001good afternoon everyone uh it is 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're going to start with 1.01 call to order meeting call to order sue k can you take the roll call certainly president david nigro president brittany buchanan president linda bove lynn davison president mike gordon president dean howard kelsey p v chance president aaron wonders present and suite connective present thank you uh we move on to 1.02 call to the public call to the public on agendize items um we have the summaries of the emails from sue k yes we just have one call to the public comment from elizabeth brousse in regards to supporting having a mechanism in place for formal complaints and grievances and to have
002some guarantee that they will be heard and discussed and in support of an ombudsman position thank you sue k yeah and again as we did last time all of the comments in their entirety are posted on the website and will be on the website for several weeks for the public to review next up a 1.03 information item superintendent's report superintendent reichman good afternoon president nigro members of the asdb board of directors assistant superintendent rex assistant superintendent cooper and the asdb community welcome to our may 5th 2022 board meeting it also happens to be cinco de mayo right so perhaps some of you plan to have some margaritas after the board meeting this afternoon i want to remind the board members of the asdb mission our mission says that we are committed to excellence and innovation
003in education of our students in providing leadership services and in collaboration with parents school districts and the community and also with our partner state agencies as we consider our mission how do we want to go about fulfilling that mission and providing the best education and the best support possible to our students the obvious answer is we must have highly qualified professional staff we must be able to recruit and attract and retain highly qualified professional staff how do we recruit and retain highly qualified professional staff we have to have good systems in place that provide the adequate support to those professional staff members and systems that support a positive culture within the agency so how do we create those good systems how do we support a positive culture we have to have highly qualified and competent
004leaders here within the agency we have to be able to attract and retain highly qualified leaders so that they are able to focus on our systems and then they can problem solve and innovate and improve our systems with systems improving then we can provide better support to our professional staff and as a result our professional staff can provide better educational support to all of our deaf hard of hearing blind visually impaired and deaf-blind students how do we attract and retain those highly qualified leaders we and my job is to support them my job is to make their work environment as safe as possible my job is to empower them and obviously i make agency level decisions but a lot of those daily programmatic decisions are up to those leaders to make systems change and system
005improvements happen because of their leadership i can't do it alone we have to have a team of highly qualified and dedicated and passionate leaders we need that within our agency your job as the board of directors includes four components established policy that gives us rules and regulations to follow set the direction for the agency and we are doing that with a strategic plan be an ambassador for the agency let everyone know about the work that we are doing and finally support our leaders without your support our leaders are not able to problem solve they are not going to be able to create that systemic change that we need in order to provide the best possible education and supports for our students that said i want to mention two leaders who are leaving the agency first
006i want to talk about principal creasy as you are aware principal creasy has been with us at asdb for a total of seven years she started one year before i did she was the new principal of the arizona school for the blind on the tucson campus at the end of her second year we asked her to take on as an in an interim position the principal of the arizona school for the deaf because the principal of the arizona school for the deaf had a contract that was not renewed principal creasy agreed to take on that additional school so she took responsibility for the entirety of tucson campus the following year we did an extensive search for a new principal for the deaf school but we were not able to find a qualified candidate at that
007time i asked principal creasy to become the permanent principal for both schools on the tucson campus since that time principal crecy has done everything that we have asked of her she has provided good strong leadership on the tucson campus and so i just wanted to say thank you principal creasy for all of your work for your dedication to the tucson campus over these past seven years i will miss you the second person i want to mention is assistant superintendent dr kristen rex dr rex will also be leaving the agency she started four months before i did she as a new assistant superintendent had myself as a new superintendent and we had a lot of learning to do right kristen we didn't know much to be honest we became partners collaborators we learned together those first
008three years were really that learning curve of learning what we didn't know and after that initial three years we understood the things that we didn't know and we were able to start addressing all of those gaps in the system or those systemic challenges that we were facing at asdb so i have worked with assistant superintendent rex for almost six years and with her leaving i feel like i'm going through a divorce honestly i am going to miss her support her energy her creativity her can-do attitude we will figure this out in her heart and her passion so thank you dr rex i will miss you so much speaking of the future we have already posted both positions and we are actively recruiting we are getting applicants already and we are moving along fairly quickly i
009will let assistant superintendent rex talk about the principal position and i will talk about the assistant superintendent position that position is currently open and we are recruiting we are getting applicants the posting will close on may 22nd we will be screening that week and selecting candidates to interview the following week on may 31st to june 3rd we will be conducting interviews i'm hoping by the first or second week of june we will be able to make an offer to a selected candidate the reason that we are moving so quickly is because with the new school year starting that second or third week of july we have absolutely no time to waste we must have a new assistant superintendent selected particularly assistant superintendent of instruction so i am moving very quickly if you happen to know
010of any qualified candidates for that position please reach out to them please network for us and recruit for us to let you know i just found out today um that news is out nationwide there is someone from ceasd contacting me to ask if there are actually two vacant positions and i responded that indeed there were so any help that you can offer within your network to assist in recruiting would be very appreciated and that concludes my report this is linda bove can we talk about that later about those two potential candidates that i am aware of is that okay can we have a private conversation later about that and this is stuff annette yes we can talk about that later okay thank you are there any questions for superintendent rickman on her report this is
011pv chance i don't have a question but i do have a comment i want to make sure that as board members we recognize principal creasy's work and her dedication to continuing to assist on tucson campus and running those programs i can only imagine how much of a challenge that was for her to face with so many different aspects particularly going through kovid and i was disappointed to receive the news of her resignation please know that we do appreciate all of your effort and your contribution to the agency and you are leaving big shoes to phil dr rex as a board member i am really bummed to lose you too i think that losing you is significant to the agency i understand the principal has already accepted another job but my understanding is that you have
012not is that correct so there's still time to change your mind that being said please know you have my support i would like to see you stay however whatever decision you make um same as i said with principal creasy i wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors and i sincerely hope to see our paths cross again sooner than later appreciate it thank you any other comments for superintendent rickman superintendent uh there will be a board member involved in each of the job searches is that correct yes um has that board member been selected yet for the principal um yes do i can give that in my report or do you want me to do that okay you can tell me now that's fine mr mike gordon has um offered to help with
013the principal search down on the tucson campus okay and the one for the assistant for your position if this is annette i have asked sue k connectful and pb jams to be a part of that process okay great thank you are there any other questions for the superintendent this is linda beau i do have a question for principal search can there be a deaf person involved in that search is that something to um consider having a deaf person on that panel whether it be a board member or another member of staff involved in that process so just putting that out there to keep in mind there is deaf deaf representation there's all sorts of representation but there's deaf representation on the screening committee good and also the interview committee so both phases that the staff
014work through have great representation i hope thank you this is uk um and i may be jumping the gun this might be more directed at kristin than it is um for annette um are you looking to fill a principle for each of the schools or a principal and a vice principal to cover both of the schools at this point i'm looking for a principal whether we need an assistant or a dean of students i think that would be dependent on the candidate that is selected to try to make sure that we have representation and support but no i haven't asked shayna for money for another position at this point in time there this is pv chance and i would like to make one final remark i have to say that after the last board meeting
015we did receive a lot of emails with positive comments a few of the community members and regarding several people including jay and shayna and some other staff members wanting to make sure that we recognized uh superintendent reichman's comments there were a lot of positive comments and support from the community so i wanted to make sure that we as a board recognized that the positives significantly outweigh the negative or the negative comments that we received okay thank you and if there are no other comments we can move on to 1.04 information item assistant superintendent of curriculum and instructional report dr rex good afternoon president nigro and board members you have received my report but i would like to add the following information from the birth to five area elp is celebrating they have received the results
016from azip's annual 2020 audit which documents asdb staff for providing services to families not only were they found in compliance the entire staff received 100 percent compliance and this data was measured during the pandemic which was a lot of moving parts and factors i don't know if we've ever had a hundred percent compliance but kendra and i could not find it so i'm gonna say a hundred percent compliance for the first time this is significant because the team had been responding to a previous data breach and basically they developed a google drive to prevent future issues of personally identifiable information and ensure that the team was collecting data and keeping it in one place so they could all have access many thanks to laura hocknell and manuela giacomo's tenacity in this development but also to
017the supervising teachers lisa ring melissa hole tracy mossberger and laura for supporting their teams ensuring the services that we provide families are compliant with idea part c i also want to give an update on the asdb tucson principal search i sent out an email looking for interested people to participate in either the screening or potentially interviewing for a new principal over 16 staff members threw their name in the hat some were more interested in one or the other but there was definitely interest which i found very um encouraging so we went through and we tried to make sure that we had the best representation of all the different people that would benefit from having a principal and we created a screening committee i believe our closing date is on the 15th friday and the screening
018committee will be meeting the 16th to receive all of the applicants and start the screening process soon as we have applicants to send to the interview committee we will work on interviews the 25th through 27th from those interviews the committee will be asked to submit one or possibly two names for a second round of interviews the second round of interviews goes direct to annette reichman and myself and we ask additional questions that dig a little deeper into their experiences the curriculum their understanding of teaching our students what our students specific needs are when they're learning and then hopefully our goal is to have a name to bring to you for the july board meeting on a final note i want to thank the board as well as superintendent reichman for allowing me the opportunity to
019serve the students of arizona since 2016 i came to asdb and i have learned how students access their learning the types of equipment that our kids need to access learning how important it is to ensure that access is available but i think most importantly what i take away from this are the people i met and the stories and the ways that our teachers have created creatively created an environment for kids to grow and all of the stories that i will probably take away with me some of them are funny some of them are sad but but most of them give me hope and i'm very proud to say that i was a part of the restructuring and the support of bringing equity to the statewide programs helping elp as they start to transition and take
020on birth to five adding the preschool and our two schools have worked so diligently and hard to have continuous improvement and with the lea status they are developing ways to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn and so i see that we have done some great things and i have an expectation that they will continue because you have a lot of the right people in the right seats to do the job we just have to give them give them what they need and then get out of their ways remove those barriers so thank you very much thank you dr rex are there any questions for dr rex this is pv james and still not too late to change your mind miss linda beau i do have a quick question off the top of your
021head um how many applicants do you think you've received for the principal position just if you have a ballpark number i'm sorry we have both internal applicants as well as external cap applicants around five that i reviewed so far five there may be more altogether five yeah at this point in time five okay thank you uh dr x we're the uh the braille tests all finally received or they are they still a little bit late they're all finished okay i know the large print were delayed a couple of days but not that's weeks congratulations all right any other questions for dr rex okay now we can move on to 1.05 information item assistant superintendent of agency operations and support services uh ms cooper good afternoon board president nigro superintendent reichmann assistant superintendent rex members of
022the board and the asdb community each of the directors have provided to you their departmental reports there is no additional information that has come forth since those reports were provided to you last week other than we are gearing up for the year end where we are having our teams provide operational and support service resources to the educational team since the school year is actually fastly approaching to end in addition to that the team is also working on processes with the state's general accounting office to close the fiscal year as well as responding to the sunset auditors more specifically related to three areas that my group is more focused on that would include the conflicts of interest the master facilities plan as well as helping look at the itinerant program fee for service structure additionally we're
023also working on building the 2023 budget as the new fiscal year begins on july 1st and the agency's budget submission package is due to the state's office of strategic planning and budget on or before september 1st during the boardwork study session that was held on april 14th we reviewed quite a bit of information we reviewed and discussed the budget for personnel and operations there was a tremendous amount of information that was shared during that session which believe it or not lasted almost over three hours and that was just the beginning of doing a deep dive into the data but i do hope that all of you feel as if you got a better understanding of the agency's resources which again consists of our people our technology the facilities and our finances i did mention during
024the session that as board members we do need your support and commitment as we continue to strategize and roll out changes to maximize our resources while at the same time meeting the agency's mission and our vision i do look forward to possibly having more work study sessions with each of you where we're focusing on maybe one particular area and reviewing how we can realign restructure or identify opportunities to reallocate our resources again that would be in alignment with pillar four of our strategic plan which is effective resource management last but not least i also wanted to take the opportunity to give another update on the compensation structure analysis that the team and i have been working on since i know staff are very much so interested in what to possibly expect with the upcoming new
025school year and how this could impact their possible personal finances i know i've mentioned on several occasions to ensure internal equity and external competitiveness as well as to try to maintain and recruit and retain the staff members we're looking at proposing at the july 7th board meeting a request to increase the hourly rates for our instructional assistance our tech 8 interveners in addition to those position titles we're also proposing to increase the hourly rates for staff that are grade 9 and below as well as addressing the pay gap with the transportation staff the team and i continue to look at all of the other areas and position classifications within the agency but as i mentioned this is our first year that we're taking on this more in-depth analysis and looking at all of the various
026pay schedules within the agency and trying to make sure that we have a consistent method on how we're identifying the compensation structure as i've indicated before though our fiscal resources are limited we don't have deep pockets and so we're not going to be able to address all position classifications our first year we do expect this to last probably another two another year or two before we're able to address all of the agency's position classifications in the agency and so again we're trying to make sure that we're prioritizing those and looking at how we can possibly impact those compensation changes in the near future other than that that concludes my assistant superintendent report and i'm open to answer any questions or comments that each of you may have this is sukay in regards to the deep
027dive on the salary classifications are you working with adoa at maybe looking at re-classing those positions into a higher grade levels both yes we are yes our hr office is working with adoa in addition to that i didn't really talk about it in addition to the compensation we are looking at regrading positions as well awesome thank you are there any other questions for ms cooper okay thank you miss cooper we can move on to 2.01 action item approval of the consent agenda consistent with board policy to include items 3.02 5.01 6.01 7.03 and 7.04 uh would anyone like to remove anything from the consent agenda [Applause] [Music] question is it supposed to be 7.03 or 7.05 um let's take a look here oh oh there's an error there you're right um yeah i know you're
028right thank you aaron there's an error there so let's see um it should you're right 703 is a discussion item and possible action item uh 705 is the consent agenda item so let's do this then um i will move to let's see can we add items inside we can remove them i think it's just a typo here because it's correct here oh is it correct on the agenda correctly oh okay it's just in the board okay well if it's correct on the on that then everyone's had no proper notice of it so we're okay thank you um so i will move that we adopt the consent agenda as noted in the agenda uh 3.02 5.01 at 6.01 7.04 and 7.05 i second all all in favor aye aye any opposed okay uh that carries we
029can go to 3.01 information item presentation on language and literacy development dr rex thank you president nigro i'm going to ask that rose oh sorry rose rose isn't here um tina schartzer and trisha waldale if they can come down to the front row so i can if there's any questions at the end they would be the best to answer them current research on dual language and literacy development highlights the importance and multiple benefits of dual language literacy the national association of the deaf position statement reads asl and the english bilingual education recognizes the intimate relationships between language development cognitive development and social emotional development as such asl and english bilingual education fosters positive self-esteem confidence resilience and identity factors necessary for lifelong learning and success rose andrea cola and tina schartzer curriculum resource specialists bring
030with them 60 plus years of classroom teaching experience passion for accessibility and student academic excellence to the table their primary goal is to support teachers with materials and training to provide balanced bilingual literacy instruction among their projects one is the implementation of the bilingual grammar curriculum at the two school sites as the assistant principal at pdsd trisha waddell oversees the implementation of the bgc instruction trisha brings with her a wealth of knowledge and expertise regarding bilingual education and instruction she and tina are here to answer any questions rose and tina created a short video to provide you a brief glimpse into the work they have been doing to support balanced dual language and literacy instruction that we will be sharing with you now good evening superintendent reitman asdb board members and community thank you for
031giving us an opportunity to share our work with you we will present a short summary of the projects we have been working on to supporting the development of asl and english literacy for our deaf and hard of hearing students across the agency we will briefly touch upon the agency's efforts in the following three areas one our goals in direct support of asdb's strategic plan two creating accessible materials to support the national geographic's reach for reading language arts curriculum specifically video text and dual language instructional materials and three the implementation of the bilingual grammar curriculum asl and english grammar lessons and bedrock vocabulary in the strategic plan the second pillar states outstanding student success the overarching goal is ensuring outstanding student development through early language acquisition and skill development social and emotional learning and high academic
032achievement for all learners note the specific objectives 2.2.8 develop a data tracking system for language acquisition in asl and 2.2.9 provide opportunities for students to acquire two languages asl and english to this end we understand that an instructional curriculum to support academic instruction for both asl and english is vital there are a few published materials for dual language instruction with young deaf or hard of hearing students available we explored the establishment of a comprehensive program to support language acquisition of both asl and spoken english the majority of children have complete and natural access to spoken language in their environment these children are ready to continue their learning at school the standard ela curriculum is designed to meet the needs of the learners the majority of deaf and hard of hearing children come from families that
033do not sign or sign minimally they have limited access to language in their environment these children experience significant gaps in language vocabulary incidental knowledge and social emotional skills the standard ela curriculum is inaccessible teachers spend planning time to modify or create accessible materials in 2010 through 2014 a group of asdb teachers created accessible asl versions of the ela curriculum moving into english and integrated dual language instructional strategies the results were promising these five students received this dual language instruction model from kindergarten through fourth grade the students varied in regards to primary language used in the home their loss and academic readiness by third and fourth grade in the year 2013-2014 all five students scored either at approaches or meets the standard in the arizona's instrument to measure standards aims test assessment reading subtest the moving
034into english accessible materials and dual language approach demonstrated strong promise students examine the parallels in word learning also known as phonology between asl and english students examine and compare the phonology of asl signs hand shape location and movement students examine and compare the phonics of english words first letter and word families guided reading comprehension skills teachers guide students as they interact with asl and english reading materials simultaneously to develop and strengthen targeted literacy skills research demonstrates the many benefits of dual language support for our students bilinguals developed meta-linguistic awareness earlier bilingualism leads to cognitive benefits in multiple areas bilinguals have larger vocabularies and stronger grammar and complex language skills fluency in asl supports the development of english a systematic approach to connecting both languages helps develop literacy skills in both asl and english bilingual children
035achieve normal language milestones bilingual grammar curriculum bgc the bilingual grammar curriculum is a comprehensive approach to teaching grammar so that students internalize the elements and use them independently to improve expressive asl and english abilities teachers support students meta-linguistic ability to guide them in looking at grammar skills first in asl and then applying what they have learned to english the bilingual grammar curriculum uses a developmental approach and is therefore not a grade level guide each lesson begins with the asl grammar structure students demonstrate mastery of the objective in asl before transferring the concept to english in closing we want to convey our profound appreciation hands waiting to the 75 plus staff and signing community members who enthusiastically contributed their time to work with us in the creation of our video tech take a look at the
036diversity of signing styles and signers wow i i have to say that i've watched this video three times and i could watch it again i have tina and trisha here if you have any additional questions or comments or just anything they'd love to hear your feedback thank you are there any questions this is linda bove hello for tina i do want to let you know that i went to one of two conferences recently myself i was able to witness what you have to offer and i met a gentleman who oh what was his name mister oh no i forgot todd yes todd todd um who is just amazing and he explained a lot more about this bgc approach and i just want to express my profound support for what you are doing i love that
037the choice of what you're offering having our students learn asl first and bridge to english it makes so much sense and i've seen a few different videos of our kiddos when they're really little two three four um having that strong language foundation so thank you superintendent reikmann and dr rex for choosing and implementing that curriculum and i can foresee this being very successful and i have a great deal of confidence in all of your work thank you very much thank you phoebe this is pv jams i do have a few questions you are doing formal assessments for english reading comprehension is that correct and trisha is saying um that does depend we give district and state level testing if that's what you mean this is pv are you doing asl formal assessments as well trisha's
038saying the asl assessments are still in the works there isn't anything that is formal and standardized so within the curriculum um bgc is still fairly new it's really the only curriculum for asl that's focused on bilingual instruction so we do have benchmarks and baseline so we start in the fall doing an assessment in asl and english to get a baseline and then in the spring we're looking at benchmarks areas of improvement needs for support etc so as far as district or state level we do not unfortunately have standardized tests for asl soon but we do hope to find one soon tina's saying yes we are in the process of identifying a standardized asl assessment for the agency mrs pv how much classroom time is dedicated to um instructing in proper english and how much time
039is dedicated to asl instruction this is trisha so since the summer the odd developed and those benchmarks and we are still practicing on how to measure language abilities so for some students they are able to sign very fluently and they are ready to start learning english as well and they're making greater progress if we have students who are delayed in both languages we start with asl first because it is more accessible to them once we get them a solid foundation and asl we can start bridging to english if they already have an english foundation then we'll start bridging to asl again with the goal being that they're fluent in both languages but we can't forget about that social language we do talk about formal language and zone of proximal development but we also need to
040make sure that students have appropriate social language so that they're able to acquire academic knowledge as well and tina's saying academically we are very slowly developing our our text available on video text specifically so looking at asl language grammar and culture rose and i are the only two people who are able to dedicate resources to that and with so many k through second grade readers it's really difficult to get all of that into asl on video we need to really enumerate the asl grammar and the english grammar so if we've got a book talking about the perfect pizza there's role shifting in that which is an asl grammatical feature and that is something that we are identifying and developing and it's a lot of work but again there are only two of us working on
041that ideally we need more people if you want to see um the general education curriculum in comparison there are a lot of names contributing to a single text it's a lot it's a lot of work and this is trisha i want to add that literacy group that we talked about over the summer we got some feedback and talked to a lot of the staff and they feel like they need more more training so they know about bgc they've had training on it but they need more and they need to know how to identify when and where to integrate which of the features of the curriculum and they need a lot more guidance so we are working on providing better training over the summer and tina's saying rose you're on the phone right did you want
042to add anything or maybe rose is not on the phone my mistake no no it seems rose is not on the phone okay and this is pv thank you i really appreciate that additional information i currently have a child going to ptsd so i have started asking more questions about the educational approach and i do agree with what you're saying about emphasizing social skills and social language that is very important however i do have one concern with that social instruction is for those kids that don't have that asl grammar developed yet that is they're going to pass on the or carry on those bad habits if they don't know appropriate grammar and if they're not given that formal instruction so does that instruction also include the five parameters of asl dana's saying yes we start
043at the kindergarten level with the parameters and okay we have asl phenology for example which we start teaching very young we have videos um that demonstrate and identify the parameters of each sign what's the hand shape the location so we've got a lot of fun activities that they do in those videos to learn asl phonology it's okay and first they start with handshape and location and then as they advance through their instruction they learn more features just like with english they learn letters first and then they start learning sight words so there are a lot of parallels in that trisha is saying just a reminder as far as social language is concerned um about 10 percent of deaf children are born to parents who can sign so having that incidental learning that access to language
044from birth is very rare for our deaf kids so we get a lot of kids who are three or maybe eight or maybe in high school and they have little to no language sometimes and that's significantly impacting their cognitive development and it could cause some shifts in in their brain and so we need to expose them to as much language as possible they're only in school 20 of the time and we really need to work hard to pull up that language yes we need we need that academic instruction and that academic language but they're going to get a lot more of their language development socially so we need all of that integrated very quickly and let them learn what the difference is between social language and formal language so that they have a strong foundation
045okay thank you this is pv thank you i appreciate it and again partly why i'm asking is um about the time dedicated to formal asl instruction because there's a lot of formal english instruction that relies on social learning rather than formal instruction so i'm wondering if there's a plan to expand that or implement additional strategies so like with the asl specialist positions or others who are specialized in asl dedicating one-on-one time to teaching asl practicing those skills just like you know speech therapy or language language therapy and this is tina for um there are not a lot of asl resources available for instruction most of those are what we are developing and it is a long and slow process so we are still working on that trisha did you want to add this is trisha
046i can't really speak for tucson campus i can only speak for pdsd we do have two asl specialists one who is focused heavily on providing iup based services and the other who is looking at other things like how to support teachers implementing bgc and how to support curriculum and that kind of thing and really vgc is a framework so we can't just download everything ready made and use it it is still a project and we have to develop more materials so we have one asl specialist who's doing a lot more push-in and who's working with students in the classroom and trying to get um asl immersion um and so some of those kids that do have that social language that's great but we need to clean that up like the grammar features that you were
047talking about so we've got two asl specialists and about 250 students and that does not add up this is pv i do agree and i would like to see expansion of that asl position specialist position if possible on both campuses and i would also strongly encourage the board to support that need to what you have demonstrated to expand your program and evaluation process this isn't just our kindergartners through third fourth grade you really need to see this go into middle school and any incoming students should have that asl evaluation to determine what gaps in language they have as far as their asl and receive formal instruction to fill in those gaps and again compare where they're at with um their english as well and i'm pretty sure that gallaudet has done research studies and um
048if we can improve their asl academic skills that gap significantly reduces in terms of their use of excuse me if their asl grammar is improved then that has a positive impact on their english as well so again i want to indicate the importance in within deaf education asl was recognized a long time ago back in the mid 60s and deaf education has been playing catch-up gallaudet educational research only started back in the early 90s into mid 2000's at least and so there's just not a lot of time there hasn't been a lot of time dedicated to that research so i'd like to encourage you and the board to really provide the additional resources necessary to continue that work for language acquisition because i do feel that asl improvement will also apply to our kids learning
049english and spoken language as well this is tina yes having good technology to support asl development in the classroom as well would really help us mrs tricia i do appreciate your support of comments we absolutely do need support at the agency level at the board level to really push this forward for the benefit of our students we can do it we just need the right resources i strongly believe that our teachers and our students are capable we are deaf adults and here we are i believe that we can have more successful folks in the future if we have the right supports in place this is pv one last question and then i will yield the floor to linda are you talking to gallaudet research center about what resources you can borrow from them or use
050to evaluate students perhaps could develop help them develop their resources as well create collaboration um you know i hope that you're not invent reinventing the wheel of some things that gallaudet has already created it has been if just a few months we've been reaching out and partnering with other schools for the deaf a lot of deaf schools across the country develop resources internally and we are trying to create a centralized database so with videos and resources of native signers and we can exchange what we have for what they have gallaudet does have a lot of different articles and a lot of information that we use we tweak some of it to to help us but we haven't actually reached out to them to talk about research opportunities but we can definitely do that and tina's
051saying at the clerk center there are a variety of deaf adults in a committee that is developing resources and we are doing the same thing we across the country everybody is working to make those resources trisha saying regarding the state at so gallaudet is at the national level and then at the state level there are different standards there are different curriculum expectations um components of curriculum that is approved or not so that does vary state to state and so we can't all completely rely on gallaudet as our primary source because they are not necessarily developing curriculum that would meet our state standards but whatever we develop has to has to meet our state standards and as well as our student needs thank you linda hi this is linda speaking um so a little bit about
052what pv said he had mentioned the claire center and i do know they have a workshop they have training which i have taken in the past there are two or three wonderful instructors there and they're focusing on literacy skills for the younger kiddos and resources for bilingual education by modality education so i'm sure you might know who i'm talking about at gallaudet but they have a lot of resources and a lot of videos that i came across power points so there's a lot of different things i think that we can yield here and modify to fit our needs at asdb so i would encourage you to take a look they have two or three wonderful deaf leaders in that center at the claire center that you look at and this is trisha we have been
053involved with some monthly meetings and in that we've seen a lot of great information and through that we were able to connect with different leaders all over the nation and we will continue to collaborate with gallaudet claire center as well this is pv i guess i lied i am sorry i do have one final question are there any plans are there any assessments that we need to add or modify for deafblind students or those close vision students i know that cdhl population is continuing to grow and i want to make sure that they also have this access this is trisha i would agree we just noticed the same rising numbers and we do want to make sure that our videos are clear that our backgrounds are not visually distracting and so that they are very
054clear on video and we're trying to advocate for pro tactile as well and this will make sure that these students have an additional accessibility to their surroundings to what let's say facial expressions are on the video that they don't have access to and that is in addition to the curriculum that we're working on now and this is tina we do in our deafblind program have some people that have contacted us and have asked us for resources and so we do have a relationship there this is trisha and our goal is that all of our students have the appropriate access and no child is left behind and so we want to make sure that that is met across the board mrs pb thank you i definitely would like to connect you with the acdh they have
055a deaf-blind specialist within the organization and i think they're fantastic but thank you so much again this is trish this is tina you are welcome to come come to our office at any time we'll show you around show you the resources that we have thank you are there any other questions no thank you very much for that presentation next up is 3.03 action item approval of new district agreements dr rex i'm borrowing a packet here sorry we have in um for your approval region three and with desert sky community school we have one addition at this point in time thank you dr rex um we have uh i move that we uh adopt or move forward or adopt the agreement as proposed i second all in favor aye aye aye aye aye aye excuse me
056president i have a question for a point of clarification sure this is pb james would you mind explaining the history of how that contract was established please the contract with the school district with the charter school that you can yes how did that come up um just i'm wondering um where or how that process started and what their needs are i believe that started with jay johnson they reached out to jay and they may have acquired a student a lot of times we acquire school districts throughout the year as students move so they might have needed a need had a need on one side or the other and so once they find that they have a need and they have to provide accessibility they reach out and then we start working on a an agreement
057okay that's great news i think that that really um demonstrates the um shining star that is our itinerant services that there is that outreach they're reaching out to us and i you know the more schools that contract with us and provide our services i think that's wonderful i think they're it would be good to maybe even put in a report the increase of districts that have come on board in the last couple years we we are definitely bringing on more districts and larger districts than ever before this is pv i do agree yes i would like to see that data i think that we need to celebrate each of those victories including contracts like this one so hopefully we continue to approve these contracts and demonstrate that we have a shining reputation as a school
058for the deaf that can that can provide services statewide uh thank you pv uh we were in the middle of the of the vote um and i believe oh tour okay i'm sorry we do do should we go ahead and vote i apologize dr president nigro excuse me should we vote now or and should i make my comment afterwards i'm sorry um you you can make your the comment uh now if you like that's that's okay okay um i i have a question for dr rex about um these contracts with school districts so people in power can um i'm sorry one moment for the interpreter okay so this is linda asking a question for you dr rex if we have more school districts that sign contracts to provide for us to provide services for their
059students as the agency grows or the itinerant services grow that could potentially be a challenge i would imagine as far as staffing is concerned and ensuring that we have qualified staff to provide those services um hopefully that's more clear for the interpreters it is a current challenge it is it is we are always seeking a lot of times we get last minute notice that districts want to join us and that's because their recruiting and retention efforts for hi or vi staff have been unsuccessful the need for interpreters is always changing for our students the needs are always and it's very fluid so yes we are always in need of highly qualified staff members and it is a challenge okay um we were in the middle if everyone can say i again that's voting yes um
060are there any opposed uh not opposed they will abstain and and um there's one abstention all right so that passes thank you and the next step is 4.01 information item finance report kim pitrich please thank you good afternoon board president nigro excuse me i'm sorry ms butch we can't hear you good afternoon board president nigro superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rex assistant superintendent cooper members of the board and the asdb community our most recent finance committee meeting was held on last thursday april 28th with board members aaron wonders mike gordon and pv jantz also in attendance for superintendent regman and assistant superintendent cooper during the meeting we reviewed and discussed in detail the march 22nd march 2022 and 2021 budget to actual comparison reports the available cash balance student count student-teacher ratios full-time equivalence and the
061grant revenue and expenditures the april reports are not available at this time just an update on business services we are actively recruiting for the purchasing supervisor position and assistant controller positions the budget and grant supervisor position was filled in april and the budget team is preparing for the year-end closing process and starting the budget process for budget fiscal year twenty twenty three provided to each of you is the same financial data that was provided to the financial committee in a more condensed summarized version on page two you can see the student count report for april 1st 2022 compared to april 1st 2021 the stone the total student count for 2022 is 2186 students 24 students fewer than the 2021 count of the site-based student count has decreased by 11 while the preschool count has decreased
062by 16. these are offset by an increase in co-op students of three and birth to three students of four the future reports will include the student count for fbc and desert voices in 2022 we had 49 preschool students at fbc and three at desert voices compared to there were 59 preschool students and two at desert voices for the birth to three program we currently have 109 students in 2022 compared to 133 students in 2021 this is a reduction of 24 students as of april 1st we have 506.79 fte which includes 8.5 fte at fbc we currently employ 738 staff however many of them are part-time there are currently 105 vacancies across the agency which includes 30 teachers 19 instructional assistants 13 interpreters 10 bus drivers and 33 various other positions page 4 starts the financial
063comparison data the collected revenue for budget fiscal year 2022 is 24.5 million 11 percent higher than the budget fiscal year 2021 revenues of 22 million the primary increase is in federal funds and prop 301 funds received however we are still waiting for reimbursements of 550 000 from the rsa vr grants the obligated expenditures are 41.5 million per budget fiscal year 2022 compared to 43.5 million in budget fiscal year 2021 a reduction of 2 million the reductions are in payroll food equipment offset by increases in professional and outside services travel and transfers out the 1.3 million increase in professional and outside services includes contractual agreements with as a result of becoming a local education agency for transportation and related services in addition there was an increase in the contractual prices for the services maintained at fbc
064page seven of the report shows the budget to actual expenditures as well as the remaining budget balance by object class by fund and by program we have currently expended 68 percent of our budget compared to 74 expended at this time in 2022 page 8 has the actual program expenditures by object class and by fund type page 9 has the expenditures by operational area and by object class and by fund in 2021 the instructional and student support services accounted for 66 of total expenses while they account for 64 in 2022 the decrease is mostly in the cost of payroll overall the cost for each operational area has remained fairly consistent however the expense categories have changed especially in transportation and food services on page 10 the chart shows the expenditures by appropriated and non-appropriated funds you
065can see the largest expenses in the appropriated funds are in personnel costs accounting for 76 of the expenditures the largest expense in the non-appropriated funds is the professional announcer outside services which accounts for 42 percent page 12 has the budget status report for all sources it's important to know that the revenue exceeds the expenditures for budget fiscal year 2022 by 2.5 million while we were operating at a deficit of 1.3 million in the budget fiscal year 2022 actual revenues were 41.1 million compared to 39.2 million in 2021. major differences were 767 000 increase in federal grants revenue which includes 350 000 in ida funds 140 000 47 000 increase in medicaid funds and 143 000 increase in gifts and donation which includes the sale of a donated property 156 000 increase in the land endowment
066funds and 1.1 million increase in the crop 301 funds budget fiscal year 2022 actual expenditures and encumbrances were 41.5 million compared to 43.5 million in 2021. the increase in actual expenditures includes 2.6 million in professional and outside services for the food contract fbc services transportation and related services including one-to-one nurses an increase of 500 000 in other operating resulting from the increase in risk management the maintenance of the fleet and the increased cost of fuel these increases are offsite by the reduction of payroll and equipment costs the comparative balance sheet on page 13 shows a fund balance of 18.9 million compared to 12.5 million in 2021. the increase is mainly due to the cash received from the federal grants reimbursements and prop 301 classroom site funds in summary based on a review of the financial
067data there are no immediate material concerns based on what is shown for the remainder of the fiscal year if there are no questions this concludes my report on the agency's informational and physical business services thank you thank you are there any questions all right seeing none thank you next up 7.01 information item introduction and possible discussion policies gcch and gcd uh marie murphy good afternoon board president nigro members of the board superintendent reichman assistant superintendents rex and cooper you have before you the proposed redline revisions of the two policies um excuse me something in my fruit here of gcch and um gcd the policies were posted on the website for public comment no public comment was received the poli the changes as you will see are fairly minor in terms of the bereavement policy it's
068making some minor changes regarding ensuring that there is some kind of proof that is provided of the bereavement and for out of state it's requiring superintendent approval and for gcd excuse me i have this open and it went away on me i'm so sorry it went away i beg your pardon for um gcd the the change is that the superintendent would be required to approve any non-exempt employee working on a holiday so those are the extent of the changes i'm sorry for the delay here technology at this time i would like to make myself available for any questions if you have any are there any questions for miss murphy no um thank you ms murphy thank you next the 7.02 discussion of possible action on budsperson position next step superintendent right yes this is superintendent
069regman on the agenda is the topic of an ombudsperson we have added the pdq or the job description for an ombudsperson that we developed three years ago for that position the question for the board is what do you want to do last time the board set up a subcommittee or an ad hoc subcommittee to accept applicants conduct interviews and select a candidate that you wanted to become an ombuds person if you would like to do that again you can choose to establish that subcommittee i do have some thoughts but i wanted to bring that to you first to see how you would like to proceed can you tell us your thoughts first this is superintendent regman one thought regarding the ombuds person is having that person reporting to me as superintendent rather than reporting to
070the board that way i can go ahead and set up the search conduct interviews select a candidate and then set the expectation regarding reporting to me and reporting to the board that way i can create some accountability for that position and make sure that the data and information provided to the board on a is provided to the board on a regular basis with our previous ombudsperson she provided a report to the board i think one time we were working with her to try to figure out how to document um each of the situations that she handled and how to put that data into a spreadsheet and summarize it in a way that she could report to the board regularly and that did not happen so i think if the board does want an ombudsperson we
071need to establish accountability for that position the way to establish accountability is that that person would be directly under me so that i can make sure that that person is doing their work and is also reporting regularly to the board and to me as well thank you linda has her hand up uh linda this is linda i have a question for superintendent regman over the last couple of years from your perspective what do you need is there one specific need that you have do you need someone on a permanent basis or an as needed basis or what do you have in mind for that position if you want that person to report directly to you that's fine so my question is what do you need based on what you've experienced in the past this is
072superintendent reichman based on what's happened in the past um there it was an as a needed situation as needed position the staff students or community members could contact the ombuds person and to ask for information and the ombuds person would respond to those individuals provide the requested information regarding what they can do in their situation their options and then follow up to see if the issue that person brought forward was resolved it was on an as needed basis and previously the on buds person i think she did an average of maybe five hours a week there really wasn't a lot of work it was it was less than part time it really depended on what was happening in that moment with our staff students parents and the community one thing is that people often misunderstood
073the role of an ombudsperson sometimes people thought if they went to the ombuds person and let them know that they had a specific issue then the ombuds person would go to the board and tell the board and then the board would resolve the issue for that person which is not the role or responsibility of an ombudsperson the ombuds person's responsibility is to provide information and options and and explain that process explain the policy that we have explain both the complaint and the grievance policies provide some feedback on how to have those crucial conversations with supervisors how to go up the appropriate chain of command when necessary how to work with hr whether they're an employee or if it's a staff excuse me a parent or a student what procedures they can take and essentially how
074to follow policies and procedures the ombudsperson is not an advocate they are not there to advocate on behalf of staff or the parent in question they're just there to provide information so i when i hear from the community that they want an ombudsperson there is a lot of misunderstanding about what that role is to be and what that person's responsibilities are what that person is supposed to be doing for you as the board looking at that ombudsperson it's for you to have some accountability and some assurance that complaints are being addressed and discussed that ombudsperson can provide a summary um and data stating that for example i have received x number of reports regarding this issue um x number regarding this issue these were the resolutions or there was no resolution so that we have
075a better pulse on what's going on within the agency so it's also an opportunity for the board to feel more comfortable responding to complaints from staff from the community etc so you have more information to work with okay thank you are there other questions for superintendent reichman or other comments it's okay this is uk i i think part of that role also needs to be not only hearing the complaints and coming in and and helping educate people providing those concerns to the ombudsmen about the the process but i i also think their needs to be some oversight to make sure that there aren't gate keepers along the way that are not allowing the process to actually be actualized and and that's some of what we have heard in some of the complaints previously um is
076that people feel like they can't go to the person they have the concern about because it doesn't go beyond that so whether that's happening or not i think the point of the having the ombudsman position would be to monitor that process and and make sure that it was effectively being utilized and actualized thank you sue um you know i think at this point what we might consider doing is you know forming an advisory committee to locate or or supervise the location and uh hiring of the inbuts person and when i say supervise the hiring the advisory committees are advisory only uh so there any decision or report that they make is not binding on the on the board uh you know we have to we'd have to all agree that the board would have to
077agree by majority vote sure the advisory committees are advisory only and their decisions are not binding on the board the board would need to vote on a potential candidate but the advisory committee can confer with the superintendent and locate candidates and interview those candidates and provide a report of those interviews this is pv chance i'm not sure that's a wise use of our time and the leadership team's skills and capabilities i would like to see the leadership team propose maybe their top two or three candidates and then perhaps the board can select from that that top two or three based on their recommendations uh this is david um you know for this position because the imposed person works so closely with the board i mean to me it makes sense to have a couple of
078board members uh take a look at this more closely uh that's i mean that's my thought maybe the whole board doesn't agree uh in the in the last round when we did this there were two candidates and board members including myself interviewed them and then we that was brought to the whole board for vote um i i will say it is uh 5 30 so we've been an hour and a half so we should take our 10 minute break right now and then we can resume with this topic all right thank you sorry we are ready to return it is 5 40. uh thank you so we were discussing [Music] the possible action of the buzzperson position this is linda i'm sorry did you want to say something first president nico no okay okay i
079am wondering um for any of those other folks down the table um if you can tell us what your idea of an ombuds person would be i would like to hear a little bit more some different um perspectives on this we've heard from annette and i would like to get some different input so for me personally to have a better understanding of others expectations um linda this is david uh we do have an umbuzz person policy uh that does set out the responsibility and the role of the umbuds person david can i um this is uk i'm going by what i know working in des and having an ombudspersman specifically for voc rehab um the overarching goal is to make sure that there is neutrality in the process and that people have access to the
080process and that they understand what options are available to them um in my mind it could function as because the position is in policy it could function as part of the hr team but maybe not report to the hr supervisor maybe report like annette had mentioned maybe report directly to annette and then again i think it is to make sure there is um for lack of a better word veracity in oversight of the process to make sure that people feel that their concerns are being heard that they understand the options available to them under policy whether it's a complaint or a grievance and that it is being seen to conclusion i think where we were hearing concerns is that people felt like and again whether we have verification of that or not is not the
081issue at this point the the the point is people are feeling like they bring up their concern and it ends right there so there needs to be that that follow-up and closure loop to make sure that they understand what what has happened with their complaint and what the result was of that complaint process this is lynn i agree with with sue k i've heard similar situations where staff didn't feel that they were being heard or it wasn't being thought through so this would be a neutral person that can help guide them to through the process and who they can talk to um i think the staff feels that they really need that and and i would support that and this is uk again i i agree i don't based on the use that we had
082previously um i don't know that it needs to be more than um a part-time person um but i do think there are other opportunities within the role from a staff education even a community parent education piece to make sure that people are clear on the policy and the policy is accessible to everybody so i do think there are things that could make it go from maybe five hours to a i don't know 10 15 20 hour position but i do think that accountability piece should come from the superintendent uh this is david um and further to suit his point the um buds person isn't the the historic usage of of the above the person was very low um it over the three years that we had the former ombuds person we spent about seven thousand
083dollars a year uh on that person's work so it was you know it ebbed and flowed some months she didn't do any work because there was nothing other she did more but on a year-to-year basis it was you know very very minimal and it's you know much less than part-time um and this is aaron i would just echo from my perspective what suke was saying in terms of kind of the role and responsibility of an ombuds person in state government and i think even looking at the position description as well i think there's also value and benefit in understanding if there are systematic deficiencies that are a result of the way that the policy has either been implemented or drafted for the board to understand and potentially look at those policies or linda first okay
084this is linda and i want to follow up on an additional question you mentioned the policy if i recall correctly a couple three years ago we did look at the policies for a grievance process and a complaint process which are already in the handbook for staff and is is that sufficient or not and that's something that i don't fully understand and admittedly i haven't heard any complaints while some of the rest of you seem to have heard some complaints that um i haven't heard from staff who have had those kinds of concerns and so it seems perhaps there are two different groups of us some of us me maybe just me i'm not going to lump pv in with me but i wasn't aware of these people haven't been coming to me with that um
085so i think you know figuring out a way to balance that complaint process would be i think would be a good thing sure this is david um about five years ago maybe it was six i'm not exactly certain i'd have to go back and check we undertook a revision of the complaint and grievance process there were seven or eight different processes depending on who you were and what the substance of the issue was and people were a little confused about which to use and what we did is we simplified those so we just have i believe four of them now depending on if you're a parent or student a staff member or a member of the public and i think the the staff one has kind of two subparts one uh relates to certain issues
086of employment and others relate to other issues of employment that's the difference between a complaint and a grievance and those are different processes so we we simplified that and we added the mbudsperson to kind of hear complaints or hear issues that they didn't really know where to go if that makes sense they didn't know how to proceed with something and the buzz person would help them through that process and it could be filing a complaint it could be filing grievance it could be resolving something more informally um it could be something that someone just misunderstood but the ambassador person reported that to us on a regular basis and we were able to see you know what the vice versa was dealing with so as you know as an example um the uh one of the
087northern offices was moved from flagstaff to sedona a few years ago and the umbuds person fielded i think 21 complaints if i were i'm remembering offhand it might be more or less than that but it was a lot and we were able to see that you know there were there were some some some reasons for that now we you know we talked with the staff and the staff had reasons as the leadership had reasons as to why that move was made but again it was an issue that that came up and that we knew about i don't think that we necessarily would know about it otherwise and if we got there's not really a good mechanism for us to to understand that good that's okay this is uk again um i think something else to
088take a look at in looking at hiring an ombudsman position is even with the processes in place there are there are different ways to approach a resolution and it could be facilitating a conversation between the person who has the complaint and the person who made a decision that they are complaining about it could be um so more like a mediation sort of perspective it could also be elevating something in my mind to a higher decision authority for review if it warrants it so i do think there are opportunities to utilize them in some strategic ways to handle and look at resolution to these complaints and then be able to report back not only to the superintendent but then provide some of that data on a monthly basis to to the board as far as how
089those complaints or grievances were categorized by number and then the different steps or um that or how many went to mediation how many went to a higher authority for review and maybe overturning a decision so being able to sort of track that data longitudinally to see how if having a person in place actually has caused some of those things to resolve at the lowest level and and maybe see a reduction in the number of complaints this is pv i've been thinking on this for a while and listening to folks comments and it makes me wonder i do understand the prior history when we did have an ombudsperson that person was only utilized maybe five hours a week and if we had an ombudsperson reporting directly to the superintendent and they were held accountable and held
090to a standard or an expectation um that was indeed neutral um i imagine that we could probably see um the superintendent and her leadership team make that position a full 40 hour position which would mean that person could technically take more active a more active role within the agency become more directly involved and make it well known that that person is present and make them recognized and and make staff aware of who they are i think one thing that did come up in our previous conversation was the fact that um people um you know took a training for a complaint and grievance process but they said they didn't know how to actually file a complaint or a grievance so obviously that training is not effective and that's something that an unbunz person could take responsibility
091for to look into and modify um make sure that that's being addressed maybe there needs to be a test something to demonstrate um that that people understand and that ombudsperson's role would be to approach the superintendent from a neutral perspective and then the superintendent can bring it to the board and that would be a good way to see that position become full-time fully utilized in order to maintain and and really push forward our strategic plan um that we've been working on for the agency this is uk again um just as an idea or a suggestion in expanding this role this could be somebody that also works at a again i think it could be part of an hr team but reporting directly to the superintendent looking at overall agency not just the campuses but the
092co-ops as well from a diversity equity inclusion and accessibility standpoint as well so not only handling some of those internal grievances but then making sure that the the agency as a whole are meeting those requirements from a legal standpoint under 504 ada if sports are involved title ix those types of things as well yes this is pv exactly what my thoughts are i could see that really expanding pretty quickly and not just for internal use but also more for parents if they have a grievance or a disagreement with the iep or services that are being provided that ombuds person can be involved as a neutral person to help them figure out the appropriate approach or appropriate avenue and bring that to the superintendent for awareness bring it to the board if necessary look at contract
093disagreements figure out a neutral way to have those kinds of conversations if something can't be resolved with the contract department then again having that neutral perspective i i can see that really easily broadening very quickly if we have an active person taking an active role within the agency i can see that developing very fast thank you um so you know from here i mean it seems that you know having a buds person is it doesn't seem that anyone doesn't want to do that um so the next item would be or the next idea would be to to form that advisor committee with just one or two members on it to interview candidates that that we find for the position this is pv um i mentioned previously that um i disagree with that approach only because
094um since i've been on the board we have had this conversation two or three times and we still were not able to provide a solution or figure out how to fill that position and we as a board have faced some challenges in filling that position previously i think that the superintendent's recommendation recommendation is reasonable if we need to provide a compromise i'm fine with that um but i would like to make the emotion that the superintendent have the authority to um select an ombuds person through an interview process and fill that position i think it is important that the position be filled prior to the new school year starting is it open for discussion the motion yeah yeah no it hasn't been seconded it's looking for discussion um the only thing i would like to
095see may be added um so i'm going to step back i um what i think i would like to see happen is maybe to see the pdq expanded a little bit to include maybe some other potential accountability standards that um is is could be expected in the position how the position could potentially grow i i don't have a problem um having annette and the leadership team um select a candidate but i do think it would be good maybe to define the role a little bit more extensively like how it will be housed you know within the agency who the direct report is to what some of the accountability standards other than just taking in complaints would be i think some of that could be fleshed out a little bit more mrs pv are you saying
096that you want to see that expansion of the pdq before the candidate's election process begins so the reason i ask is because the next board meeting is a ways out and so that means we would really be pushing it into the new school year starting if we voted on that recommendation which i do agree with but if we were to wait and vote at that time then they couldn't start the formal search until really after the school year had already started we're into the fall and by that time um i'm i'm wondering if perhaps we could do those at the same time meaning the leadership team makes a candidate selection and revises the pdq outlines their responsibilities and accountability process and bring that to the board for the july meeting we could have a conversation
097of both and modify as needed i this is okay i don't think the pdq would need to be approved by the board i think that could be done internally so i do think that could be happening at the same time this is lynn i would think we'd need a complete job description and know what all the duties and responsibilities are of that if we were to add in change before we start looking for somebody so we can tell them what this job is that we're asking them to do this is linda yes i would feel better about that as well when if we had a very specific understanding of the roles and responsibilities of that position and knew what to expect i would prefer to do that first see that first to make sure we
098have something clear before we um we go through with that process and this is pv technically i believe we already have a pdq from the previous ombuds person is that correct superintendent reichman can you confirm that that's and superintendent reichman is saying yes we do have a pdq that is correct um and it is attached to your agenda as a matter of fact this is pv so that being said i think that they could make the modifications to the existing pdq as needed we can review that make sure we agree with it but at the same time they should be able to start moving forward and at least select a candidate i don't mind if for example they give us their top two or three and bring those to the board i would be fine
099with that if superintendent reichman makes this election herself i would be fine with that as well but i do think that we need to get moving on this this is aaron i think it's going to be a little bit challenging to go to go out and try to recruit candidates when the position had description hasn't been fully scoped out to whether it's a 40 hour a week type of position or continuing as is as more of a five hour as needed so i think it's hard to go out and recruit without having that more concretely defined if there is a desire to expand the role into other areas that that seems to me like it would need to be more fully scoped out first this is pv okay so maybe i'm not explaining myself clearly
100and i apologize allow me to rephrase we already have a pdq we already have a position description so we could tell the superintendent to please go ahead and modify that as you see fit for a full-time position that would be reporting directly to the superintendent um so for example that could include sue kaye's um discussion about being part of the hr team but still reporting directly to superintendent um so it would include the responsibilities of reporting and and get going with that job cert or that candidate search and by the next meeting she can bring us that modified position description as well as a candidate and we still technically have to review and approve their contract so we can do a one-year contract take a look at how that goes and we can essentially reserve
101the right to modify the pdq as necessary so if they make a recommendation for a candidate and we want to add something to the pdq that that person does not want if after we've modified the pdq then then they have every right to not take the position and we can go to the second or third choice so i think if we are given the opportunity to kind of make a trial run of that modified as we go my only caution would be that we continue to bring up this topic and we haven't made any progress on it so i would like to see if we're actually committed let's make this happen now this is okay and while i don't disagree with the need to move this forward pv um i do want to ask um
102annette and and possibly other members on the leadership team if they change the pdq i know for us at des we have to take it all the way up to 808 for pdq approval um okay so you don't have to do that then then i would agree with pv we could make those changes but i i think what we need to decide is um are you looking for an as needed position because i think that's going to be challenging to find i i if you can't offer somebody at least a part-time hour or more with the potential of it growing into something larger i think we're going to be in the same place at in the july board meeting and the board meeting after that because um that as needed type of position for a
103specialty group like asdb i think is going to be very challenging to find the right fit and so i think you need to in in my humble opinion i would support a amendment to pv's motion thank you for that word um to include some parameters of it being at least a 20 hour a week position with the potential of growing to something more if other duties were found to be able to be added into that role i i think it will be far easier to recruit and find somebody that will have a commitment to the agency if it's at least those 20 hours a week this is superintendent reichman first i would recommend that if you want more hours on a weekly basis that either we do a 19 hour a week position with no
104benefits not do 20 hours a week because that would be required to include benefits and it's very expensive for the agency to provide benefits to a part-time staff so i would suggest either 19.5 hours a week with no benefits or a full-time 40-hour week position with benefits and and this is 2k i i could support either of those decisions if you felt like you had enough that you could expand the role to a 40 hour um great but um otherwise i'd i would could support a 19 hour with no benefits but i i don't think it could be less than that at this point if we want to get somebody who's going to be as committed to us as we want them to be this is superintendent reichman my challenge is that i am telling
105the leadership team that we have to become more responsible for our staff and sometimes we're overstaffed sometimes we're understaffed and we are doing a staff analysis currently trying to determine how to right-size our number of staff to meet the needs so based on what we need and what we have within the agency so i have already asked the leadership team to make some changes and so now you're asking me to add a full-time position and figure out what kind of work to provide that individual i can do that but that means i am taking a different approach than what i have asked my leadership team to take and um superintendent reichman i uh i certainly agree that this role isn't really envisioned to be even a part-time position we already have very high administration costs
106as we've discussed several times and i just don't think it's it's warranted for this position to be a full-time uh position or likely even a part-time based on the volume that we saw with the prior umbuds person uh you know the and just a little bit of history as you everyone will recall in july actually last spring we did an rfp process uh to find a vendor to be an unboxed person we got one reply the board in july voted to proceed with that person that person never entered into the the contract that they said that they would um so we were left without you know without anyone um so the idea here is that we're going to try to continue our efforts to to find someone in some capacity uh to do this work
107i understand that it's harder to get someone on a less than part-time basis but you know this is the idea of having a vendor is that it would be a little bit easier to do that because you know because with the contractor you can just give a few hours a month or none depending on the on the volume but that that didn't work out a year ago this is pv points i'd like to make one is my motion hasn't been seconded so it is open for um amendments or discussion of course and my second point um is superintendent reichman you did make a good point regarding your leadership team um and what would you propose instead this is superintendent reichman i would say part-time up to 19 hours a week with no benefits um with
108some flexibility in their schedule in their hours when they actually work and we would provide a phone we would provide an email address a laptop and we would pay for travel as needed meals etcetera for state policy and other supports that we offer to our other staff and an office space as well this is pv do you envision that position being remote or required to be in person this is superintendent rightman it could be both based on the need um because we are a statewide agency i could i would say both um i think that person would serve in both roles they would have in-person meetings and also remote meetings this is pv at 19 hours with no benefits do you think you would be able to recruit and find someone um compared to our
109previous situation when we did not have success getting that person to sign a contract so superintendent raymond that previous person was contracted not staff so with a contract position we did not get any interest what we're talking about now is a part-time staff position an actual member of our staff an asdb employee previously the ombuds person wasn't an employee not a contractor um that previous person was on our payroll so i would propose that this be an an employee on our payroll who is reporting directly to me and i would approve their time um and their schedule this is pv so to clarify does that mean you think you can successfully recruit someone um as a part-time employee for the position superintendent reichman said yes i think so okay there um so pv can you
110for can you restate your motion oh gosh i would actually like to modify the motion if that's okay that's fine okay so i would like to make a motion that the board gives superintendent richmond the authority to begin the recruiting process for selecting a part-time up to 19-hour a week ombuds person position and make a selection this is okay i second that okay any discussion on that before we vote this is pv i apologize i forgot one detail that i would like to amend the motion i would like to amend the motion to say that that position would report directly to superintendent reichman okay did i say that already oh i said that already okay i second that with the amendment okay any discussion before we vote okay uh all in favor uh say aye
111any opposed all right the motion passes thank you um next is 7.03 discussion possible action item mechanism for receiving public comments uh so this is an item i just wanted to take some more discussion on this um you know in the last couple of years well pre-march 2020 uh we'd have board meetings they'd be open to the physically open to the public they'd be broadcast too on the internet um and people would come and if they wanted to make collaborative comments they filled out a form there were two calls to the public they'd fill out a form for which one they want to do or both they'd come and they'd stand up and they'd give uh three minutes they'd have you should be a lot of three minutes of time uh we did that for
112you know many years the uh covet happened we went to zoom for a little while we use the email format that's had several modifications over time as we've kind of refined the process a bit we still did that today last meeting because the meeting has been closed to the to physically close to the public um in starting in july i it seems that we're going to be opening you know back up to the public so it'll be that the meetings will be completely uh as they were uh prior to march 2020 i think the the opening to the public physically is the last you know vestige of you know kova that we're we're getting rid of uh so we you know i just wanted to take some discussion as to what uh the board thought
113should we go back to our previous uh mech or previous practice which is if you would like to make a public comment you come to the meeting you fill out your form and then you come to the podium at the at the designated time uh we could uh not do that at all and and retain our email in uh policy uh like we have now where everything gets made of record on the website and we briefly summarize them uh you know for the meeting i think that you know that kind of shortens the meeting it allows us to get more time to talk together because this you know these meetings are the only time that we get to come together and and talk about these issues uh or we could do something else entirely um
114but i wanted to you know in terms of the public comment you know usually that's just something that i have the ability to change but i uh the policy gave me a discretion to do that but i want to get everyone's thoughts on that before we you know we make a decision this is uk i'm thinking a hybrid [Laughter] i think if we could take email comments and um provide a summary like we've been doing the last couple of meetings um including um the name of the person submitting the comments because i do think we need to be cognizant of not taking anonymous comments comments i think we need to follow that a little bit more strictly and then maybe a lot an amount of time for public comments in each of those areas take
115them in and anything that we do not that we run out of time for after the three minutes each say we cap it at five people per section something to that effect that the rest of them would then also be put onto the board web page for people to then go back and read and we could even tally and say we have 10 comments related to agenda item you know 7.2 on this topic um and the first three people that submitted their comments are going to be allowed three minutes a piece and the rest of the comments will be placed on the website that's my thought okay so what you're suggesting is the people that show up physically we'd set a limit of let's say the first five um and then if there's other if
116there's overflow uh we would take a video of them and post those comments okay and they would do that offline or or we wouldn't do that at the meeting where we do it at the meeting but correct but not um you know not during the meeting set meeting time correct okay uh any other thoughts this is brittany buchanan i just want to clarify sue kay um if you if we're doing a hybrid which i am fully supportive especially since you know we don't know it's at this point anything could go um if you have like five email comments and five people in person showing up to comment on the same like agendaized item um and you want us a time limit or a person minute how are we going to differentiate or give you know
117kind of an equal opportunity to people that choose not to come in person and people that do choose to come in person this is this is uk in in this is my very humble opinion i think that the priority should be given to the people who attend in person as far as time in front of the board because they have made the effort to be here again this is my very humble opinion and those that provide an email comment i don't think that it should be ignored or you know lower in priority but i do think we should give the actual time that we have on the agenda to the people that actually showed up and then just again like we have been doing summarizing the email comments and then making sure that they're posted
118i appreciate your opinion on that thank you this is pv i agree with the hybrid approach i think it's important to offer the opportunity for in-person or an electronic option um or people can record a video and post and share that if they would like my only concern is with limiting the number of people part of our job as the board is to be open to the public and open to their comments and their input if we limit the number of people who are allowed to comment um that could create the potential sense of unfairness or um selective or favoritism as it were so which is not our intention of course so a big challenge that we face as a board and as an agency statewide is that arizona is a very diverse state and
119it's not just regarding gender culture race ethnicity etc but it's also geography and access so perhaps we can do a trial for the next board meeting and see how that hybrid approach works and then if it's too much if it's taking too long there are too many people we can modify that as needed but i just don't want to create the sense that we are limiting our public comment where other boards generally don't do that we do limit the time that they're allowed just to comment if they show up in person but they still have the opportunity to be heard this is uk um and i i'm hearing you very loud and clear pv um one of the things that i have chatted with annette about in some previous interactions is that we might want
120to put some of the the thoughts for these unagendized comments and maybe provide a couple of opportunities a year for more of a town hall kind of a session for people to have the opportunity to interact with annette and or members of the board regarding things that are of concern to them that might not be on the agenda and maybe that would help sort of level that playing field mrs pv i like that idea i do think it's important perhaps that we create a town hall meeting that is open to the public i think i think that would be an important step and a good way to address that concern i think for those non-agendized items those comments could still be collected or potentially with the ombuds person if it's something that looks like a
121complaint we could follow up and say if this is in fact a complaint bring this to the ombuds person the ombuds person can take it from there another option is to you know make sure that we are prioritizing comments on agendized items and once those are done if we have time um at the end of the meeting then we can open it for non-agendized item commons perhaps are there other other comments on that i mean mike was that no okay um you know for me uh having been you know to the the pre-co meetings for for quite a number of years um you know we typically didn't we didn't never limited the number of people who can speak but that never really became an issue we very rarely on one occasion that i recall that
122we have more than six or seven people speak uh at you know at three minutes a a person um and then you're at you know if there's seven people or there are five people it's about 15 minutes and people have to get up and down um you know one of the things i i want to make sure that we're doing is we're we're hearing everyone and we can hear everyone a number of ways one we have an email address right so people can always email us anytime two if they want to make their comment public and put it in you know public record they can send that to the email and that'll go on the website uh and that i think is you know a good thing we didn't have that before we didn't even
123have that before a few meetings ago uh so that's that's certainly a good thing in terms of you know limiting the time if we were to say you know the first seven people and again the first come first serve basis it wouldn't you know we're completely viewpoint neutral in that regard uh and we limit that number of times so even with seven people we're we're checking out about an hour to the meeting um you know for for me i want to be cognizant of that because we want to be able to to have as much of the meaning as we can to have discussion about things that are important to the agency it's important to hear public comment um but it doesn't necessarily have to be during the meeting to extend the meeting an hour
124or more so even if we were to limit it to seven people let's say the first seven people on each of those so it'd be 14 total about an hour total of comments at the most i don't know that we would really on a regular basis ever hit that again there was one exceptional circumstance where there were many more comments uh in person uh and and i i really hope that doesn't happen again um but again it was it was a it was an exception you know rather than a rule this is pv i do get what you're saying president nigro and i agree the reason i'm suggesting perhaps a trial or a town hall format excuse me i'm suggesting perhaps a town hall format has that been done by the board before there was
125one town hall for a very specific purpose several years ago and but again it was a very it was a very specific purpose and uh there was a fair number of attendance i think uh you know from the members of the public and community uh but we haven't done it on a on a regular basis the only thing i think we've done that is anything even close to that is the interviews for superintendent when we did that um over six seven years ago when we were doing the superintendent search we held town halls in phoenix and in tucson uh where the the superintendent candidates uh spoke and then took questions from the audience so again we did that that's been a number of years ago at this point and we had the one town hall
126about three years ago i think on a very specific issue um this is sukay i i know that annette has met with stakeholders in the community in that sort of smaller format and i am just suggesting that maybe the board be open to participating in some of those stakeholder meetings whether it's the full board or a representation of the board that then could bring back some of those concerns and comments to maybe be added to an agenda for a board meeting i think it would allow people's voices to be heard especially with some of the non-agenda items that maybe we could collect more information and then like pv said again if it's something that we're suspecting is a complaint is that something that the ombudsman role could vet out um prior to bringing it to
127the board's attention um i don't know just sort of spitballing some ideas here that's a great point suitcase superintendent rickman does do more than and has done more of the town hall type events and i think it would be good if the board you know could participate in those in in the future uh we'd have to give proper notice if more than a certain number of board members attended uh but that's that's not a problem we just need to know in advance this is tv and also when okay i'll yield to linda this is linda i do support that idea of having a town hall on occasion i think we have talked about that before but allowing the public to share their opinion allowing the board to take that in um and and giving us
128time to think through how we can make supportive decisions how we can be supportive of the superintendent get a pulse on the community i think that's very important for me as a deaf person on the board i do feel like i need to to hear from the community more because covet has created this barrier we haven't had the opportunity to really interact with public who are concerned about our board's decisions so i like to have those people in in front of us and create a friendly accessible environment to the board so so yeah i support that idea i would think maybe twice a year would be would be great and yeah so just to support what everyone has said so far uh thank you all right if there are no this is pvp sorry president
129nigro i just wanted to say that i am more than happy to participate in superintendent reichman's uh stakeholder meetings um if that would be beneficial to the board i love that kind of thing so i'm happy to be involved oh thank you no that that would be great um superintendent recommend you can make sure the board knows about those upcoming events and the only thing i'd ask is you'd have the board rsvp um at least a week in advance so that if more than five want to go that we properly notice it yes i will do that thank you okay um if there are no other comments we can move on to 8.01 call the public call the public for non-agendized items that's okay we had three emails on a similar topic from alexis sloan
130samantha moore and leslie jen decker all three indicated support for hiring vacancies and campus leadership with those who are asl proficient and or who have background in deaf and hard of hearing education and then an additional comment from one was in regards to considering looking at not utilizing academic time for speech training and speech therapy um but to have that be um as an outsider extracurricular activity thank you uh next on the agenda 8.02 discussion of possible action item agendas agenda items for the next regular board meeting scheduled on july 7 2022 in tucson and possible future work sessions um i can just start by saying we a significant uh agenda item on that meeting is going to be our review of the first year of the strategic plan so we um may of 2021
131was the meeting where we approved our strategic plan so it's uh it's almost a one year anniversary of that um where it is to the month so that means that we've had one year to collect all of our data and to put it into a format that the board can review it and discuss it i know we've seen some kind of beta versions of a an online tool uh dashboard to see it that will be open to the public i don't know if that's gonna be ready for july i hope that it is i really would like for it to be ready for july but if not you know a pdf report would be sufficient but the important thing is that all the data in the strategic plan is compiled and put into a report
132for us to review and then we can talk about what what this means um what are we seeing that we like what are we seeing where there might be opportunities for improvement um or or changes uh i think it's going to be good to see that first full year so that we can start to plan for the next year um and and and see what we're gonna do to either you know keep going with successes that we've had or or or make some changes to um to see if we can uh move some of that data for for the next year so that i think is going to be a significant part of that meeting are there any other ideas for other action i or other agenda items for the next meeting this is superintendent
133reichman i also want to propose that the board consider and further work study session perhaps focused on the master facilities plan and that process [Music] the recent work study session um assistant superintendent cooper did talk about that a little bit but we know that our sunset audit will include a focus on that topic and so we would like to have the opportunity to have a deeper discussion with the board in in the future perhaps in the summer or fall to have you start considering what this means and how that would fit in with our strategic plan and superintendent right when i completely agree and our facilities are i mean they've been an area of focus for us for a while and i think even more attention needs to be brought to that now i don't
134know when that report is going to be done i know that it has to be done by october i don't know when we're going to get any kind of initial draft or maybe it'll be done before that i'm not sure um we probably want to wait we would probably want to schedule that for after after october my hero i hurt myself a little bit for after october so that we have an idea of what the audit says i wouldn't want to have that work study session before we we know what the auditors think um so that would be my my suggestions that we although it is an important issue that i'd love to have that meeting you know in the summer if we could uh i just think it doesn't make sense to do it
135and get some sort of a direction on it before we know what the auditor is going to say this is pv and i do understand that perspective president nigro i'm i sort of agree um at the same time i do feel that um this is a going to be a very complex issue um that we are going to be facing and with significant challenge and so we're going to need to look at this almost like the elephant in the room trying to figure out how we can eat the elephant one bite at a time so it's going to take a while which means that um we may need to start at least start the conversation prior to the results of the sunset audit and i think if we as a board and leadership team could
136perhaps develop some kind of an overall needs assessment or a prioritization of what we feel the agency needs and what we want to commit to that would help us that help guide us through that conversation after we get the results of the sunset audit and so i think that we are going to need to have some very tough conversations and i think starting that earlier than later would be a benefit to us as well as the community are there any other comments on that okay are there any other suggestions for other work study session topics a master facilities plan or at least getting a review of what all our assets are for the agency uh this is david we certainly need a strategic facilities plan um you know in particular we don't have that and
137i know that we need one um i i i still believe that that it would be better to wait for the result of the auditor's uh general report so that we know the what they think are the larger issues that we need to address uh you know that said there's you're right that there's nothing to stop us from from thinking about it now and that is and that topic isn't going to be fixed in one work study session it's going to it's going to take a while to resolve this is uk just personally from my perspective i i would like to have sort of a 30 000 foot view at this point because i know there is a lot involved in that and i know that i know just that much of it and so
138i think even if we could start with the larger picture overview before we you know roll up our sleeves and dig down into the details after the audit results that would be helpful for me as a board member yeah that i think we can do when you want to do that i i'm flexible if we need to do that in a work study session before october um we could we could have um letitia sent out a doodle poll for possible dates i'm i'm open i'm bad yeah i think that's maybe the bet but you're but you wouldn't want it in the summer you'd wanted sometime in the sometime sometime august or before yeah i would say um i would say maybe sometime around august would be good i i don't want to get it too
139close to what i know that school starts um like the third week of julyish so i i don't want to cram too much into leadership's team's plate that close to the beginning of the school year but if we could have it some somewhat close after that that might be a good way to start diving in okay this is pv um i would have to agree with that timeline particularly because you we have to remember they have to fill the assistant superintendent position conduct that search of course and they're also working on filling that principal position for the two both schools in the tucson campus and um also we're talking about the ombuds position as well so they've got a lot of responsibilities before um before we get to that point all right why don't we
140do that let you if you can do a doodle poll or dates that would work for you guys and then you can maybe give us three or four options there any other potential topics either for the next board meeting agenda items or uh work study sessions we can always revisit this in july we don't need to plan all of the next half of the year right now no okay and then we can move on to 9.01 adjournment this is lynn i move that we adjourn this board meeting a second this is linda all in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed all right yeah we have one opposed all right uh thank you everyone um thank you to our staff the interpreters uh the media production team um we will uh we'll see you at
141the next meeting you