001okay media you're all set media okay we're gonna do it 10 seconds 10 all right uh thank you uh it's four o'clock and now is the time set for the regular board meeting the arizona state schools for the deaf and the blind uh 1.01 call to order um suicide you have the roll call sure uh david nigro prison brittany buchanan president lynn davison president linda bove mike gordon president dean howard president pv chance aaron wonders president and myself sue k connipal present all right uh thank you sue kane um next we have a 1.02 call to the public on agendized items uh the minutes allowed at president's discretion um for for today and and for other meetings um you know we're still in the the socially distant and uh uh scenario um the other thing
002is we were thinking about uh the board meetings and you know our synchro's time together is really important and it's the only time we get to come together as a board and discuss you know important matters and you know matters that relate to the agency um and you know we want to make sure that the meetings are focused on that so one of the things that we uh have for today is the the public comments that get submitted uh are going to be sent to the website um they're gonna be publicly posted on the website if they're not there already uh the board was provided with the comments prior to the meeting to review we should all review them and should have reviewed them uh and the board always has an email address uh if
003they miss the window for some reason uh or if they want to send comments and it's not a regular meeting coming up you can send an email to the board uh email address so again all those public comments are gonna be on the website if they're not there already we are we do have a brief summary of them sue k for you to read and then we can move on we received a total of thirteen nine of them were on agendized items and four of them on non-agendized items all comments are accessible on the website given in the agenda for this meeting and will remain public for several months these are public comments and the board has not reviewed these comments for factual accuracy and the viewpoints expressed in these comments are in no way
004indicative of the viewpoints of asdb its leadership or board primarily the comments related to the opposition of offering kelly creasy a contract for the 2223 school year due to her inability to communicate using asl one comment related to the opposition of offering paul creasy a contract for 2223 due to his status as the spouse of kelly creasy an alleged conflict of interest due to the marriage one comment actually it was a group comment supporting offering kelly creasy a contract for 2223 and then for the non-agendized items were related to asking the board to diversify the way in which it receives information also noting that audiologists in the cooperatives are not are blocked from connecting with families uh thank you sue k and uh when we get to the non-agendized item we'll we'll just kind of
005repeat yeah okay certainly uh thank you um next we have a 1.03 information item superintendent's report superintendent rickman good afternoon president nigro members of the board assistant superintendent rex and assistant superintendent cooper as well as the asdb community welcome to our march 3rd 2022 board meeting i'm happy to see you all here today in person we do have a lot to discuss this afternoon so my report to the board will be brief shouldn't take more than five minutes i want to start my remarks with the reminder of asdb's mission which says we are committed to excellence and innovation in providing education to our students across the state of arizona we are also committed to excellence and innovation in our leadership team we are committed to excellence and innovation in our collaboration with parents with school
006districts and with the community and finally we are committed to excellence and innovation in our partnership with other state agencies our mission recognizes the significance of leadership our leadership we are to drive our work our leadership drives our work toward that mission the mission cannot be accomplished without good leadership your task is to focus on asdb leadership this evening when i started a superintendent almost six years ago my focus was on prioritization we needed to rebuild asdb from its foundation all the way up at that time i focused heavily on school improvement for both of our campuses i focused on our early learning program because of the importance of early language acquisition for our deaf and hard of hearing children and students as well as the importance of independent living skills for our blind and
007visually impaired children and students we also focused on the five regional cooperatives we wanted that cooperative program to become a statewide itinerant services program and support those three primary programs on an operational level for example our vehicles needed better management when i started five years ago some of our state cars were not safe they were not reliable because proper maintenance was not being done and today we have safe reliable transportation for all of our teachers and staff we focused on building renewal meaning if something was worn out on campus we had the funds available to replace those situations those issues if an air conditioner unit went out we were able to replace that unit we focused on budget management to ensure that we had adequate funding based on data so that we were able to
008report accurately and then we could use that data to make better decisions on how we used our our fiscal resources those were my priorities i will readily admit that i did not prioritize asl american sign language and our deaf community and deaf culture i acknowledge the importance of american sign language our deaf community and deaf culture i completely understand the importance of those things it's just that when i started six years ago i took a look at the agency as a whole and i felt very strongly that we needed to rebuild our foundation first our foundation was our schools and our early learning program and our regional cooperatives we needed to rebuild our systems to support our educational services for our students so i chose not to prioritize those other things those public comments about
009the principles on campuses not learning american sign language that is on me i did not set that expectation i set other expectations for the principal of tucson campus and she met all of the expectations that i set today your task is to look at all of these proposed contracts for renewal i wanted to share with you what happened five years ago in march of 2017 the asdb board of directors received feedback from five staff members who were working on the tucson campus those five staff members expressed concern about the principle of the arizona school for the deaf that principal could sign fluently in american sign language that principal was involved with the deaf community and new deaf culture that principal went to all of the deaf schools games and committed and was committed to her
010students and she had a son who was deaf as well those five staff members shared their concerns about the principle and her leadership of the arizona school for the deaf the asdb board of the directors at that time chose not to renew her contract so what could we then do we started a nationwide search for a qualified candidate to bring in to tucson campus and become the principal of the arizona school for the deaf we did an extensive search and we did not find a qualified candidate we tried again a second time we did another nationwide search we did find a qualified candidate to run the arizona school for the deaf we did not find anyone we failed so i chose to have a meeting with principal creasy she was the principal of the arizona
011school for the blind i asked her if she would be willing to assume responsibility for the arizona school for the deaf fortunately she said yes for the last five years she has run both schools she has been involved with school improvement she has focused on setting high expectations for our students because we want our students to graduate and go to college or be career ready she has been involved with selection of curriculum for english math science and we were beginning the bgc bilingual grammar curriculum we started that when covid hit and the pandemic happened our schools as you know at that time had to close over the last two years she has focused on getting students back to school having students come to school every day and at the same time keeping our students safe
012and our teachers and staff as well that has been the last five years she has met all of my expectations i did not set an expectation for her to learn american sign language that is on me we are now an agency asdb starting to address the importance of american sign language within our agency as well as deaf culture and the deaf community tomorrow we have our first meeting for two new committees the first committee will be focused on developing a language policy for asdb so they will be analyzing how we can approach this topic to make sure that all of our staff both deaf and hearing have the same level of access to communication and language and that will involve integrating asl into our daily communication the second committee will focus on accessibility making sure
013that all of our staff and students have the same level of access to information and what's going on in their environment we are just now starting to address these issues from my perspective asdb is now finally ready to begin integrating those important aspects into our agency so this afternoon as you the board consider contract renewals of our leadership team i hope that you recognize that i recommend contract renewal because i have complete faith and confidence in our leadership team if i didn't i would not be recommending that their contracts be renewed so that is the first thing i would like for you to consider the second thing i would like for you to consider is if you as the board decide not to renew a contract for an individual it will be exceedingly challenging to
014find a good leader to replace that individual and that concludes my report to the board thank you superintendent reichman are there any questions for the superintendent okay hearing none we'll go on to 1.04 information item assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction dr rex good afternoon president nigro and board members you've received my report for this meeting but i would like to add the following information to align our current reality in our educational programs in our birth to three we are still not fully serving families in the home as a majority after 24 months we are just beginning to have the metrics we need to return in person some families have been able to meet in person but we are ramping up to actually start going into the homes again and doing the important work that
015we do on our preschool at both campuses we have been working hard but i wanted to make you aware that our at our pdsd campus it has operated without three teachers and three ias since october the birth to five program is down two admins and we are currently recruiting for those positions coverage for absences has been taken on by our supervising teachers and our directors as we have no subs and our tucson campus staff has even gone up to provide coverage at the pdsd campus our hi and vi teachers are still assessing our students and developing progress reports and will be part of the data that we put in the strategic plan for you all in july asdb tucson and pdsd campus has just completed their benchmark three testing the principals are preparing for spring
016testing and end of the year activities once they return from spring break our statewide itinerant program update interviews for region 3 director will be taking place in march and statewide director jay johnson hopes to bring a name to the board to be able to hire a region 3 director in may also the regions are working on their statewide i advisory council meetings those are being set the date is being collected and finalized for meetings i believe is it's happening in april our statewide meetings the od odd team focused on getting our bgc curriculum fully implemented and embedded in our ela block at both of our campuses asdb staff continues to work with boston university staff resources for support and are looking to build a sustainable system to address the language barrier barriers and ensure kids
017are getting quality instruction odd also has been been working with the arizona department of education to ensure accessibility for our students when they do their spring testing our kids have been tested more this year than any year that i remember it's been amazing how we've been able to pivot and create opportunities for kids to do these field tests to help support the accessibility and to help ade as our principals and directors continue to constantly do contact tracing navigate substitute issues continue to work through the teacher shortages teacher sickness when they're out with covid or because they were a direct contact of covid our directors and principals continue to lead and offer as much grace and support to alleviate the chronic stress that our staff is experiencing and that is my report uh thank you dr
018x are there any questions for dr x and her report uh hearing none we'll move on to 1.05 information item assistant superintendent of agency operations and support services assistant superintendent cooper good afternoon board president nigro superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rex members of the board and the asdb community each of the directors have provided to you their departmental reports there are no additional information that has come forth since the reports have been provided to you last week it has been mentioned though on a few occasions i continually and actively work with several of the staff to analyze the current staff compensation structure to ensure internal equity and external competitiveness i mentioned at the january 20th board meeting that we will be proposing at the july 7th board meeting a request to increase the hourly rates for
019our instructional assistants as well as our technical aid intervenors to eliminate the compression issues for our entry level positions that come from the minimum wage changes and to ensure the pay rates for various positions are aligned with various market studies we will also be proposing to increase the hourly rate for staff that are grade nine and below this would be for job titles such as our chaperones administrative secretaries security staff warehouse clerks night supervisors as well as our residential service assistants and other position classifications within the agency with board approval the increase in the hourly rates would become effective with the new fiscal year which begins on july and impact approximately 140 staff members we are still looking at other salary schedules within the agency and this project will last us realistically about two to
020three years this would allow us to remain competitive with other employers across the state and help us to be able to recruit and retain our staff within the agency within my report i have also included updates on the agency's strategic plan on pillar 4 effective resource management it's been said plenty of times that this pillar is unique in that it covers and supports all of the key areas for the implementation of our agency strategic plan in for order for us to be successful where we would be able to make optimal use of our agency resources and that would consist of optimizing people our time the technology facilities financial and other resources effectively and efficiently to make sure that we are enhancing the student learning as well as supporting our improvement goals within pillar four we
021do have four objectives the overarching goal is to make sure that we're providing our highest quality education for our students by examining the resource management through human resources managing our capital resources identifying the technology improvements and maximizing our financial resources the first objective if you recall is to optimize human resources by hiring the most qualified people for all of our positions within the agency the hr team has been very busy with the current recruitment season and have been doing in person as well as virtual events they have also been actively working on onboarding assisting with professional and leadership development training and also looking at retention and recruitment strategies our second objective is to effectively manage our capital resources to ensure that our facilities as well as our fleet meet the educational as well as our
022fiscal objectives one of the ways that we're doing that is through our master facilities plan that we're working to develop and that'll help guide the long-term development and maintenance of our aging facilities our goal has been to design a finalized plan in fiscal year 20 or by fiscal year and the other initiative is the management of our fleet which superintendent reichman just touched upon where we're also monitoring the utilization of the fleet making sure that preventive maintenance is addressed and ensuring that we're complying with the fleet council's 10-point replacement methodology the third objective is to identify technology improvements as well as integrating the training for all of our staff members last school year there were about 45 training opportunities that were offered and for this current school year so far we've done i believe approximately
023three the it department along with our agency's instructional technology specialists continue to collaborate and have been tracking the technology training needs across the agency and we are monitoring the track the training satisfaction through surveys our final objective is to maximize the financial resources by improving our student learning and meeting our current as well as our future needs of the agency's priorities but also making sure that we're being fiscally sound and responsible we have identified specific outcome measures which would consist of identifying the number of students enrolled in our day as well as our residential program identifying the number of students by disability type we're also showing the percentage of classroom and non-classroom spend and we are also showing the average cost per student for each of those various programs on an annual basis so we're
024beginning to do that we have since the implementation of the strategic plan have identified some of those outcome measures to be changed and we will be reporting on those in the near future but we're also looking at staffing as well as case loads across the agency in that report you'll see most of the 2020 as well as the 2021 data has been provided and we were still working through providing the current school year and budget fiscal year information and that concludes my report for today thank you are there any questions for ms cooper uh well hearing none i have a couple of questions um and maybe really comments i know last time uh in our last meeting we had discussion of the cost per student um and you had given us the uh the total
025classroom spending of the cost per student and i wanted to know where all the rest of the money was um and uh we had some correspondence uh and uh and you showed me where the rest of it was um and we talked about uh providing the cost per student in a manner that was consistent with the way the arizona auditor general does their calculations for every other school district and that made a lot of sense uh and you produced to the board via email uh last month revised cost per students um which is which is excellent and thank you for doing that um i do think we should have something like this report um in uh you know in the finance report which is going to come a little bit later uh the only um
026comment i have is in the report today you have our strategic plan 4.4.4 reporting and the the breakdown of programs is a bit different than uh what we have on this report that you've given us in february um it's really uh the difference is i'll pull up that report know the difference is that you've separated out uh elp uh birth to three and then preschool so before we have they're all together um and you've separated a residential program from tucson campus so this tucson campus line item and there's a residential program tucson campus line item is that i guess one if you can tell me what the difference between those two uh categories is the residential program the cost per student that is also participating in the in the residential program or what's the what's
027the difference between those two no it was asked for us to be able to specifically of our student account that we have on the tucson campus as well as the number of ftes and our expenditures what is exclusive only to the residential dorms as well as what's include exclusive of the other so i separated that out to show just the dorms i will uh acknowledge that there is additional information that has was not considered at the time the information was presented um at the last finance committee meeting and i acknowledged that we would want to include for example our nighttime nurses our nighttime security staff as well as allocating the facilities based on the square footage so we're going to be modifying that information in the upcoming and remember that report is done on an
028annual basis but i did want to at least acknowledge and i touched upon it in my report that is one of the ones that we will be changing now respective to the early learning program yes you are correct in that originally in the report that was provided a couple of weeks ago that we just com we combined both programs together both birth to three and preschool and i wanted to be able to accurately show between both student populations what the student count or excuse me cost per student would be for birth to three and then what would be for preschool does that answer your question well it answers the question certainly um i i think i'd want these classifications moved into the other more detailed report uh you know that we get because right now
029like the early learning program is kind of lumped together and that's a big difference worth three eighty five hundred dollars preschool over forty thousand that's a big difference uh you know the cost of pdsd fifty thousand seven fifty that's exactly the same as that other report and we see how that breaks down in that report um it's just in tucson campus i you know we have tucson campus excluding residential program and then and then residential program and we won at two hundred three thousand dollars per student and one twenty nine thousand dollars per student i wanna see what the well one i think would be helpful have adm for each of those programs although i don't know necessarily another way of adm for you know the eop program but you know the average daily membership
030um i want to have that um so that we can see what the adm is associated with the tucson campus excluding residential versus the presidential program tucson campus well i will acknowledge we do not have adm we just received the institutional vouchers so unlike school districts we do not get the adm oh no i would be able to show that i understand we don't have adm like school districts have adm but we have our you know we have something equivalent to the voucher rate yeah based on each disability type yes i can show that for you okay great thank you now are you asking to see that on a consistent basis more so in the finance committee reports or um i wouldn't so i i would like to have the uh the average cost per
031student once per year um i think that's helpful we don't need to have it every meeting but once per year would be helpful because that gives the the numbers behind the 4.4 you know if this is the top-level report of 4.4 uh we at least want to support that with a more detailed report uh just just annually once the fiscal year whenever the next meeting after the end of the fiscal year yes yes okay uh great thank you for uh you know for resolving that and for your work uh in the interim to to make sure that we uh you know got consistent reporting with with the auditor general thank you all right there are no other questions we are going to go to 2.01 action item approval of the consent agenda consistent award policy
032to include items 3.02 6.02 6.01 6.02 6103 6104 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.12 6.13 7.02 7.04 and 7.05 so the first thing uh is is there anyone that would like to remove any of these items from the consent agenda this is commissioner jantz i would like to remove or excuse me propose that we remove 6.03 excuse me 6.13 from the consent agenda 6.13 okay and uh six okay 6.13 that is the uh intent to offer all the teacher employment contracts correct um are there any other uh suggestions that again we'll have two kind of two rounds here one will we'll all vote to remove certain items from the consent agenda and then we'll move to vote on the consent agenda are there any other any other items uh that someone would like to
033pull from the consent agenda yes i think it would be hubus to pull 6.11 and 6.07 for discussion okay 6.11 and 6.07 okay are there any others okay so i will move to remove 6.13 i'll need to write this down there's so many 6.11 and 6.07 from the consent agenda is there a second for that i second it okay uh all all in favor hi aye any opposed aye any abstentions okay so that that motion passes um so those are now removed from the consent agenda um are there any anyone like to take discussion on the consent agenda or otherwise we could have a motion to to pass the consent agenda this is commissioner chance i would like to discuss specific items related to a moment please 6.01 6.02 6.03 0.04 [Music] etc i just
034wanted to raise a point i have noticed that these are all one-year contract renewal recommendations at the previous board meeting we had discussed our superintendent reichmann had mentioned that she would be in support of two-year contracts so i would like to know why these are one-year renewal recommendations so i i guess you know our action our item now is we're we're just discussing whether or not to pass the the consent agenda uh or remove certain things and and not particular we're not discussing individual offers in the terms of the individual offers in these points um all i can say is that that the superintendent is bringing to the board one year contracts consistent with the practice of the agency going back many years okay this is commissioner chance i would like to caution that the
035board needs to be very considerate of the current economic situation and we need to make sure that we are doing our best to keep these employees um on our leadership team that we have to keep our two campuses and our attendant programs running effectively we cannot afford to lose our executive leadership team we cannot spread the message um that we would override superintendent reichman's preferences i think that we need to be cautious and ensure that we are doing our best to retain those employees who are doing their jobs well so i just think that we need to make sure that we are trying our very best to keep them and doing so on an annual basis is not sustainable they need to know that they have job security so that is a concern that i
036have with a one-year contract understanding that historically that has been done i do understand that but with the job market as it is i don't think that is the best approach okay uh thank you pv um i i move that we pass the consent agenda item or the consent agenda edit or as modified uh by the the previous vote this is dnl second okay uh all in favor aye aye aye any opposed opposed commissioner there's one and any abstentions no okay now that motion passes uh next type next up item 3.01 information discussion item early intervention contract with desert voices assistant dr superintendent dr rex good afternoon i'm actually going to introduce dr kendra benedict who will be walking you through the contract with desert voices that's where i'm supposed to all be may i
037take my mess thank you hi good afternoon president nico um superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rex and assistant superintendent cooper thank you for having me here this afternoon at our last board meeting we had the ceo from fbc jared kittleson and we had the executive director from desert voices here to explain um to us a little bit more about our relationship with them and what they're doing for the children that we all collectively serve um it's my understanding that there were some questions that came from that wanting to better understand the contract that we have with desert voices i'd like to clarify that the four different contracts we have between those two entities um right now we have a um we have both preschool and birth to three contracts with with both of them both desert
038voices and fbc provide iep services um that we receive institutional vouchers for um and that is how we send those children to fbc and desert voices for preschool for our early intervention services birth to three fpc is the azip recognized provider for ifsp services desert voices is not a recognized azip provider that is a service that we offer families in addition to other resources that we can make available to them to access individuals or professionals that have expertise in listening and spoken language so that contract is not those those service units that those individuals those providers that deserve voices give our families are not recognized by asic as ifsp services we have contracts with both desert voices and carla zimmerman speech therapy um those contracts were initiated a number of years prior to my arrival
039here they were initiated because at the time the board had given us the direction that we really needed to strengthen our living and spoken language program and we did not have expertise at the time in that so that is when those contracts started since that time we have increased our capacity in-house to provide those types of services and we are at a level now that is very commensurate um with what desert voices and zimmerman provide but we do still continue to provide those services for families should they choose that's a very broad overview i'm happy to answer any questions i want to make sure i use your time um well and then narrow in on exactly what it is that you're wanting to know more about okay are there any questions uh for dr benedict
040i guess it's my question so uh desert forces and carlos zimmerman are not uh certified to provide ifsp services is that right they are certainly certified in their respective fields certifying their respective fields but not not to okay so the the uh but not right the isps right they are not recognized because azib has speech-language pathologists as part of the early intervention teams and so that's that's what they provide the funding that we receive from azip does not help to cover desert voices or zimmerman only our fbc contract for birth to three okay so with the fbc conference right that i understand that um so when we uh when we pay for desert voices uh for zero to three that's from our general fund is that is that correct the general appropriations i'm going to
041lean to the superintendent cooper here so i don't misspeak for the birth of three contracts yes that's correct we do use our general fund for the preschool contract with desert voices we do use our voucher funds okay right yeah for the preschool and but and and the reason i'm interested in zero three is you know we heard last week uh from mrs chapman was you know the earlier uh these children enter the program the better language acquisition they have right um and language acquisition is i mean it's like almost half of one pillar it's a huge piece of our strategic plan and we really want to focus in language acquisition um you know and for the the parents who choose uh you know the services that the desert voices provides so what's preventing and i
042know that that is not fully funded that's what ms chapman told us is that they they uh we'll pay for a certain amount of time but not the full amount of time that's recommended um you know per week and not transportation those types of things so uh what's preventing us from doing that to support those families that choose those types of services either from desert forces or from uh carlos zimmerman zimmerman or from the agency's internal um you know capabilities in that regard you know i don't care who's providing it but why aren't we fully supporting those parents i think in the agency's perspective and from what i have come to learn the last few years again we entered into those contracts because we did not have the ability to provide those services and we
043do now and so we are providing those services and then as a as i seen on the cake we also make that available to families so they have numerous options it what they do and what we do is a little different in that of course we go into homes or of course for the last two years through tele intervention where their therapies are all provided in a clinic and we are mandated by idea part c to provide services to families in the natural environment and the home is what is considered the natural environment the clinic setting is not we could not set up services in-house in a clinic to to avoid our providers having to travel so much it might seem on the surface it would make sense to have a clinic type program but
044that would not be recognized by asic as appropriate we have to do those services in-house right and that's um you know certainly the the money from asip has you know uh restrictions on it and we can do that uh but i guess the the question is what's from stopping us to committing additional agency resources to uh get some of these children more time to acquire language um if that's what they need and that's what we've been told uh what what's what's what's the obstacle to getting that to happen i think it would just take us as an agency as the leadership team and as the board to sit back and look at all of the different priorities within the elp they are numerous we have a rising population of children with multiple disabilities deaf and
045additional disabilities blind with additional disabilities and [Music] kids in rural areas that we are having difficulty reaching and so i think it's just looking at all that we have to do looking at our fiscal resources and prioritizing i don't think anything is necessarily stopping us it's just looking at what we want to do as an agency and as a board okay right because it looks like the numbers aren't that many i mean it doesn't seem that there's a high utilization of desert voices or carlos zimmerman right now and if that's the natural state of things that's fine um but if there are parents that are you know being held back for you know a financial reason and we have the ability to support those parents i at least want to look into what that because
046i don't think it would cost that much more to do it if we're talking about that limited number of students but we'd see so much of a greater improvement in their language acquisition and not set them up to go to kindergarten or preschool and and have very little language right it's important to recognize though as well that both zimmerman and desert voices they do serve a specific population um they are a private institution and they they target a specific population that they have the ability to serve and they do a phenomenal job at that um we as asdb are charged with serving children whose families have chosen all different methods and modes of communication approaches to learning approaches to language acquisition and so to look at our numbers and then look at the numbers that
047go to desert voices in zimmerman and somewhat apples and oranges um because it's not appropriate for everyone and i think they would say the same thing too right now that's really the case there are other language modalities that we teach and that they and that they don't um but and i guess my my focus on that is not to limit our own uh instruction i think we should if children need more time in that zero to three to acquire asl if we're not if we're not giving that service time we we should we should look at that as well right um but i want to make sure that we're you know that we're allocating agency resources appropriately to focus on on language acquisition at an earlh whatever the modality that is and i think it
048would be wonderful to sit down look at that i would just ask that we do that in consideration of all of the needs of all of the children in our program and not just on this sector because we have needs all over the state and with all disabilities that's yeah that's certainly true this is for member dance okay um i would like to say that we need to be careful about making assumptions on that clinical environment um it's not a natural environment and so um i would like to say that over the last 100 years or so the clinical approach to deaf education has not been very successful research has shown that the natural environment is the best place for language acquisition and when it comes to desert voices and carla zimmerman if it's not
049provided in the natural environment that isn't something that we should push too hard for if they wanted to modify their business approach to be in the natural environment and to support the current research with language acquisition i don't want to spend too much time and resources on that and especially the small number i don't think that's a wise use of agency resources sorry this is dean not to get into too much of a debate on historical reference to where this agency's been in the last seven or eight years since i've been on the board with zero to three enlisted in spoken language um that last statement kind of blows me away as a parent someone who went through desert voices so with that said there's a lot of discussions back and forth about desert voices
050and zimmerman coming in explaining the program staff explaining the program what i've kind of observed is there's a lot of missing pieces that even i'm confused as to what we're really providing on zero to three almost to the point i hate to even use the word work session because i i'm getting torn in two different directions because i see both points of view and i think so much has changed in the last seven or eight years in both programs here at asdb and at zimmerman desert voices that is there adequate discussion to be had to say all right full stop where are we in this because i got a bunch of questions in relation to you know for example you know should and i can just read these out because i wrote these down in
051anticipation of this or is it better for us to get in a work session and ask a lot of questions about where we are in these programs because these are solid questions financial pieces apples apples why is desert voices not getting the same hours for students that asdb students are being what's changed in your program than the last time we were brought to this information so back to my original question on the the dirty word of work session is there an opportunity for us to have that i think it's a valuable use of time for us to look at this um i know we just had the early learning work session uh in november um and so there's maybe a couple other things let's not say we can't have it again yeah um or something
052that's more focused again uh later in the year uh but yeah i think we have to bring it back up in the summer when we set our work session for the uh you know at the next meeting when we set up our the second half of the year work sessions okay and with that i'd like this dean again i'd like to add two pieces into that when we do have the discussion you know is there a way that we can analyze the current contracts with desert voices and zimmerman in a way that will allow us to explore the current resources that we are doing to free up uh more efficiently serve birth to three across the state and those families that don't do not choose listen in spoken language as their communication modality that's the
053first thing i'd like to maybe have addressed and then also if we could also address professional development plans for alsl and asl and total communication i'm just not sure if we've got that built in the program as well so as we get into those discussions those are two points i'd like to have okay dr benedict did someone else have something board member jansen i would like to address um howard and your comments um i think i i'd just like to clarify the issue is not about the program in and of themselves um and it's not a debate about listening and spoken language or communication modality approaches but rather the fact that carla zimmerman and desert voices their services are provided in a clinical environment and research has shown for language acquisition the best place for
054that is in a more natural home environment any natural environment for that kid and their upbringing obviously as a parent you have provided a wonderful natural environment for your child to acquire language and that's the key to emphasize is that natural environment for the child to acquire their language the issue from my perspective isn't necessarily about the programs in and of themselves but their service program so if they're only providing services within the clinical setting azip will not recognize their program um so then should we change that i don't think so um internally we've improved our own abilities to provide these services and so maybe we need to have the conversation of why carla zimmerman and desert voices don't provide those services in the natural environment and why they're only providing that in a clinical
055environment maybe that's why parents have chosen not to have them as a service provider because they simply don't want the clinical environment this is dean that's a fair assessment i'd i'd love to explore that further for sure oh uh dr benedict i just wanted to address one of your questions that you had about the lsl certification um i do have those numbers that are current for you um and this is for both desert voices and asdb um so desert voices currently has eight teachers an slp combined seven are teachers one is an slp of those eight staff members two of them are fully certified in lesbian spoken language and three are lesbians book and language candidates so they should finish their program within a year or two asdb we have 36 teachers in slp statewide
056in region 2 specifically if we want to compare just the phoenix area because that's the only area where zimmerman and desert voices serve we have 18 staff we have one in-house certified listening and spoken language therapist and then we have four lsl candidates who are currently being mentored as part of our mentor protege program through odd they expanded that to include formal mentoring of our lsl candidates and so that they're in their second year middle of their second year and so we will soon enough have five in-house certified staff thank you dr benedict um and thank you for your time thank you our next item is 4.01 information item finance report good afternoon board president nigro superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rex assistant superintendent cooper members of the board and the asdb community our most recent
057finance committee meeting was held last thursday february 24th with board members aaron wonders mike gordon pb chance also in attendance for superintendent reichman and assistant superintendent cooper during the meeting we reviewed detail and discussed the updated cost per student report the january 2022-2021 budget to actual comparison reports the available cash balance student enrollment student and teacher ratios failed full-time equivalence and the grant revenues and expenditure reports along with the second quarter basic financial statements for december 31 2021 2022 the february reports are not available at this time the cost per student by area that was discussed earlier is was historically determined by classroom spend based on questions received at the last board meeting we looked at what was done previously and provided the report showing classroom spend as well as non-classroom spend which includes transportation
058and facilities in the report the non-classroom spend also includes administration and statewide programs allocated between the different areas by a percentage this report was based on the 2021 financial reports and student enrollment the total fte at that time was 539 with a budgeted fte of 562. the financial reports provided to each of you is the same as the financial data that was provided to the finance committee but in a more condensed summarized version the original budget for fiscal year 2022 has been revised from 60.7 million to 61.2 million with most of the increase in professional and outside services these increased expenses stem from a food service contract established in july of 2021 to cover breakfast and lunch programs the contract transportation service to help with the increased routes and the current bus driver shortage and
059the increase in the contracted daily rate for the blind and visually impaired preschool education services as referenced on page one of the financial report as of february 1st 2022 asdb had 2178 students enrolled a decrease of 28 students when compared to last year's enrollment of 2206. you can see there's a decreased enrollment of 56 students between the site-based campuses preschool and birth to three while the regional cooperative services enrollment has increased by 28 students on page two you'll see february 1st 2022 we had 509.43 filled full-time equivalence which includes 8.5 teachers from fbc and 741 staff members there are approximately 96 vacancies actively being recruited for this includes 22 teachers 21 instructional assistants 12 interpreters 11 bus drivers and 30 other various positions page 3 begins the financial summary based on the comparative data for
060december 31 2021 and 2022. excuse me 2020 the budget fiscal year 2022 collected revenue of 9.7 million was one point million or 19 percent lower compared to budget fiscal year 2021 of 11.5 million this was due to a delay in receiving the voucher and fee for services revenue the total obligated expenditures were 28.4 million for budget fiscal year 2022 a reduction of 2.5 million when compared to budget fiscal year 2021 total obligated expenditures of 30.9 million during budget fiscal year 2022 we had a reduction of payroll food other operating expenses equipment and capital expenditures of 3.6 million offset by increase in professional services travel and transfers out of 1.1 million page six of the report shows the budget to actual expenditures as well as remaining budget balances by object class by fund and by program
061the reports on page 7 and 8 show the actual expenditures by object class and by fun page seven has the expenditures by program and page eight has the expenditures by operational area the instructional and student support account for 63 percent of the total expenditures and agency administration accounts for 12 percent the remaining expenditures are for residential facilities transportation food and statewide services page 15 begins the financial summary for january 31 2022 and 2021. the collected revenues are 16.1 million which is 2.1 million or 15.1 percent higher than this time 2021. the increase is primarily in the prop 301 funds medicaid and the land endowment the obligated expenditures are 33.8 million or 55.6 of the budget fiscal year 2022 revised budget of 61.2 this is a decrease of 1.4 million when compared to budget fiscal year
062by 2021 obligated expenditures of 35.2 million the decrease is primarily due to one less payroll a decrease in equipment purchases of 1.2 million because of the purchases of the vehicles in budget fiscal year 2021. and this is offset by an increase in professional and outside services of 1.2 million for the contracted transportation and food services page 17 has a budget to actual expenditures as well as the remaining budget balance by object class fund and program on page 18 the program expenditures are distributed by object class and fund and page 19 has the expenditures by object class and by fund the instructional and student services account for 63 percent and the agency administration accounts for 11 as of january 31 22 compared to 68 for instructional and student services and 12 for agency administration as of
063january 31st 2021 page 22 has the budget fiscal year 2022 budget status report for all sources as of january 31 2022 and 2021 the budget fiscal year 2022 actual revenues were 29 million compared to 27.7 million in budget fiscal year 2021. the major differences were 362 000 increase in federal grant revenue 960 000 increase in prop 301 funds resulting from three months of revenue received in budget fiscal year 2022 compared to one month during budget fiscal year 2021. the budget fiscal year 2022 actual expenditures and encumbrances were 33.8 million compared to 31.1 million in budget fiscal year 2021. you will also note that the current deficit of 1.5 million in budget fiscal year 2022 compared to 3.3 million in 2021 which means we are spending less of our cash balance in summary based on a
064review of the financial data there are no immediate material concerns based on what is known of the remainder of the budget fiscal year if no if there are no questions this concludes my report uh thank you are there any any questions thank you okay thank you seeing none uh we'll move on uh and our next item is uh 6.07 intent to offer fiscal year 2023 employment contract to jay johnson director of return services pursuant to ars 384310381 the board may vote to go into executive session for the purpose of discussion and consideration of employment matters um i do have to say when we can swim in this exception um the individual that will be discussed has the ability to opt to have what is typically a private discussion because we're going to bring up potentially
065sensitive uh information in public and i believe that mr johnson has asked that we not go into executive session and we do this in the open i have a list let's see so i i have that as open is that correct leticia okay uh so uh we will not be able to go into executive session to discuss what are typically considered sensitive uh discussions of employee job performance and behavior and conduct okay is there anyone like to make any opening any statements my concern comes from a number of phone calls emails that i've received from staff i think just to get at a basic issue and not just with jay but there's so many of our administrators who have no deaf education background no background in audiology interpreters blind low vision deaf and blind and
066there's decisions being made directives being given that aren't in alignment with what you how you teach deaf hard of hearing children there's concerns about ideology how they can't use the boost anymore everything has to be taken to the campuses we're not getting good evaluations there have been a lot of concerns and i just wanted an open discussion we've gotten the comments from the public i hear them and it was just more to make sure that we're focusing on providing best practices that we're doing what's best for our kids and i don't want to lose staff so that's my comment thank you are there others no um well you know i've taken a look at this um you know mr johnson was hired in april uh and i think there's a few things the board needs
067to know uh in 20 october of i received personally an anonymous letter voicing leadership concerns regarding the itinerant asdb leadership it noted that audiological testing was only indicated every three years instead of annually and there was a concern that would lead that would allow for the hearing loss to escape detection uh the letter referred to author author authoritarian leadership and indicated that the letter was anonymous for fear of reprisals i forwarded the letter to the superintendent for follow-up uh i did not receive any follow-up also in october 2020 the superintendent received a different anonymous letter regarding concerns by mr johnson dr rex attempted to verify the issues raising the letter but doing so is difficult with an anonymous letter that letter included a statement that mr johnson is a and i'm quoting from the letter
068a bully who is not showing respect for the audiologists interpreters hi teachers vi teachers and oh no specialists he is tasked with supervising last month as i understand it mr johnson received a written complaint from a subordinate who complained that she was verbally reprimanded and allegedly berated in front of other asd employees also last month we received a notice of an eeoc complaint filed by a former employee who reported to mr johnson we do not have the perfected charge so we do not know the substance of the complaint i know that the superintendent has not hired a new on buds person so the agency has been operated without one for quite some time we are therefore without any knowledge of other issues that may have been brought to the umbuds person that staff may be
069afraid of bringing through other channels we further had the issue of interpreters raised in january we heard from mr johnson at our last meeting we heard the details of his revised policy but i did not hear that he investigated whether new policy was compliant with federal law fortunately based on our current understanding of the law and the facts as we now know them no compliance issues have been identified however this appears to have been by luck and not by design so the board should be aware of these facts by asking the board to offer mr johnson contract the superintendent is affirming affirming this again alleged behavior and conduct and then it may be that the board agrees but it is important that the board consider all points of information before offering contract for the leadership
070position hiring is ultimately the board's decision it is not the superintendent's position excuse me this is commissioner james can i have a point of clarification please the statements that you were just making was this your opinion or where is this information coming from um let's which piece of information i guess all of it what you just read out i would like to clarify um was all of that from the anonymous letter or was some of that your own perspective as well uh no i didn't that was not um my perspective i'd received a letter and as i described what was in that first letter is what was in that first letter the agency received a second anonymous letter happened to be the same month and what was what i described as being in that second
071letter is in that second letter so so these are incidents that occurred two in october 2020 and two that occurred uh uh last month or we were aware of them last month thank you this is superintendent reichman i would just like to say that our policy does not permit me to use the feedback that comes from anonymous um sources yeah superintendent rightman i i understand and that's that's uh you know that's why we have the ombudsperson right so we don't have um you know the issues of investigating allegations from an anonymous letter it's really hard to do that this is commissioner chance i would like to mention um that the board had a conversation previously and chose not to fill the ombudsperson position with the understanding that the state had an ombudsperson available and that
072we would utilize that resource um so i'm wondering president negro if you would recommend that the complainants or those with concerns take those to the state ombuds person um we had discussions previously about hiring going through the hiring process which uh the state procurement process which we did that ultimate person um decided not to to take that job and uh there haven't been any efforts to fill the mbudsperson role this is commissioner james um i'm still wondering though we do to my understanding have a state ombuds person and there is a process there that any state employee regardless of agency if they work at asdb or the attendant program can access that state ombudsperson so did you um did you recommend that resource to the people who sent you these letters i don't know who
073sent me these letters that is the problem i would like to mention that the ombuds person um is to report to the board so if you as the board want asdb to have an ombudsperson then the board can make that vote and direct me to figure out how to do that and i would do that of course uh superintendent right this is uh david nigro um i mean we do have the policy that we will have one again that the purpose of this discussion is not the abuts person so i don't want to get too much into that i just wanted to note that at no time during this you know in the last year and a half did we have a functioning on one's person president nigro yes as direct supervisor for jay johnson
074i have completed his evaluation any areas that i have asked him to improve upon he has improved upon any written complaints or discussions that the person wanted to actually work through the process i have taken care of improvement areas have been met and he is in good standing to receive a contract okay i mean that's good to hear uh dr x i uh you know i want we we as a you know board we don't usually hear you know this this level of of issues and and again there are a lot of uh uh entry points or data points that we look at when giving a contract right so i mean there's there's a variety of things um but these are items that you know again they just they need to be shared with the
075board in addition to whatever else you may be able to tell us if it would help i could share all the fantastic things in my report rather than other things if if this is an ongoing this is an ongoing process that i work with each of my members weekly on any concerns that are brought to me good commissioner jans i would like some a point of clarification please um it's my understanding that we have not had an agency ombudsman as you mentioned president nigro for a year and a half several years ago or excuse me several meetings ago the board decided not to attempt to fill that position because there was a statewide resource available for a state ombuds person who could work with any state employee and our state employees could use that resource
076so superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rex have either of you received any complaints or contact from the state ombuds person regarding issues at asdb no this is commissioner dance again i would like to ask maria murphy for her input thank you board member chance um i just wanted to offer a little bit of clarification because when the discussion regarding the state ombudsman person was happening several board meetings ago superintendent reichman actually asked me to look into whether we could contract with the state ombudsman's office and the state ombudsman's office is meant to serve as a liaison between the public and the state of arizona specifically for things like open meeting law and public records specifically administrative acts of the state of arizona so the state ombudsman's office does not really it's not necessarily within within their
077purview to um sort of adjudicate or mediate internal employee disputes for state agencies and and i hope that's helpful to you that's why we did not proceed in that direction thank you uh miss murphy i appreciate that clarification um and again i would like to say that in this situation i believe it was avoidable had we had um an ombudsperson um we did not fill that position and i do understand that we want to discuss these potential concerns from current employees um and change is difficult there's always room for improvement there's always room for um positive change um there's always room for negative change to happen as well the superintendent reichman and superintendent rex have stated their support and i do think that we also need to to consider the negative feedback that we have
078gotten in addition to that um superintendent reichman and superintendent rex have information based on their supervision of mr johnson and their professional opinion that should be considered i think dean dean this is dean i'm my question is outside of the ombudsman is there a formal process for folks to complain about this particular person and the follow-up question is has that occurred through america this is superintendent reichman we do have a complaint policy and we also have a grievance policy the complaint that you receive did not go through our formal policy the the the anonymous was provided directly to a board member anonymously and it was it was done over our heads without following our policy i'm sorry what the complaint which complaint because there's several that we're dealing with and i think maybe that's the
079issue which which complainer are you referring to actually all of them um we have had no formal complaints that have been filed in adherence with our internal policy um no one has filed a complaint or a grievance so we have gotten no formal um feedback um that i as the superintendent am aware of or that i'm able to use um the information that i have is is what you have so there but there is an eoc complaint i mean we received notice of that last month yes um i do not know what is in that eeoc complaint so i don't have any formal information to work with um from that complaint right and i don't either no one no one does um one of these anonymous letters you received directly and sent to me that
080is not a formal written complaint i understand um but that that's how that was a rose that's how i was made aware of it right and this is superintendent uh reichman again the point is for me without a formal complaint and information through that policy i am not able to take any action uh this is dean again i have a follow-up question uh superintendent reichman are all employees aware of that policy and do they sign off on that policy yes they do this is part of our annual staff training we have several schools several courses in safe schools and the complaint procedure is one of them it is a safe schools course that everyone myself included have to take every single year and that has information about the grievance and the complaint policies and our
081eeoc requires that we provide documentation that we are in fact providing that type of training to our employees on an annual basis this is dean again i have another follow-up and i apologize i'm not trying to commandeer the conversation but in that same policy is there a structure to utilize the embossment at some point if we had one i i don't understand the question let me see if i can kind of clarify a little bit because i'm a little confused too at what point does an ombudsman get involved in an issue like what we're dealing with now per policy okay this is superintendent regman per our policy any employee is allowed to contact the ombuds person at any time if we have if we have an ombuds person that's okay and i think i think
082you know just feedback that i've gotten the new um and i'm trying to find the name of the procedure now as far as if a staff member has an issue of any kind they go to their immediate supervisor and and i can't remember the name of it but and then the immediate supervisor takes it on but if it doesn't go any farther than that then it will never get to enough and that will never know about these because they are directed to just go to their immediate supervisor and we don't know if those concerns go any further than that or if they're even recognized by any of the higher up the latter administration and i think that's where it gets bogged down this is superintendent reichman i would like to ask anita pyatt to provide
083some clarification on the complaint policy and the grievance policy as well but i will say that if someone were to file a grievance that does go up the chain all the way to me and to the board anita is anita available to provide some additional clarification she's not here i uh i mean german dennis reichman i mean i i did i i didn't write the help write the person policy a while ago um when we simplified we had seven or eight different policies and we simplified it down to four we have complaints we have grievances for acb employees um grievances involved certain certain actions and complaints are more generalized um the um butts person exists kind of separately from that um and the person's role is to hear the issue um and potentially mediate a
084resolution but also to redirect that employee to the appropriate uh step whether it's a grievance or a complaint because you know we had as you know we we had complaints being emailed to the board we had grievances being emailed and then they thought that was somehow a grievance but there's a process for all of that so we wanted the ombudsperson to help uh want to be a sounding board for the board but then two to help people be redirected to their appropriate uh you know formal channel of either grievance or complaint for asdb employees the invest person also interacts with members of the public and with students so i have a couple of thoughts on this and and this is from my experience in state employment um it and i'm not in any way shape
085or form trying to trivialize this however there's a lot of change going on in asdb especially in the co-ops with the redesign and with change you get a lot of people who are resistant to change i do want to say that in looking at the post for jay's position there is nothing requiring him to have asl skills there's nothing requiring him to have a certificate in hi or vi and to judge whether or not we give him a contract based on that we can't do that we can't do that i am not saying that there are not concerns that are valid but i'm also hearing from dr rex that those concerns have been addressed at a supervisory level and and handled and to the point of her satisfaction um so again i i'm not saying
086we should not be aware of this but i also don't think what we have in front of us is enough to hold a contract back from an employee who is performing okay thank you are there any other comments no um okay so we can uh close this task um and then take a break um if there is i mean if there is anyone that wants to make a motion they can i i would move that we offered um jay johnson a contract are there any seconds this is dnl second all right um so for this one if we can raise our hands for the eyes so anyone that votes yes raise your hand please one two three four is there mike are you raising your hand i guess i can't see you i mean my
087hand is up your hand is up okay great thank you um so one two three four five six okay any nose and pb uh any nose just just me just me then uh any abstentions uh lynn all right then we can we'll take a break and then we'll come back uh ten minute break yes yeah we'll have to get that back you been so gay it's been crazy i feel like it's the full moon the full moon yeah it's not but it feels funny yeah this time yeah work has been a little crazy been a little crazy all right let me get the contract kill me in the open um hello i think we should restart when we can are we about ready we think uh yeah i'm gonna unmute the microphones hold on okay
088media are we ready okay okay we'll go five four three two one uh okay we are we are back uh can you guys hear me no uh check there we go excellent um i'm gonna try to speak more loudly for the interpreters to get some feedback uh during the break so i'll do my best i'm not yelling i'm just trying to respond to feedback next up is 6.11 intent to offer fiscal year 2023 employment contract to kelly creasy principal of asb and asd tucson campus pursuant to ars 38 431 03 a1 the board may vote to go into executive session for the purposes of discussion and consideration of employment matters again uh the employees themselves have the ability to uh take what are normally uh you know sensitive discussions of employment uh into the open
089uh my records reflect that kelly creasy is elected to have the discussion in the open leticia is that correct yes i'm she's shaking her head yes yes um so if there are is anyone that would like to to speak on kelly creasy and we're not on zoom anymore so you can you know you can just speak the reason i pulled it was just because of the the responses that we had gotten the public responses so i felt it was it could be discussed separately okay um is there any any board member that would like to have discussion on this matter no okay um this is board member james oh yes um i intentionally waited to try to give other people the opportunity to speak i do want to make a comment from the deaf perspective
090the deaf community and i understand a lot of the comments and the frustrations and the disappointment with her from the deaf community perspective i would like to offer the perspective of a school administration board that we rely on her to keep our tucson campus operational i understand that there have been efforts to provide additional staff to work in tandem with her it is my understanding that recent situations did not work out and there is currently a search for additional staff to support her in order to satisfy the needs of the deaf community and to have that deaf culture recognized we do need to identify that it is a need it is a need that needs to be filled but i believe the intention is to fill that position and to fill that need however in
091my professional opinion since principal creasy has kept the institution running i don't think that it is wise to eliminate her during a critical time in the agency during a critical time with the addressing of the current shortages that we have and the current pandemic that we're in my statement isn't necessarily in support or opposition of her but understanding the position that we need to keep our school running in the best interests of students and we need to look at not only one aspect of that but rather the larger picture so given that superintendent reichman and assistant superintendent rex believe that principal creasy is able to fulfill her job duties of running the school if they can also provide the recommended recommendation of extending her contract i think we need to take that into consideration i
092would just ask the superintendent and assistant superintendent to please take heed of these concerns that have been raised to us and make sure that we provide support to principal creasy as necessary including potentially filling that other principal role or an assistant principal role as soon as possible this additional position could fulfill the need of the deaf community from that perspective okay thank you um is there there's no other discussion that then i move that we offer kelly creasy contract for fiscal year 23 as the principal of asd and asb business uk i second that uh all in favor let's let's raise our hands this time i have three so everyone here is raising their hand mike uh are you raising your hand i'll take your word for it you could tell me you're raising your
093hand if you're not really actually both hands i'll count that twice um any opposed no and any abstentions no okay uh the next item i believe is 6.13 which it is um 6.13 consent agenda item intent to offer um school year 2022 2023 teacher employment contracts pursuant to ars 38 431 03 a1 the board may vote to go into executive session for the purposes of discussion consideration of employment matters this one was pulled from the consent agenda would anyone like to speak on this point yeah you can go ahead if no one else um i moved to accept the intent to offer teacher contracts as listed in 6.13 i a second uh all in favor let's raise our hands again uh one two three four five six and then uh mike are you raising your
094hand yes i am great so that's seven um any any no votes and any abstentions uh pv is uh abstaining okay next up 7.01 information discussion item hb 2065 and hb 2066 uh maria murphy ms murphy good afternoon board president nigro members of the board members of the administration for the record maria murphy director of policy and government relations i'm here to offer you an update on house bills 2565 and 2566 which are the two bills related to asdb at the arizona state legislature during this session so um a house bill 2565 is the asdb revision bill which essentially takes the um makes the revisions that were in the session law last year and makes them permanent in title 15. i am pleased to let you know that it was referred to the house education
095committee it passed out of house education unanimously last month and it passed out of the house not unanimously unfortunately 55 to 4. it has gone over to the senate and the senate has referred it over to the senate education committee we are expecting that it will be heard at the senate education committee here within the next few weeks uh in terms of house bill well before i move on to house bill 2566 does anybody have any questions about 2565 okay all right um house bill um 2566 uh is the bill that is um regarding the state institutional voucher uh it's essentially the bill that was asking for the additional funding for capital outlay and for transportation so it was first read in the house and assigned to house education and appropriations i am pleased to
096let you know that it did pass out of house education unanimously unfortunately the chair of the house appropriations committee did not schedule the bill to be heard and unfortunately what that means is because the bill did not pass out of both subcommittees 2566 in its current iteration is dead for this particular session it is unfortunate because while all of the appropriations bills do end up getting held at the end of the at the end of the legislative session because they're negotiated out as part of the greater state budget process the budget negotiation process we did want to keep the bill alive for as long as possible in order to raise awareness among the state legislature of the need for this particular funding um unfortunately though well i guess fortunately legislators do have their personal priorities
097there's a lot of bills that need to be heard and it is the chair's prerogative to set the agenda um unfortunately there just wasn't enough time to to hear the bill in the appropriations committee this year the good news is is that the chair of the appropriations committee did agree um that this is going to stay on her list for budget negotiations at the end of session so we know that this is going to be brought up and hopefully it will be included in the kindergarten to 12 verb the budget reconciliation bill at the end of session i am also working very closely with the prime sponsor of 2566 and other legislators to figure out if there's a way for us to possibly resurrect the bill using another bill as a as a striker vehicle
098no decisions have been made yet exactly on how we're going to do that but i am meeting with a group of legislators on monday morning to start having those discussions um i am also going on a parallel track and meeting with legislators one-on-one to educate them on this issue and to educate them on how critical the need is for the funding for this particular issue and also to request that individual legislators please place this on their list of budget priorities for the end of the legislative session when it comes time to develop the budget reconciliation bills so this is a little bit of a setback but we are continuing to move forward and we are continuing to do everything that we can to raise awareness of the issues over at the legislature and with that
099i'd like to make myself available for any questions about the bills are there any questions for ms murphy no okay um seeing none we can move on to 7.03 discussion action item urgent approval a revised policy jf student admissions marie murphy okay that's me you have before you the red line for policy jh admissions it was posted to the website i have not received any public comment on this particular policy um i did have several board members individually reach out to me with some questions about this particular policy and in the interest of making sure that we're abiding by open meeting law i'd just like to go ahead and start the discussion on policy jh so i can answer those questions for the whole group are there any i know i have a question um
100but uh so at least on the uh and the 30 mile radius rule um so you know on that one that's new uh we from time to time have had students from casa grande from maricopa uh from the eastern parts of mesa and gilbert and what would be considered the east valley and metro phoenix attend uh pdsd and you know to so we've we haven't had that hard line of 30 and i i don't think it's and i don't think it's appropriate and why don't i think that there is there should be a hard line at some point um you know we can't move a child from yuma to phoenix to ptsd every day um or to asd every day but they're nevertheless we're we're missing a lot of arizonans by drawing that 30 mile
101radius if it's a hard radius and if their child uh you know if the least restrictive environment is ptsd you know if that child needs a campus where they're taught instruction in asl and their peers have asl and the staff use asl there's very limited options i think there's one other school in maricopa county and there's one other down in pima and then there's the schools operated by the agency so you know and and we certainly have to weigh that against sitting on a bus for a long time in metro phoenix i completely understand that um but you know the the parents are parents are part of the iap team too and parents can make that choice if that's what they want for their child if if attending you know this school all things considered
102if attending this ptsd or asd uh you know really use a leash restrictive environment for them and they're willing to to make that that sacrifice of you know several hours on the bus a day which again is is not optimal but you know the other choice may not be optimal if they're in their smaller community and they may be the only asl user in their you know in their school or in their district or one of very few uh you know i think we have to make some sort of gray area between 30 and 50 miles then you know then have that hard thing i i know that there's transportation issues i i know that that's logistically difficult to do um but that's why we have a good staff to do that um they're really
103good at logistics and and i have every faith that they're gonna be able to accomplish that um have you thought of ways that we can change that 30-mile rate or if there are other board members that disagree i mean you know speak now uh go ahead thanks president i agree with you i think just maybe one consideration i i would personally rather have the policy reflect that distance has to be a consideration in the discussion of placement but i'm a bit concerned about setting a firm mile boundary for making those decisions it needs to be based on the student's need and the determination through the iep team about appropriate placement and least restrictive environment so personally i think it makes more sense to have the policy be more general in terms of giving the directive
104that it needs to be a consideration as as placement is determined but have the mileage at least a firm number left out of that so um my my response to both of your comments would be yes i have taken that into account and i do have some alternative language that i can propose what i can tell you is that in the creation of this particular policy we had a group of subject matter experts trying to figure out what is what is this line between what is a reasonable amount of time for a child to be on a bus versus what is potentially not a reasonable amount of time um the 30 mile radius was uh selected because 30 miles essentially covers the majority of maricopa counties so it would keep everybody within the phoenix area
105able to be able to um go on a daily basis to ptsd if uh and hang on i need to i have maps here but essentially if we're looking at possibly extending out to 40 or 50 miles so for instance 50 miles could mean um a child from nogales uh being driven every day all the way to tucson it could mean a child from casa grande being driven all the way down to well tucson or to potentially phoenix and we do have students right now who are being transported age as young as three two and a half hours each way and that's a long time for a three-year-old to be in a car to go to school every day so i i certainly do understand and i respect parental choice uh i i think that
106our subject matter experts were trying to look at also what was in the best interest of that child but i do have some sample language um to give you but i see that sue k was going to ask a question so let me answer her before i process the sample language so my question is if you kept the hard line um is there a process in place that a parent could um seek a waiver to that policy so that's a that's an excellent question sue k and so what i was proposing after i received some questions from individual board members about this some of the language that i was considering changing was to say that students who are residing within a 30 to 50 mile radius shall be considered for day student status on a
107day on it on a case-by-case basis and that the placement team shall discuss distance and geographical location as one consideration in the decision for admission and placement but i also do want to caution you all that related services transportation it's already part of the iep discussion when you're looking at placing a child but what we would basically be doing is saying okay we're setting a 30 mile radius but if you're 31 miles or 35 miles we'll we will take a look at that on a case-by-case basis and um i i i don't want to speak for albert albert you can feel free to pop up here anytime you like um but but that was sort of the compromise language that i that i tried to draft to address some of the board questions but also
108to address some of the operational concerns that i know transportation has so thank you board president and members of the board i'll make myself available to answer any questions regarding the operations side of transportation thank you maria and how long a student is on a bus or a vehicle uh so yeah if it's if students on the bus for you know 32 miles or 35 miles um how much you know what's the marginal difference in time on the bus that would all depend because we go curb to curb so it all depend on the actual specific location of that student um so even if having that 32 for example getting 32 on right off a freeway versus 32 miles in to the center of tucson that could be a very different amount of time that
109you're on the bus and that all depends where the student is actually currently located so to say one way or the other i couldn't give definitives and i'd hate to tell you one way or the other um but ultimately it would be a matter of just a few minutes for the most part right because i mean to me you know pds i mean we know where the schools are um and where we know where we're getting these students who are further away they're in casa grande or maricopa that are right near major highways right not always for example i have a student that lives 17 miles off the road of pomerane that i'm currently picking up every day and in order to do that it has to be essentially chauffeur transportation it is one staff
110member in a vehicle to go pick that child up so the entire allocated cost of that one staff member which is is essentially for that which eats up almost the entire voucher fund that we would need for the rest of education aspect right and so there is the financial component of it obviously that shouldn't drive our decision of what's best for students but it is an aspect that must be considered but it is not always uh right off the freeway from this particular area right i i guess i don't mean to imply that it's always off the freeway but the idea that we're bringing people from further out as we leave the metro area we get into more rural areas that you know have generally roads with higher speed limits um once again you know
111not in east mesa i suppose not in east mesa not in parts of gilbert that would be at the 32 or 33 mile mark correct and so in that 30 mile mark you're you're absolutely correct you're in the major metropolitan area as you go further out you're more in the rural areas of the of the state uh just for some comparisons though i'd like to go ahead and give some ideas of what it looks like from our district what we're proposing versus what others have so if you take every school district in the state of arizona and come up with the averages the average square miles of a district that is within the state of arizona is 573 miles the median is actually 282. the proposed 30 mile boundary is actually sorry it is 2827
112square miles as just a reference point the largest district in the state of arizona is 4413. a 50-mile radius is 7854 square miles and with this it would be two so as a whole we're looking at just claw just close to 15 000 square miles of operating service with a 50 mile radius so just as a comparison as an average of 500 versus 15 000 so which is something we're more than capable of taking care of it's just a matter of having more one-on-one service right it's certainly right much larger which is you know part of the reason why we're asking for more transportation money but um but 50 i don't know that um if anyone's suggesting that that hard number would be 50 but rather that we not have a hard number that transportation
113you know distances is taken into consideration or maybe we have a hard number that's really big um but we're gonna you know again if it's 40 miles or 35 miles the parents have to understand that that's going to be an issue and they may not you know they may not want to do that or they might i don't know absolutely absolutely and i'll turn my time over right after sue um which is that is part of idea section b which is related services so that is discussed um but i do agree with you david as far as a hard number uh we know uh through uh different various studies that the longer a student is on transportation the lower their education becomes our educational access becomes in the sense of homework after school activities et
114cetera so i i do think that a hard number and having a boundary uh definitely creates that interest of okay this student is too far and in the best interest of the student we would recommend a different avenue for the least restrictive environment for education that's okay so i i have two thoughts my my first one is i i kind of like the alternative language that you propose maria with the 30 mile hardline and 30 to 50 case by case as long as that is not the only deciding factor but my second is more of a question and um i'm just wondering if there is anything nationally that's considered a best practice as far as how many hours a kid should be in transportation to and from school um different various studies i get different
115answers usually it's under 60 minutes from what i see what we're proposing here is mostly right around two hours as a maximum but different cities have different results for that there's arizona conducted a study regarding that back in the 90s to determine mostly the closure of rural schools and consolidating those downs on the effect of long-term transportation they didn't have anything that was quantifiable to say yes this was the outcome of making that decision as there's so many other related aspects to that so i think it's just more of trying to put yourself in the shoes of the student of if we're talking about a 7 30 a.m start time that means if it's a two-hour distance it's a 5 30 a.m pick-up time which means report time for my staff is at 3 30
116in the morning in order to make it out to that location and then that means that that student is not getting home until roughly 5 30 or 6 p.m so and in phoenix where we start at 8 a little later that's a pickup time of about 6 a.m so a little bit easier on on the students but when we're talking obviously with preschool elementary that that's a pretty difficult aspect but i agree with you in the sense that um having that discussion in the iep as section b is something that is prominent there i think the intent of this was to firm up that definition with the aspect of us now being an lea and now being solely responsible for transportation of our students whereas in the past it was a partnership between us and
117the district um and this obviously includes uh mostly that 30 increase that we saw in our transportation load give or take um from the lea status change and i think that's the overall intent if there's another aspect that the board feels would be a better way to do that i'm open to hear those options but i think it's best interest for those students of not being on a bus more than two hours this is oh go ahead thank you this is board member jans i would like to say that this comment is near and dear to my own upbringing i spent a lot of time on the bus every day growing up in a rural town needing to travel back and forth to the larger city to drive myself to get to campus might have
118been 20 25 30 minutes depending on how much i sped as a young person but on the bus it took about an hour to get there and i would arrive home probably two and a half hours or so daily after school and that was not a great experience it was truly awful to the point where when i got my driver's license i would count my pennies to get gas anything to avoid riding that bus everything possible with that aside um i've been a part of many iep discussions as a counselor and advocating for those deaf hard of hearing students before asdb had that lea designation the problem was you know a district would say you must go to ptsd or asdb cancer campus and they may not have supported a student because the student would
119have been on a bus for over an hour sometimes two hours daily and so i have done my research where i need to find that case law to say that it's unreasonable to force a child to ride a bus for more than 45 minutes that's it's unreasonable that being said um i think that 30 mile radius is an agreeable approach and i do like the language that says when the home residents of the student is 30 miles outside of the radius of campus that impacts daily transportation and it is not reasonable the dorm team should meet to figure out a appropriate placement for that student in order to meet those concerns i feel like this is open language with what we've been provided here if the 30 mile radius isn't necessarily big enough we could
120include language that would instead have a time limit for what would be considered too far where we would then recommend dorm placement as a better fit for that student the last thing that we want to do is force parents or force kids to feel like they have to ride that bus for an extremely long period of time on a daily basis if instead they have the option to take advantage of the dorm program they should be able to make that choice all right just one question that i had just the the language in that paragraph just trying to get a little bit closer to the intent of it so it's written in a format that presents both the first bolt and the first sub-bullet as should so items for consideration in the discussion around admissions
121but then the second sub-bullet is a shell so it's providing a hard limitation so is is the intent that the 30 mile or 50 in this case that those are primary considerations but not solely limiting factors and that is a piece of the conversation or that if you are in this case outside of 30 miles you are either placed at the tucson campus or remain in your district would you like to go and answer the show yeah sure so um it is my understanding from the subject matter experts that the 30 mile radius was intended to be directed that it was intended to be a hard a hard line of a 30 mile radius which is part of the reason why i um drafted the language of the 30 miles being the the hard line
122and then 30 to 50 being on a case-by-case basis under consideration by the iep team so uh with with the new language that i'm proposing there's a hard line and the ability beyond the 30 miles to allow for deeper discussion and to say is this the least restrictive environment a day school or do we want to look at possibly a residential placement thank you so that's my understanding of what the subject matter experts wanted i do like the language of the 30 to 50 miles with the consideration at the iep team meeting i think that's a team decision including the parents and we don't force anybody to do anything um it is a team decision and if the parents feel comfortable with that and again like we tell all of our parents during iep meetings
123an iep is a fluid document we can have a new iep meeting at any time and if you change your mind we can do that but bottom line is we need to look at least restrictive environment and the programming for the student and what kind of education they're getting if they have peers who are using the same language there's there's so much involved in that decision it's not just it's not clean cut so i think if we could keep that and i don't think there's going to be that many yeah like and we do understand that it is a very delicate balancing act between being very respectful of what the parents would would like to see and where also as as the subject matter experts and the educators trying to act with what's in the
124best interests of the child um because we know that it's not necessarily in the best interests of a three-year-old to be on a bus or in a car for five hours a day when they're already looking at an eight-hour school day so what what we are trying to do here what i tried to do with this compromise language was to balance that fine line between respecting the the parental decision but also making the parents aware right um and and to hopefully have the iep team come to a collective decision on what's in the best interests of that particular that discussion needs to be had at the iep team meeting and um let the team decide what's best for that's why we call it an individual education plan okay um thank you and superintendent do you
125have your hand up no oh okay sorry i just want to make sure um uh it's okay yeah so it is so um and again maybe we should address this on the front end um this because enrollment for next year is kind of already happening now um you know the the idea would be that we suspend our normal first read rule so we need a motion to do that um and then we would need to vote on adopting it uh right away today uh you know potentially with uh miss murphy's proposed language so i move two other quick things before we make the motion um just two small things that i noticed in there that i'd like to propose um changes to in the section on students eligible for admissions consideration one of the requirements
126is that a student must have a current iep um i think it would just be helpful to either remove the current iep language or clarify we just don't want to have a situation with a student who hasn't met but is coming out of state and doesn't have a current iep isn't eligible for admission yeah just again wanting to ensure that we're not unnecessarily limiting and i think just the other quick recommendation in the referrals evaluations and placement considerations section uh the last sentence of the second paragraph stating that asdb is the final determinant of whether placement is appropriate i would just recommend and like to move that into a separate paragraph below the paragraph that it's in is talking about initial placement ensuring that documentation is received within 15 days from the district that's referring
127over whereas that final determinant is about the student that asdb is doing the placement at evaluation determination for so i think would just be clear if it if it said that it's and it's like just a separate sentence below with a continued placement language um just to clarify those those two okay um that sounds good and we have miss murphy's language about the there on the record so we know would you like me to read it to you just for the purposes of the motion just for the purpose of the motion to read i want to make it real clear to everyone because we don't you know have like you know we're not in zoom so i can't bring up the word document do you want us to move to um to and vote on
128reading it just the one time first uh we we can do that we can do that now to suspend the the first read policy and then uh ms murphy can read her her um amendment along with uh mr warner's amendment so i moved that we suspend the first read policy on this on um revised policy jf all right uh second i second support remember chance uh all in favor aye aye aye aye that's mike okay um and then just for the record miss murphy uh mr uh wonders has read his amendment so we understand what it is if you can read yours quickly yes i will be adding the language students residing within a 30 to 50 mile radius shall be considered for day student status on a day by on a case-by-case basis the
129placement team shall discuss distance and geographical locations as one consideration in the decision for admission and placement okay um thank you i move that we adopt the policy oh sorry i do have a question point of clarification this is board member chance if a student is within the well let's say less than the 30 mile radius however um the transportation would still take over an hour is there a consideration that needs to be given to put to placement at the tucson campus in that case as that would be section for the idea subsection b that would be discussed within that and if they noticed that the particular location was within 30 miles but a difficult location to get to and it was determined that it would take over an hour it would be discussed but
130underneath this reading is that if it's under 30 miles it would not qualify for any other further discussion other than left up to asdb in order to work through those details to confirm transportation now i would like to say though 30 miles for the most part there would be very few instances that we would see something over roughly an hour and 15 minutes or an hour and a half that would be very very rare most of those would be an hour or under we do strive for that in our major metropolitan regions especially in the tucson area phoenix getting over to east mesa is a little more difficult especially on the u.s 60 during rush hour that may be under 30 miles but due to rush hour traffic and other conditions it may exceed that
131one hour period of time but obviously transportation would be discussed during the iep placement meeting this is board member jans i just wanted to make sure that parents would be aware that they do have a choice if they do feel that that transportation process is taking too long that they know that they have the choice to place their child at the residential program in tucson as well so i'm not sure how that could be brought to a parent's attention well this would actually if they were within that 30 mile area not allow them to be into the dorm placement at that point um as they would qualify for daily transportation is my understanding of how this would be interpreted but um that is a good point of clarification um actually i would like to clarify
132that the policy as it as it's written right now says day students should reside within a 30 mile radius so it's permissive it is not mandatory okay okay um i moved we adopt the policy as amended by mr wonders and ms murphy in their uh prior readings uh all in favor uh raise your hand and uh mike on the phone okay uh all in a post and any abstentions commissioner thank you um next up is uh 8.01 call to the public call the public on non-agendized items um you know similar to the earlier one on agenda's items um suki will read just the brief note on it i just want to reiterate that all comments are accessible on the website given in the agenda for this meeting and will remain public for several months these
133are public comments and the board has not reviewed these comments for factual accuracy and the viewpoints expressed in these comments are in no way indicative of the viewpoints of asdb its leadership or the board there were four public comments on non-agendized items and they were the summary of those four comments i took notes two were concerned about um the redesign and transparency and communication and would like to see more clarity on that end one was specific to requiring kelly crazy to learn american sign language and the third was a general comment or a comment from audiologists feeling concerned about misrepresentation at the work study session that there was a blanket statement made about the parents or about audiologists being able to connect community audiologists with families um thank you sue k um 8.02 discussion possible
134action item agenda items for the next regular board meeting scheduled for may 5th 2022 in phoenix are there any uh any board members like to comment on this board member chance okay i would like to reinstate the discussion about the ombudsperson position i think it has been demonstrated that we do need to take action and i would encourage us to move forward with that process it does seem to be evident that we need an ombudsperson within the agency so i'd like to have that conversation about how we can proceed um and um if that person is to report directly to the board um it's it's critical for staff to have an individual that they feel that they can trust and that they have options for mediation as needed okay thank you pv uh any others
135okay then we can go to 9.01 action item adjournment uh i i move that we adjourn this meeting okay somebody jump in second and sue seconds all in favor say aye aye any opposed thank you everyone um yeah we will see you next time heading out next week