towards you that um thank you any other uh thank you [Music] I work for a very large state agency

132of several thousand contracts and let me see um there's any people on the same issues and um as board member or dimensions experience as well he and I have had conversations about other contracts that have been we've been very frustrated with these situations unfortunately what you experienced communities experience is unfortunately pretty typical for the State recruitment office and I do know that there are several high-level administrators from different state agencies that they have similar and expose on their gymnasts to be so please do not take bonus for this this is that is just the reality of the state performance system it's not outstanding um and we will work through it the best way that we can thank you uh thank you Dr Benedict um so uh you know the situation here is we can it's

133unclear to me at this time how much further we can do the not practical to quote contract um I know that we've gone through May I'd like to if we can direct the superintendent to extend that further until we have a more sustainable solution then I would like to direct the superintendent to do that if the root for that is RFP which coming into the meeting I thought that was what we needed to do um then the root for that is RFP and then we cannot renew it at one point I mean to be clear uh we should be providing above and beyond service to our families we should be focusing on language acquisition in that critical period um if we're going to replace that with something else that's fine once we're providing a service

134we're not locked into that service forever the reason the board is so concerned about that is that if we're going to change the service or discontinue it we need to be involved in that decision that has to be communicated to the board and we have to understand what the transition is how we're still going to support those those students if the uh you know the the programming the services that they have are going to change because we don't want to leave students behind we don't want to feel like families are being left behind we don't want families to be in that position where their child loses critical development time so again um because it's unclear to me at this time and I don't think we have our appropriate attorneys in the room to tell us

135um and they can't anyway because they have an agenda as the executive session um I can modify uh the motion that's on the table which is nothing seconded yet to direct the superintendent to perform um uh to to move forward with the RFP as proposed and if possible uh procure those services in the as practical vein unless and until other suitable services or transition services are identified um before we move I have a question one more question true um since we are not the ones that do the RFP process and it is our superintendent our assistant superintendent services with that do we want do they have any comments to us about how the RFP process goes or what what their opinions are about what we their what would be the best case scenario for this

136at this time if you all want to continue these contracts then we will have to be it would have to be through an RFP that is the only way to do that so if you would like to provide supplemental services to families who have infant children from zero to three here in Maricopa County then that's what we would be that's what we have been doing those supplementary services so if you do really want that to continue then the RFP process is the way to establish that moving forward to make sure that the services are continued through the beginning of a new contract for the next five years the reason that I made the decision take off that off from the scope of work is because I wanted to focus on the finances and I the

137idea for excuse me focus on the Financial Funding funding of idea part C and approved services so the contracts that we have for those deaf and hard of hearing students would not align with pi DEA Part D the requirements you do not align with the Arizona Early Intervention Program want to align our services with a zip and so the purpose was not for financial reasons the decision was not made um you know against those two providers we are talking about focusing on the services we provide and aligning those with the federal and state can provide supplementary services I do not think that's the best use of our funding but at the same time if you all vote to support ordering me to do the RFP process I will do that process and we will re-establish

138the contract for the next three to five years I will recognize a board member for just a moment I do want to clarify that when superintendent regiment says that these vendors are not asip certified she means that the hours that are expended of their services do not count towards service hours in the ifsp and so that that's what she means nowhere does it say that we can't provide additional services in fact superintendent reckon went down to legislature back in 2019 and secured 1.6 million dollars in ECFE funding early intervention funding zero to three funding that did not have any strings attached to it it's now part of the general appropriation that money does not have any strings attached it doesn't say that we have to spend it on on Ida Port C services at all

139I don't know where that's going it's part of the general appropriation actually I have an idea of where it's going um but it's it's certainly not being used to to help early educate to help Early Education in these contexts with these vendors so you know those we still get that money we asked for it it's on a recurring basis and again there's there's you know we spend plenty of our general appropriation other places which we'll get to later in the meeting um a super a board member both had her income yes I raised my hand for a point of clarification from both superintendent reichmann and president um the potential was changing it or issuing a contract for one year but superintendent reichmann just said three to five years are we stuck with that term or

140can we decide a one-year term would an RFP process be acceptable for a one-year contract if you could clarify um board member both this is uh president Nigro the our the way the rfps have historically been done have been for one year initial term and then four one-year extensions so we could end it at any time in one year increments and the idea would be that when we have replacement services for those families we would be able to end the contract and transition those students seamlessly so they don't get delayed and they don't lose time to whatever the new services are foreign [Music] good as to be transition those services from those two current vendors to internal ASAP Services If the parents chose to do so for that issue we already do provide those kinds

141of services within the homes Dr Benedict talked about that can speak to that better than me but those types of services are already happening in the two contract vendors are not services that happen at the home parents have to bring their children to a Center in order to receive Services there so that would be the difference thank you it goes to vendors chose to somehow a line in the summer part C [Music] theoretically we could like to add anything Dr Benedict yes thank you I just wanted to state that if it is voted on to go out for RFP again that we do not want to put out the exact RFP that was put out five years ago things have changed and it wouldn't be relevant and so I would at least ask for that

142to be considered that that we're able to review that and and update it before it goes out Dr what in particular would you change because the way it's written right now it is Seeking a zip part C services and that's not what we're seeking here right um we've we updated the RFP as um for blind visually impaired services that went out and in October November so I would want to update this one as well but to reflect more accurately what we're looking for right these would be supplementary Services they don't count towards hours ifsp service hours right and right and I do again want to publicly acknowledge that desert voices and Zimmerman are great at what they do and we have an excellent working relationship with them this is nothing to do with any sort

143of unrest there at all we're continuing to work together very well and our providers will continue to share with families that they are resources in the community just like they share that our deaf mentors are available and a whole array of services in the community and within asdb Dr Benedict before you run away I have a follow-up question for you for these children birth to three if ASAP were not to provide these supplemental Services how would these supplemental Services be offered and or paid for for families great question so so they can obtain them at through CRS they are short on providers Zimmerman does not accept access so they have to go through their own insurance okay we could have private um practices like Zimmerman's they could accept access to allow for more access for

144families um and um also if azip would support us Contracting our own special our own speech language Pathologists because asif's Viewpoint is they have speech language Pathologists on the team but of course as we all know most of them and they would admit that they don't have a background and expertise and deaf and hard of hearing they would readily admit that so either we push for more speech-language Pathologists with the agencies that azip contracts with or we push for azip allowing us to have speech language Pathologists that are part of the team so I another follow-up question a little bit less specific to our population so for other birth to three services where would parents get those Services if it wasn't specific to this population where would they go for other birth to three supplemental

145services in for whatever that disability Mobility instruction whatever so depending on again what the family's needs are that is what our providers as well as the entire early intervention TEAM Arizona uses a team-based approach to early intervention so we are not the only ones working with families that are assigned a service coordinator there are multiple related service providers on the team depending on the child's needs and they work with the family to connect them to Community Resources we used to function as service coordinators we don't any longer because we wanted to and this happened before my time but we wanted to focus more on our direct work with families and not the coordination of services so it is the service coordinator's job to be that um social worker and there are social workers as well

146on the teams um on some children's and families teams that connect them with those services so that is that that is their job that is what they do so they could potentially back to our population they could potentially get these LSL Services through children's Rehabilitation Services Phoenix Children's Hospital um the the big caveat here I guess is the fact that our the providers that we're Contracting with don't accept or at least one of them don't accept access for payment which would prohibit some of our parents from being able to utilize those Services right and I want to be very careful I don't want to get into talking about anyone's business model or what they're how they're choosing to run their business desert voices is a non-profit they rely on fundraising um Zimmerman is their own

147private medical type practice and can make their own decisions as to how they want to run their businesses so you know I don't want to speak speak to that um but yes theoretically yes those are the individuals but again they are lacking providers as well so and these are supplemental these are not what we are required to do unless we would be allowed unless azip permitted our speech language therapists or the contractors on in other regions that have speech language therapists had these qualifications thank you for the class room David yes how much of these contracts annually um between the both of them there are probably about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars 150 000 a year both providers yes together roughly okay [Music] this is President Niagara 42. correct this is where remember we

148came in I know different you reference the 1.6 million that we were awarded in 2019. do you remember what that 1.6 million was specifically for I was for ECFE for Early Learning Program it was very yes for early specifically for early intervention and for vehicles for our agency for our early intervention we actually got more money for that so that first year we got I believe 400 000 on top of the 1.6 as a one-time fee for Fleet Maintenance and Fleet Capital um and then but that was one time and then the recurring uh amount was 1.6 million I believe they came through the Telecommunications fund the first year and then in subsequent years it comes through the general appropriation um so if it goes through the general appropriation it's just for my general understanding

149it's just for our agency and how it runs is no longer just specifically for an intervention or is it specifically still for early intervention um well when it comes through and Shane is probably the better person to answer this my understanding is that it comes to the general appropriation I think that we tend to pay some of the Early Education teachers salary from it along with other you know along with other funds with the azip funds is that correct yes and I do want to clarify the 2.07 that we did get in 2019 the one-time funding was 470 000 to purchase up to 21 Vehicles the remaining 1.07 was yes to expand the Early Intervention Program but it was to hire up to 21 staff so it's so it's it was intentionally to bring on

150the additional staff unfortunately with the one point million the ere was not incorporated into that amount so we've gone above the 1.6 million we have Incorporated that yes into the general funding it is ongoing to fund the payroll for up to I believe 16 staff that we have within the birth to three programs so that 1.6 million currently is specifically for payroll So currently that 1.6 million is not just for early intervention that we could use for these contracts specifically the way the verbiage was written and um Maria Murphy can probably help clarify that was before my time when that submission was provided to the state but it is again for payroll for the staffing to expand the birth to three program thank you very much okay um so again we have the motion on

151the table to um direct superintendent to enter into or to to issue an RFP um uh or in the alternative extend under a as practical as a practical contract with certain vendors until you know the the RFP is successful and or the uh more sustainable option that Dr Benedict had mentioned is comes to fruition is there a second for that I'll second all right uh all in favor um say aye aye okay uh any opposed all right let's roll call um president Agro uh yes Brittany Buchanan yes Lynn Davison the ball no Colette Chapman yes Mike Gordon hi Lillian Lee yes TV Jance no myself no all right um thank you I appreciate it uh next we go on to 4.01 information item Finance report good evening board president Nigro superintendent reichman assistant superintendent Cooper

152and Martin and members of the board in astv community I will try and keep this short I apologize our most recent finance committee was held last Thursday January 12th with board members PB Jance and Mike Gordon as well as superintendent reichman assistant superintendent Cooper and director of agency operations Albert Duff Mr Duff did a presentation on the agency's capital Improvement plan and capital Review Committee process we also discussed the November 22 and 21 Financial reports provided to each of you is the same financial information but in a more condensed version this total student count for December 1 2022 was 2090 a decrease of 40 when compared to December 1 2021. total of 21.30 the students and the MD and mdssi category were separated further by their primary eligibility of vihi and deafblindness you will see

153a reduction under MD and MD SSI while there is an increase in other sensory impairment and deafblindness as of December 1st we had about 492 FTE which includes 8.5 FTE from FBC at that time we employed 717 staff only 139 of those are full-time with the 1.0 FTE there are currently 134 vacancies across the agency the highlights of the November 22 Financial reports show the revenues of 15.6 million was 1.5 million lower than November of revenues of 17.4 the major difference is we received the October voucher payment of 3.8 million in December this year while it was received in November last year the budget fiscal year 2022 expenses of 24.3 million were 3.7 million higher than budget fiscal year 2021. the increases are a result of the 10 salary increase as well as moving staff

154to a minimum salary of 14 an hour contracted services including Transportation FBC one-to-one nurses and repair and maintenance including ADOT agreement and the new student information system and building software the 350 000 transfer to adoa and budget fiscal year 23 was for the food service equipment Capital Improvement for both Phoenix and Tucson campus the major difference in the programs is the regional cooperatives there was a hundred and twenty five thousand in Professional Services that was encumbered last year in November for voucher reimbursements and it was not encumbered until January of this year if there are no questions this concludes my report of the agency's financials uh thank you with any questions thank you okay thank you Kim um we're going to go down to 6.01 which was a consent agenda of rule of public interpreter

155pay schedule changes effective January 21st 2023 PV us that this be poll do you have any comments on this yes thank you for president negro I would like to ask some questions to Anita Pyatt please foreign thank you I just have a quick question in relation to the pay scale it says for trilingual ASL public interpreters 10 increase but I don't see any mention or comments on training or requirements or determination how do you determine whether a person is certified for trilingual is there some sort of qualification that you require for that trilingual yes there is certification that's required did you want Clarity on how that is paid or because it's added to the the current certifications that they already have I maybe have overlooked it I'm simply I'm looking and I don't see where

156it says the requirements for a trilingual interpreter could you show me where on the pay scale that is the different is that a different document perhaps no that's the same document however our pay schedule is driven off the certifications that you currently have and so um I don't have that document in front of me so I would need to pull that up but I'd be happy to send that to you can I get a point of clarification I don't I don't think you're understanding the question okay see the certifications for ASL he's um I think the clarification needed is what are the certifications for having that third language oh for like are you talking like the foreign language like Spanish yes so um that would be the uh certification requirements that we have for foreign

157language would be years of experience and or um flip testing thank you so to clarify you don't require an interpreter to have a specific training for that third language specifically there's not a training it's it's the flit testing that they have to have at 80 or higher passing score there is training and certification for trilingual interpreters I do think it's important that we pursue and have that reflected if we can that trilingual interpreting is a very very very challenging skill I want to make sure that we have qualified interpreters who are appropriately recognized and are able to provide that trilingual interpretation with the certificate let me let Dr Scarborough clarify on the triangle trilingual training hi uh thank you uh uh I was waving trying to wave down from the side so I did work

158with HR to try to establish some sort of Baseline for that requirement since there is no State Baseline for trilingual certification anything like that currently so what we have established is we start with ASL licensure as our requirement and then from that we have added our Spanish requirements uh so that's that's what we use as our Baseline so we do have both of those two as our guidelines were requirements for trilingual interpreting board member if they are if they are rid requires some sort of require for trilingual certification would you be in compliance with that if they came up with something like that or is there any other certifying body um for example the Bei that that's based in Texas both are recognized as certifying bodies so they can certify that interpreters have that training

159expertise is that potentially something we could look into both of those certifying organizations use their requirements yeah I'm I'm actually glad you brought that up that's definitely something that we would like to look into since there are no current requirements in Arizona we haven't followed anything like that but that is something that we would definitely start to as long as we are we're always wanting to be in compliance and we're wanting to go above and beyond obviously okay this is board member James thank you I appreciate your comments I would like to go ahead and make a motion then to pass and approve this I schedule for public interpreters with a formal request to continue to evaluate potential additions in the future and a separate requirement for trilingual whether it be training licensure or certification

160recognition okay um I I second it uh all in favor hi any opposed and any abstentions okay uh now we're on to 602 action item consideration possible action of John council's appeal to the board presented ARS 3843103a1 the board may vote to go into executive session before I'll be open to the public for the purposes of discussion consideration employment matters as it relates to this agenda item pursuant to ARS 38 4310383 the board may vote to go in executive session which will not be open to the public for discussion consultation for legal advice with the board's attorneys um so we've gotten uh well there's no movement that's just I was just reading the agenda item oh oh the move um you know I and and before before we take that um I just want to

161clarify uh we are not reaching the merits of this case uh today um the issue before us under our own policy is is very uh simple it's a procedural question um there does need to be a hearing to hear this appeal uh and our policy allows us to appoint a hearing officer from the administrative office of hearings um or we can do it ourselves doing it ourselves would mean we'd have a special meeting um we would have to go through all the procedures set for them in the policy to allow this appeal to be heard and evidence to be introduced or excluded and then produce a a report of you know findings of fact and conclusions of law um or we can appoint a hearing officer that hearing officer would uh who's a professional hearing

162officer and does these things would then hear the appeal they would take all the evidence they would they would exclude things as needed they would produce a report of findings of effect and conclusions of law that they would then produce to the board and then at that time we would take that report and discuss the you know the merits of the case and make a decision um you know as Allowed by our by our policy and I can give you that policy name if you like in just a moment um and and that's really the question for today is that procedural aspect later when the board does have to make a decision on the appeal after the hearing occurs we might have to have a special meeting there's a the hearing has to have at

163least 30 days notice so even if we gave notice tomorrow it couldn't happen for at least 30 days and then once the report is generated by the hearing officer if we choose to do a hearing office we have 20 days to render a decision so this may or may not be done by our March meeting we might have to call a special meeting to meet that deadline depending on when the hearing is and that's just really you know we can't determine when that hearing is going to be for today so I mean if the board would like to Executive session we certainly can but you know really the decision today is procedural it's whether we appoint a hearing officer to handle the hearing and then we deal with the report or if the board is

164interested in conducting the hearing ourselves um oh and then and then uh so there's still there is a motion there could be another counter motion but and just so you know the the policy is oh gosh let me see it's G just so that you know PV so you if you want to look at it I mean it is lengthy it's gcfqrb gcfqrb um again it is a kind of a lengthy policy um but that's where we are so there is a motion there um yes I believe because we have a motion to go into an executive session and we do have a second from board member both can we proceed with a vote for that uh yeah yeah we we can do we can do that um all in favor uh say uh I

165um any any opposed okay um and uh folks on the phone Colette and Lillian it doesn't go well okay thank you um Colette I've seen thank you um because I I would move that we appoint a hearing officer to take this hearing that okay um are there any in favor of appointing the hearing officer um I uh Lillian hi hi any any opposed okay and any abstentions okay all right um so for that matter we've now appointed a hearing officer um and the agency will work with that um or we've appointed the hearing officer um the hearing officer will reach out to Mr counts and handle the appeal when that report gets to us the agency will distribute it to us again that's you know we'll keep that you know course confidential um and then

166again we may need to call a special meeting depending on the timing of that to discuss it and then and then at that time we can go an executive session and discuss whatever needs to be discussed at that time uh next is 6.03 is going to be another long action item so get ready um information discussion item discussion of the current leadership team contracts for the 2023-2024 school year pursuant to ARS 3843103 A1 the board may vote to go an executive session for the consideration discussion of employees oh yes so let me let me finish reading this and then we'll take our 10 minute break um the board may vote to go an executive session with the consideration discussion of employees and current leadership positions and the issuance of leadership contracts for the 2023-24 school

167year pursuant to ARS 3843103 A3 the board may vote to go into executive session for discussion consultation for legal advice with the board's attorneys um this again because it goes into um Personnel uh you know the employees have the right to have their discussion out in the open um so I have that list with me if those names are are discussed I don't know what superintendent Raymond's going to tell us um but we she'll tell us in 10 minutes thank you [Music] microphones are hot now are they are they on now yes okay great um I know we're missing a couple board members so let's just wait till they get back but I would like to start when we can not allow it up [Music] um foreign [Music] oh yeah yeah it is it is

168cold yeah it's cold it is not it's hot over there yeah you know [Laughter] oh that's true yeah yes oh okay great perfect oh okay now we have everyone present um I had just read 6.03 and that long item so do we have a motion to go into executive session so moving is there a second all in favor aye okay any opposed all right we're going to go into um executive session so uh we'll be right back foreign returned okay so um we are out of executive session now um there were some employees that exercised the right to uh have any discussion about them in Open Session um so superintendent reckman if you have anything to say about those three individuals um please of those three who requested the discussions to be open to the

169public I would just like to say sentences about one one I've had conversations with assistant superintendent George Martin and I have shared with him my concerns about his performance and my intention to recommend not to review and that is all I would like to say at this point and there's nothing else to elaborate on that that is all okay there any any questions uh for superintendent no okay um we're going to go to 6.04 discussion and action item approval of superintendent reichman's performance evaluation uh pursuant to ARS 3843103 A1 the board may vote to go to Executive session which will not be open to the public for the purposes of discussion and consideration of employment matters as it relates to this agenda item uh would anyone uh like to go into executive session maybe board

170member chance thank you president nangrove a question yes is this something that superintendent reichmann wants to discuss publicly no um she indicated she was notified prior to the meeting that we're discussing her evaluation just like we do every year and she did not exercise her right to have that discussion in public okay then I would make that motion to go into its executive session for the purpose of discussing superintendent reckman's performance evaluation okay um my second all in favor aye I um yeah um okay we will go back into executive session thank you uh 10 minutes we're taking 10 minutes you're taking a 10 minute break yeah we're gonna uh we're gonna return at 905. okay all right one more minute foreign okay everyone um we are back we're in 604 we're out of executive

171session um it's your motion to approve the superintendent's performance evaluation so moved a second all in favor aye aye any opposed the abstentions no post okay all right any uh extensions all right um 701 discussion possible it's possible action item parulas are just changes to ARS title 15 1204 and title 41 chapter 27 Article 2 uh Marie Murphy good evening board president Nigro members of the board superintendent reichmann assistant superintendent Cooper and Martin for the record Maria Murphy director of policy and government relations so once more back into the freight the Arizona State Legislature went into session about two weeks ago now and you have before you some suggested changes to Arizona revised statutes that we are proposing to take in front of the legislature so first I would like to start with House Bill

1722456 this was introduced last week by education chairwoman representative Beverly pangarelli and we refer to this as our Sunrise bill so as part of the sunset audit we are actually required to run a bill through the legislature and have the governor sign it to authorize the continuation of the school and I am very pleased to say that representative pingorelli is recommending that asdb be renewed for another period of eight years I'm also pleased to say that the house had a committee of reference meeting this past Tuesday and the house Committee of reference passed a motion again mirroring house Bill 2456 to continue for another eight years so with your permission we'd like to go ahead and get this bill run and run it through the legislature and get it up to um Governor Hobbs for

173signatures so at this time I'd like to take any questions in regards to that particular bill any questions for Miss Murphy yes I do have a question is eight years the max or how is that number determined uh thank you uh yes that's a very good question it used to be that the maximum was 10 years but lately the trend has been to do a maximum of eight years the legislature actually has the ability to determine through the joint legislative audit committee a period of time some recently have gone as low as three or four years but the fact that the Committees of reference have both said eight years we should interpret it as a sign of confidence in the job that asdb is doing and so that is the maximum that the legislature is

174recommending at this time okay thank you you're welcome do we have a motion to um approve uh or to approve the suggested changes to the ARs so moved here second I second okay um all in favor aye any opposed and any abstentions okay um Nexus 702 information discussion item introduction and possible discussion policies BCB GB e a a g c f c i h a i h b f i k f and lb Ray Murphy thank you board president Nigro um you should have before you a copy of all of the red lines for the proposed policies and they were posted to the public I have not received any public comment regarding concerns about the policies so at this time I'd like to make myself available for questions there any questions for Miss Murphy okay

175um thank you we can move on then to 703 this was taken off the consent agenda item this is 703 approval of policies e-e-b-e-i-m-b-i-m-d j i c f a j l c b j l c c j l d a j r r n k i um uh PV you would ask that this people do you have any comments on this yes my girl I know that that was a mouthful all of those letters I specifically just wanted to ask about jlda interestingly there is verbiage within this that specifically says that psychologists must be a de-approved but are exempt from a licensure my only concern is where is the additional disability qualification is there any sort of ASL qualification does Ade recognize or does this agency allow for us to seek psychologists who are fluent

176in American Sign Language can we add that requirement I don't want to have the board then later find out that we have all of these potential candidates but none of them are fluent in Sign Language or none of them have any sort of Education or know how to provide a psychological evaluation for a blind or visual impaired student a board member chance um I I apologize because I am not prepared to answer that question I do not know that at this time um I I was prepared to to discuss the actual changes that were being proposed in the policy regarding um employment versus contracted psychologists so at this time I cannot answer your question um regarding ASL fluency is there anybody who might know a little bit further information here Anita do you know I'm

177going to have to go back and do some research board member chance I apologize that's totally but I do want to also clarify for the changes that have been proposed specifically for the purposes of identifying the difference between personnel and contracted service providers those are the changes we're discussing correct ly yes yes and um and essentially that change was made because of House Bill 2178 which essentially is stating that now contracted School psychologists who are certificated contracted School psychologists are able to provide services previously to this bill you had to be employed by the by the school now you can be a contracted certificated School psychologists providing services okay that that so just to double service providers they just have to meet the definitions and requirements for that bill the agency still can use our

178own discretion to add additional qualifications such as expertise in ASL or blind or visually impaired student s correct a board member chance we can always go above and beyond that is a this policy is the floor so that's the basic minimum that we have to meet we can always try to um to follow higher standards perfect thank you that's all that I had I just wanted to now make a motion then to pass these policies as we have okay um I'll second that before we passed I do have a question sorry sure um I just have a question um on the verbiage on is it jlcb the immunizations it reads I it reads that we will not accept any students without vaccines but I'm pretty sure under state law we're allowed to students are allowed

179to have exemptions sorry I'm looking for the actual policy this to the end I'm so sorry I'm having difficulty finding it in my packet let me just um it's before the school counselors and psychologists as well there is a section specifically that is our students unless the student is accommodation it is not um I'm sorry can you repeat that sure so there's a section in that saying this shall not be electricity unless the student is so there is a passage in there that does state that exceptions requirement is okay um I just wanted to make sure that there that was in there some exemptions are allowed under his state law I just read a little bit more towards this is an absolute requirement and I must have missed that singular part it also discusses that

180there could be serologic confirmation of the presence of of the disease in the bloodstream that could also be acceptable as well um board member Buchanan so yes I'm sorry I finally found the uh the policy I was looking in the wrong packet that's why I was having trouble and I beg your pardon so but yes right okay thank you um one more thing if I can change my second just for a moment there's a typo in jlcc it does say asdb may required that a mask but it should say may require um so I will make sure that gets corrected right now my second that we that we just fix that yeah yep I see it and I will get that fixed thank you for pointing it out okay all right um all in favor

181hi hi the opposed extensions okay um that passes then we go into the uh president Niagara yes could I add a clarification yes 6.03 yes about my contract yeah uh yeah yeah okay I just wanted to clarify it was stated that I was spoken to about performance issues that was not true I was told I had a lack I didn't have emergency I asked for clarification none was given to me I went through everything I accomplished in five months superintendent reichmann agreed but did not provide me uh circumstances or examples of what a sense of urgency meant so I just wanted to clarify it was not performance issues and it was never communicated to me in that fashion okay thank you assistant superintendent Martin next is a 705 information discussion item strategic Plan update and

182preparation for Capital Improvement you know this one is is one that I've been thinking a lot about you know we had a presentation back in October you know we had a work study session on the capital Improvement well o4 I don't think we removed that did we that was still on consent yeah we didn't remove 704 that was just the the mean oh I'm sorry well 704 is on consent I mean I'm looking at Leticia isn't concerned right oh so 704 was not concerned that was approval to move the May 11th meeting from Tucson to Phoenix there was a conflict with this facility on the bpac it was not available on that date so we had to move it to Phoenix where the PTSD campus is available um so that's that and then 705 is

183information discussion items your teacher Plan update and preparation for Capital Improvement so right so this is the appropriation for Capital Improvement as we we talked about in in April or I'm sorry in October oh we had a work study on on uh Capital Improvement plan um you know we had highlighted that in our strategic plan um the need for it that got kind of sidetracked a little bit by covid um and uh we were it was also highlighted by the auditor general that we need to have this plan and we were told that we're going to need um you know and we're going through the capital improvement process that's about 18 to 24 months away and we're going through that process but you know to me if we fast forward to the end of that

184we kind of already know what that's going to look like right I mean we were told in that October meeting uh that we need 69 million dollars um to uh you know kind of rejuvenate um the campuses um to to get the capital facilities where they need to be now that Capital approval process may change that amount it could be 50 million it could be 90 million I mean who's twos to know but it's going to be tens of millions of dollars um and that is going to be a big ask to the legislature so the good news is we have time um to tell a compelling story to the legislature about why it's worth the investment um that significant investment uh in the the Capital Improvements but you know I I couldn't help but

185think like I would think I'm not a legislator but now I think that they would think and they're going to see very quickly they're going to see a few things right I mean they're going to look at um you know the performance right is this worthy you know is this worth the investment um you know we spend if we look at our cost per student this is uh in 4.4.4 the Strategic plan uh for fiscal year 23 and we look at our enrollment as of the 8-1 that was our last or board meeting closest to the end of that fiscal year um we we spent 21.2 million on the Tucson campus uh 14.5 million on the Phoenix campus and 35.8 million total so it'll cost us 35.8 million uh to run the the two campuses

186that was for 354 students that's a hundred and one thousand two hundred seventy nine dollars a student yes one one hundred and one thousand two hundred seventy nine dollars a student so that's as a as a to think about that but put that in perspective you know or voucher money that we get um is uh is is is is much less right so we get about twenty five thousand for blind visually impaired uh we get about the same amount for deaf and hard of hearing we get about 30 uh three thousand for MD and uh we get about 42 000 for mdssi students um if we look at that uh revised you know we have a revised budget of 63.5 million dollars so that's 56 of the budget went to serve 354 on-campus children overall

187if you include the early intervention include the preschool uh include the itinerance um that's that 354 is 17 of the children that we serve so we're we're spending 56 percent of our expenditures on 70 percent of of the children um and again that that you know that has to go that extra Gap has to come from somewhere right if we're spending four times the voucher amount uh you know what's that Delta well if you if you have if you average it out to 30 000 a student uh that's about a 26 million dollar Gap in our general appropriation last year or this year is 26.6 million so it's it's nearly the whole General appropriation um and that's so if you if you look at that that means that we get a general appropriation to supplement

188our other income which is primarily the two biggest chunks are the general appropriation and the voucher revenues voucher revenues being the largest amount General appropriation be the second largest amount we get some other monies some federal monies we get some money from Medicare or Medicaid we get state land grant things we get some other uh other sources but those that's the two primarily primary chunks of funding that we get uh and and nearly all of it is going to go to those children on to the to the campuses um and that would lead a legislator I think to believe that we have a very high population High needs children there are plenty of children that do cost a hundred thousand dollars um a year to to serve their deeds and of course we'll happily pay

189that where there's a deed um but when we look at our our numbers that's just not the case um 70 are deaf or hard of hearing four percent are visually impaired or blind uh nine percent are classified as MD and 14 are classified as MD SSI that is those are the kids with the highest level of need so only 14 have have that very high need um I mean that would be high for a school district but you know in in our context that's uh very high so we we you know the majority of the students you know about 75 or are either uh deaf or hard of hearing or or blind visually impaired so we're spending about four times the voucher amount for those students um and districts don't spend that right districts get

190the vouch for money they have their tax-based revenue um you know they have bonds overrides and other things other sources of funding um but they don't spend a hundred one thousand dollars on on this population uh so that's that's really high um and and it's and and that you know the use of that General appropriation is high that we've seen you know perhaps it's to the detriment of some of the other children we serve if we say that we don't have money for this or that um because we don't have enough in the general appropriation we we know where that's going um so gosh that's that leads us to think that we must have if we're spending so much we must have outstanding performing schools and I I really wish that I could say that

191um the data that we have you know we used to have data from the co-ops from the children that we serve in the co-ops that was the last given to us in 2018 we got just last week I've been asking for for months and months and months we just last week got a small sampling about 50 or so I believe districts sent over some of their data and that's helpful but it's not complete but if we look at that the board presentation of 2018 you know we see that the the uh the co-ops at the time and there were five of them at the time had um on grade level rates for ELA and math about 20 they ranged um from 13 to 24 but mostly I mean DVR 13.6 NCR at 23 SCRC at

19224 swrc at 20. a little bit different for math DVR at 16 HDR 27 and cr21 this year's c818 swrc at 25. and for the same when we look at at the campus schools in 2018 the a b had Ela on grade of nine and math of nine ASD had an Ela of 2 and math of two PTSD and Ela of 8 and math of seven in 2019 I you know you can look at the ad reports and unfortunately there are too few students that were at grade level to even register to report it was too few to report so um and then in terms of psos how is that coming well you know we don't really have a uniform way of measuring psos it's part of our strategic plan we've talked about it even

193before a strategic plan the auditor general um you know mentioned that we don't really have a good uniform way of measuring them we have some approach but it's hard for us to say because we haven't gotten good at doing that so when we look at our data you know this this is hard data to sell to the legislators to just to ask for the amount of money that we're going to need to improve the canvases um because they're going to see that districts pay far less and Achieve far more academically than than what the agency does and you know that's something that we're going to have to change um in the next couple of years so that we can go to the legislature and say uh you know look here's here's what we're going to

194take that money we're going to invest it and here's the kind of results that we can expect from that here's the type of good that we think we can expect from that um you know and again I mean I think a lot of that is is the leadership I think our staff is very dedicated I think that they the ones that I interact with are very dedicated to the students and improving the their educational outcomes um but you know we really need to be able to manage this a lot better than we have um you know again dietary program you know doing well but on campus we need to make sure that we you know we're managing the funds properly so we're getting efficient and we have to make sure that we're that we're getting

195some educational achievement from that um and it's been that way for for years it's not like there's one year it's not like these are all pre-covet numbers so again that's uh I don't know if anyone else wants to comment on it but the idea is you know I think the administration is going to have to come up with the strategy to make sure that that when we do go to ask for these improvements once we have our Capital Improvement plan in place that that we have a real compelling story to tell the legislator as to why this investment is warranted in these campuses to to improve the schools and prove that you know the capital place where our students come to to school every day [Music] however data only follows the story me we can

196view it from different companies we have a board we need to recognize the fact that where this agency is right now is because of our decision making five previous fours and some more decision making five previous evidence triggered to the AWA administrators when I was looking um through some records and the financial agency has been seriously incredibly not responded for many years and that's part of the legislative responsibility it's also a part of the resource responsibility another thing that we need to consider is at the end of the day deaf education in general and some aspects of wine education are still not really easy that there is no ready to go the staff here comes in that value and make everything deaf education has been formally established in this country for over 280 for the

197long Conference of 1880s um the Milan conference established the future of deaf education and what we are seeing is the result of that approach to deaf education we can't fix over 280 years worth of approach that has been consistently paid um issues [Music] at the end of the day when we have hearing people with little to no understanding of deafness or little to no understanding of language acquisition little to no understanding of blindness making these critical decisions that impacts Generations that impacts multiple Generations and continues a cycle of poor results I think it's important to recognize that we need to reframe that data we need to reframe the discussion and like you said for the legislature to swallow that amount I don't see it happening we as an agency and as a board have to

198make some very difficult decisions in order to help the agency survive and I do not think that we can avoid these difficult decisions however does that mean that the agency is a failure because of all of this data no so I would like to submit that perspective thank you PV um I certainly appreciate your comments um yeah you know in terms of the the performance at least you know to me the the Striking thing is that the students that earn our co-ops are doing much better I mean far and away they're doing much better um and it academically than they are on campus and that's for for far less resources that are being expended to attain those results that's what I think a legislator and again this isn't me I mean if I could wave

199a magic wand I'd have the money we'd have cranes here tomorrow um but that's you know that's not the way the world works we have to go convince the legislature and if they're looking at this from a perspective of where you know where should public money go should it go to the system with far lower costs you know half that I mean maybe half the cost or less and is getting far better academic achievement or should it go to the far more expensive um methodology that that isn't that is getting far less academic achievement that's the story that we um have to tell the legislature and again they they make those decisions not I mean not me I mean I wish it were me but it's it's not important for a chance I I just

200want to um just add a note here though um comparing our Co-op students to our on-campus students are comparing apples to oranges kids that are on campus are there because their IEP requires them to be there and many of them have been language deprived and so we're trying to catch kids up that are so far behind that it may not be possible to get them to the point where they'll be grade level where the kids who are um seating in the co-ops probably had a better base to start with and so you can't I mean that's the story we need to be able to communicate to the legislators is why that need is far more important because we're working with kids that the system failed them before they even got into it and so I

201think that's the the things that we need to really take a look at and make sure that we're communicating that to them so that they see you know yeah that that's a great model for those kids who come in close to on grade level when they enter kindergarten with their peers but for a lot of the kids that are on campus that is story and so we're working really hard to get them to the point where they can have an independent future and be able to be successful and have an independent life out in a community of their choosing but that's going to take them far longer than those kids that are in um in the co-op programs and and I think that's our responsibility is to make sure the legislators know that board member

202chance thank you well said suke and president negro I do understand your perspective but I respectfully disagree with a specific phrasing that the story that we have to tell no it's not the story that we have to tell is the story of what tsuke just described we if we are asked and we have to explain or speak to those points absolutely that's not a conversation we can avoid it's a conversation we need to have however um a perfect example of that comparison of apples to oranges I was raised and went to a hearing mainstream School I was considered an oral success because I could speak well but until I was 14 I was formally labeled mentally that was the official label for me at that time in the 80s and 90s I was a quote-unquote

203oral success and I was failing Public School we have to make sure that we understand the data in the appropriate context and I'm a little saddened by your comment that yes while the data is valid it is not being applied appropriately if you look out into the audience I saw several people who were clearly upset and I'm sure that they probably feel like they have um the the professionals who've worked here for many years have just been denigrated they are teaching other students who are trying to catch up and you can imagine for myself looking back on my experience um those 300 400 students um that aren't doing as well we're essentially blaming them because now they're continuing to be compared to their same aged fears who did have access at a younger age who

204did have Privileges and benefits and resources that a lot of the kids were working with didn't have and that's not the message that I want our students to to receive when they come to this campus I don't want that to be the message from our agency so we need to be careful with how we raise things yeah are there any other comments okay um next is 802 discussion possible action item I'm sorry 801 call the public sorry about that 801 call the public for non-agendized items I think we have two uh the first one you can first one is Becca Bailey okay foreign Ford and staff I'm not going to go through all the names because my brain is exhausted my name is Becca Bailey and as I mentioned before my child I am not

205an alumni I am the parent of an alumni who graduated in 2017. PTSD is a second home for me um what you just said quite frankly really pissed me off and I'm trying hard not to use inappropriate language but you are coming from um a data perspective thank you PV for pointing out that data perspective we cannot blame our children for failing um our systems have failed these students they have been taught and expected to learn and related and excuse me in a language that is not native to them I know I only have four minutes but I would like to address something else the safety and mental health of our students what the heck are you doing with that teacher who has been quote under investigation who was taught here for 30 years she

206is threatening the safety of our students and causing significant mental health harm if my son were under her right now you can bet I'd be calling the police what are you doing where is the investigation I know it's a Personnel issue but we have had how long now there was a I'm sorry The Interpreter needs to clarify child well-being is holistic the abuse that is being levied by these teachers needs to be investigated fully parents and the community need to have more information it looks like you're lying it looks like someone is lying what are you doing with and to our students my son is a product of PTSD because I was a very involved student and I was looking at who his teachers were who was teaching him and most of the time they

207would say you know you we can't give you the teacher that you want for him in the fall because um he that teacher's not available et cetera Etc but because they didn't think it was a good fit but I know what's right for my child and he graduated and and went on to wonderful things he was valedictorian um and he didn't feel like he even deserve to be valedictorian because well he's humble but his mental health like TV said I was a product of signing exact English I was a public school failure I have good English I can write English well um but my self-esteem my self-worth my self-confidence didn't come until I got to college I grew up with depression and high anxiety just because I had to struggle my entire life to fit

208into this mainstream system it was an it was an extraordinary burden think twice before you say things about how the campus schools are failing our kids you're failing our kids period thank you for your time and the second one is Winona Homes okay this has been an interesting conversation oh excuse me hello everyone I know I only have a few minutes but this has been an interesting conversation about school achievement and having to show the legislature that we deserve this money Etc I think the answer could be really simple when we find these deaf babies we immediately expose them to ASL we've signed to them foreign why are you I mean this this oddest conversation about listening in spoken language programs and oral programs and voting to support these programs desert voices and Carla Zimmerman

209that are oppressive that you know they fire parents if parents decide to sign with their children who are deaf why all deaf babies deserve access to sign language and spoken language if that's appropriate for them if they want to be implemented or have hearing aids that's fine but they still need sign language it cannot be dismissed thank you when they go into the preschool program they're not supporting sign language unless um unless a parent wants them and then they're put into this one little room all by themselves where just a few kids signed they should all be learning signs all deaf children need to interact with other children who sign on the playground who are able to they're able to interact with similar peers if some of these kids here at the school for the

210deaf are running around speaking and not signing this is a deaf School you need to be leaders your deaf Educators your professionals sign language and spoken language should be available to all children my son is in second grade he has a deaf teacher um we you were talking about BGC earlier and BGC is great my son is using that curriculum his teachers using that curriculum and it's fantastic however his teacher is deaf one of very very few deaf teachers in the elementary department at PTSD and that points to a larger problem within the elementary problem or excuse me and the elementary school you have teachers who are artists who are teaching deaf children they're oddest and oppressive toward deaf students toward other deaf staff and our students are suffering because of it if I go

211up and sign hi good morning hearing teachers won't even look at me they just look away and walk away are you kidding that's not okay this is a deaf campus you have your language policy why is that even necessary it should be understood this is a deaf campus it's a deaf school we sign here that's the only reason that my son is there because he needs access to his environment in American Sign Language that's why I sent him to PDC but if that teacher you know who I'm referring to is still there he will not be continuing at PTSD I'm not going to put up with that oppressive oddest behavior from hearing teachers I have friends a friend who used to teach at PTSD and chose to resign because of that teacher because of that

212teacher she's toxic to the elementary Department these deaf kids need deaf teachers they need fluent ASL instruction the bilingual grammar is wonderful but bilingual instruction doesn't work if you're not already fluent in your first language they need deaf teachers to have a strong ASL Foundation that teacher who has pushed out many other teachers needs to be pushed out this needs to stop and my time is up I have a lot more to say but my time is up okay I was just going to say the rest of the comments will be posted online if they were emailed thank you 802 discussion possible action item again items for the next work at the board meeting anyone has any potential agenda items no okay uh oh remember dance sure I would like to add to the agenda

213for the next board meeting that we have a discussion related to feedback for superintendent reichmann and if necessary we go into executive session okay for the board to to give feedback to Supernanny Reitman um yes and potentially an executive session if that's if that's permissible okay uh superintendent Franklin can you make a note of that for when we meet will do thank you uh anyone else and we're going to go to 9.01 action item in German I moved the major in this meeting all in favor hi hi all right uh thank you everyone I know it was a long meeting today have a have a good evening