ASDB Board Meeting (05/06/21)

001that right here okay we are live hello everyone it's uh four o'clock now is the time set for the board regular board meeting of the arizona state schools for the deaf and the blind um we're gonna call to order uh and have a roll call um sue k if you can take the role linda bove present lynn davison president brittany buchanan president david nigro present dean howard president aaron wonders president mike gordon president and myself all right excellent thank you um and move on to section 1.02 information item introduction of new board member uh i guess first i want to thank mike manley uh for his service to the board he's been on the board for a number of years appointed first by diane douglas originally served for several years of the board mike uh

002had was a career educator he was a principal he was a sped director he really brought a deep understanding of school of finance of how school districts operate uh of how the agency operates within the context of education delivery uh in the state um and and that those having those years and years of educational background really made our board better uh and uh we certainly appreciate mike's contribution uh to the board uh so as i think some of you know uh superintendent hoffman has uh appointed uh aaron wonders um in his place um uh i'm sure aaron has uh you know a similar background so so aaron if you could explain maybe some of your background um you know in in education and in particular special education that'd be great yeah absolutely thank you very

003much president nigro um so my name is aaron wonders i'm very excited to be with you all today i've been with you on the board um so my background has been an education policy specifically at the legislature i'm a native arizonan grew up in flagstaff i went to high school there graduated from the university of arizona and now live in phoenix so prior to my stint at the department of education i worked at the house of representatives um staffing the education committee um spent seven sessions there doing that work and then have been with the agency for the past three um so really i've spent a long time in the education policy world working with statute the legislature and now the agency i think really have a background on the policy side and school finance

004as well as general operations and legislative language drafting those kinds of things so very much looking forward to being with you all being a connection to the agency and being a resource okay great um thank you for that um and uh we all welcome you to the board uh next we have 1.03 the call to the public on agendized items uh again similar to as we've been doing these uh you know for almost a year now or perhaps a little more than a year we've had public comments submitted with a certain word length limit prior to the meeting and that'll be right at the beating we have a few for this one and sue k if you can read those emails i believe we have two for the for um agendized items this subject is

005addressing agenda item 5.02 specifically deaf-blind educational transition specialists it is from donna reiff or i'm sorry dorinda rife and the comment is i am writing to express my concern about the recent recommendation to cut supplemental pay to a handful of specialist positions the reason given these measures are in effort to address projected fiscal year 2022 budget deficit i have held administrative and leadership positions since 1998 within three school related organizations each position included budget management ranging from thousands of dollars to 40 million dollars an overarching principle i learned from my time in administration is that taking something away from an employee even by financial necessity erodes trust between administration and employees that is very difficult to regain it weighs heavily on me to see the addition of administrator positions at the same time cuts like

006this are recommended and at a time where few administrator positions are filled by professionals with education and direct experience in the fields of blindness deafness and deaf-blindness acknowledging supporting and listening to those with that expertise has never been more critical for this agency i am not privy to the circumstances under which stipends were added but i know from personal experience that financial acknowledgement of expertise and responsibility goes a long way in improving morale and building trust i urge the board to reconsider the small financial benefit of removing these stipends in favor of attracting and retaining employees who build asdp's reputation as experts in the fields of blindness low vision deafness and hard of hearing as well as deaf-blindness my comments are made in hopes that they will increase awareness and perspective among our board members

007and the second one is also a public comment for agenda item 5.02 it is being submitted by megan morgan hello my name is megan mogan and i would like to address agenda item 5.02 regarding the elimination of salary stipends specific to the job title deafblind educational transition specialist my colleague pat young and i work in this position for the deaf arizona deafblind project a federally funded program that provides services to the educators and families of children and youth with combined vision and hearing loss from birth to age 22. asdb administers our grant for us and federal funding is the primary source of our salaries and benefits however the limits of that funding can make it difficult for small state projects like arizona's to recruit and retain deafblind specialists who have background and training in such

008a low incident incidence disability asdb offered these stipends as acknowledgement of this reality so that pat and i would not experience a significant loss in pay when we moved to the deaf-blind project from our positions within the agency their existence reflects our agency's commitment to the delivery of high quality services to the more than 230 identified deafblind children and youth across our state these stipends are now proposed for elimination this evening with a justification that reads an effort to address projected fiscal year 2022 budget deficit cost saving strategies have been initiated to achieve a balanced budget the elimination of our stipends will do very little to offset a significant budget shortfall and it comes at a very high cost our morale please consider what it might be like to see your small stipend referenced as

009disposable commodity within the scope of a 58 million dollar annual budget consider what it might like to to have your livelihood referred to as a cost-saving strategy while viewing adjacent documents approving new agency positions or raises for other staff consider receiving a phone call informing you of your pro proposed salary decrease during teacher appreciation week and at the end of an already demo demoralizing pandemic school year pat and i are not cost saving strategies we are humans with our own families to support we represent 20 years of combined service to the arizona deaf plan project we represent over 50 years of services to students with the lowest of low incidence disabilities even though our stipends are small they allow us to work with dignity and a highly specialized position we love when we could make

010higher salaries elsewhere or even in a different position in our own agency we have dedicated our careers and services to deaf-blind students knowing we would be ineligible for future salary increases received by our teaching peers we understand our administration and board have difficult budgetary decisions to make we would like to go on public record as disagreeing in the strongest possible terms with any cut that potentially impacts the services of children who are deaf-blind especially when it when it would have such little impact on balancing our budget we ask you to consider holding agenda item 5.02 from this evening's vote thank you thank you sue k next we have a item 1.04 information item early learning program presentation dr rex hello good afternoon i actually am going to be turning this over to dr kendra benedict

011and she has a team of individuals that are here to update you on some things that have been happening as well as as we move forward that will be happening so i'm going to go ahead and turn it over to kendra thank you dr x uh good afternoon asdb board members president nigro superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rex and asdb community thank you for allowing me this opportunity to share with you elp's response that to the past to excuse me to the pandemic this past year along with my colleagues lila solston and heidi klemhaus before we jump into that though i'd like to take a moment to pay respect to a truly remarkable human being susan greer susan worked for asdb for over 30 years until she was forced into an early retirement after being diagnosed

012with als she passed yesterday morning i did not know susan so when wanting to pay respect to a pioneer of our field i reached out to barb shrogg my predecessor with her permission i'd like to share the following back in the late 70s susan single-handedly served the vision birth to three statewide population for several years before other vision teachers and providers were hired susan developed and grew the visually impaired preschoolers program vip that was initially housed in town on black lives drive in tucson before she and barb moved chick the center for hearing impaired children and vip preschool programs back to campus in 1996. susan was passionate about her work with blind and visually impaired infants toddlers preschoolers and their families she was an expert in her field and knowledgeable about assessments curricula and pedagogy

013she was a stickler about details and doing things right she was a strong advocate for parents and was loved by the family she worked with she mentored and trained endless new early intervention and preschool vision teachers susan made the world and our field a better place thank you for allowing me those few minutes to do that i appreciate it i'm going to move on now to our presentation i'd like to introduce lilos olson of uh of arizona eddie director of arizona eddie um that for those that are not familiar the early hearing detection and intervention um that is a nationwide uh uh project and every state has their own coordinator for that and lila's luckily is ours and then heidi the executive director of arizona hands and voices and the three of us had the

014privilege of presenting at the national eddy conference um a few months ago via zoom of course and we'd like to share with you a bit about that presentation so i'm going to turn it over to lila's oh you're on you lylas you would think a year into this that i would know how to unmute myself but um i did know susan and i had the utmost respect and admiration for her so thank you for that i appreciate hearing about her i have been with the newborn hearing screening program with the eddie program as we call it for 26 years already almost 27 years where we've gone from from not screening more than a few handful of kids to screening all kids along the way we've had partnerships with asdb the ele elp program in its

015many different names and iterations over the years with the parents which are represented by the arizona hands and voices and the ear foundation which is a non-profit um most recently and what's most relevant to this particular project is in about 2015 we received some funding from the community found arizona community foundation to do a pilot project in tele early intervention and that was um ahead of its time but but so important to what kendra's going to talk about next um that pilot was funded for a couple of years we then kind of extended it with some federal grant money that that i receive and that we're um i'm the lead on and then um when comet happened we had a little bit of carryover money from from the end of my federal grant that we

016used we beg borrowed money from the year foundation of arizona because we were a little bit short we had hersa supplemental grants that's our eddie grant and then the amchip cares grant this is the covid money that came out we were able to apply for that um and between those multiple funding sources and our different resources and different strengths as organizations and agencies we were able to really kind of pull together all of the stuff that that has happened since then and i'll turn it over to kendra all right thank you lilas so i'm just going to share a little bit about that pilot that she mentioned um earlier you heard me mention barb shrogg and she was critical um in working with lilas um in that pilot and it was before my tenure here

017but it was really that pilot that allowed us to move so quickly last spring as everyone was scrambling to figure out how to educate children in preschool kindergarten through their senior year in high school we had families with babies who had just been identified as deaf or hard of hearing or blind or visually impaired and we needed to find a way to reach these families all over the state we serve around 600 families or so in that population and some in very remote areas so we are very fortunate to have not only that pilot to have learned from and people that have been trained in the provision of telehealth because it is different than in-person services um we also had new practitioners to our program that had come from um from university programs that had

018specific training in um in tele intervention we call it in the birth of three population so um just very grateful that we had had that experience or we would not have been able to move as quickly as we did um i'll share just on a side note real quickly that um i'm not sure if everyone's aware but it's been what 14 months or so since the pandemic hit and everything shut down and while the rest of the world has started to open we are just now for the first time being allowed to enter into homes again and on a very limited basis so our birth to three providers have really i just want to commend them for everything they've done over the course of the last year and continuing to hang in there and get

019everything they can to families um so back to last spring um we we really had to figure out how to provide services to families in unconventional ways um azip the arizona early intervention program um is is is is the overarch is the part c provider under idea for early intervention and we um have to follow by their policies and procedures and there was no um uh hold in the provision of services we had to of course continue to figure out a way to reach families and one of those ways was was thank goodness with lilas and heidi and their folks we were able to provide tablets data plans um distribute equipment statewide provide technical assistance personnel coaching and training with that technical assistance that heidi's group provided that freed our teachers up to do what

020they do with families um and we're just so grateful for that we had purchased about 109 tablets 70 with sim cards to provide internet access lilace's group used furloughed air foundation staff parents and elp staff to distribute we accelerated training we created along with jennifer hensley's group with the deaf program some incredibly professional videos that were used to train staff in the delivery of these services along with the deaf mentors as well so that we did not leave families alone out there during this last year all right i'm going to turn it over to heidi now thank you kendra this is heidi i am first i'll introduce myself i am a parent first and foremost i have three children my oldest is 25 years old today so happy birthday to her and then i have

021an 11 year old and a soon-to-be eight-year-old my eight-year-old is hard of hearing as well as myself and i am the executive director for arizona hands and voices as well as the program coordinator for the guide by your side program that we provide parent guides and deaf and hard of hearing adult guys to families moving on to what our role was within this collaborative project we really wanted to ramp up and utilize the support that we were already providing parents but also just changing it and seeing how how can we stepped up to the plate and so after the initial distribution of some of those tablets and devices that were being sent out our guides kind of took on the role of doing some of that distribution and then connecting with parents and ensuring that

022they understood how not you know because it's one thing to hand them a tablet and expect them to know how to do it and how to use it but some of these families have never even had basic knowledge or use of equipment so we were responsible for educating them on the use of the devices that they had making sure they could connect well to them if they understood what the app was they understood how to do the updates if needed um so we did provided ongoing support uh every about four to six weeks we were reaching out and touching base with families uh just checking in ensuring that they were still utilizing the devices and knowing that they could use that not just for their visits with their early learning program providers but also to

023use that with our program as well and any other resources and any telemedicine visits as well so they were able to connect to some of our online um events that we were putting on and just really making sure that they were getting the full use of it and ensuring that they had access to resources information education from all all agencies involved wireless you're muted again lilas all right i had a birthday recently and i'm not learning very quickly anymore um i'm incredibly proud of the whole team parents early learning program ear foundation in how quickly we were able to get tablets out we had tablets out by mid april um all over the state and and so we moved you know being on small non-profit it's very easy for us to purchase things and to

024get them out so we're incredibly happy about that however um we didn't know what we were doing in some cases we certainly didn't know how to deal with 109 tablets we didn't know we didn't know lots of things and so um you know as we went along we were able to find additional funding and that additional funding let us fit in fill in some of the gaps that we created incidentally as a learning process in this particular thing one of the things we found is it just wasn't feasible for for that month-to-month renewal of the data plans we also found out the data plans didn't work in many places including tucson um i had no idea i've learned so many new terms 3g 4g 5g all that kind of stuff and it turns out that

025what we had didn't work very well in a lot of different places there also are places that don't not one single internet provider provides internet across the state and so we had to have multiple internet providers to cover the entire state they're also information technology needs as i've already proved today my own technology needs are vast and i was the person that was setting up these tablets and these laptops and obviously i needed lots of help um parents and technology challenges all of the the problems of you know we're providing providing technology to people who don't have smartphones who don't have tablets and don't have internet and so they haven't learned how to do zoom they haven't learned how to connect to an internet they haven't learned a lot of that and we really needed

026that parent support to figure that out we also found that for the deaf mentor program that a 10-inch tablet screen just wasn't really large enough for the teaching of sign language that was necessary and so we were able to purchase additional laptops to take care of that we also needed help with the the tracking and the inventory management so we really did need to make some changes as we went along so um heidi i'll talk a little bit about distribution and kind of the populations we're working with as well thank you this is heidi so when we came to distributions it wasn't limited to any one area we were able to deliver um in all parts of the state um from supai at the bottom of the grand canyon to various reservations um and really

027just making sure that all of those um families that needed it and we you know put in a request for it and the providers that made it known we were getting it out to them whether it was being delivered through the mail or personally by one of us and we were also making sure that some of those families that really needed that support when it came to language barriers we have somebody that speaks arabic and then we also have bilingual spanish speaking parent guys and there are several families that have benefited from that support from those guides and getting that direct communication and then one of the biggest things too is just you know thinking about the times that we were in and facing you know families were losing their job they were losing their

028home they were couch surfing or they were moving from one member of the family to another and so that meant that we were meeting them essentially where they were whether it was a hotel room whether it was a family member's house whatever it was we were meeting them where they were and sometimes we were delivering in person and we were troubleshooting in person sometimes they couldn't um connect well they didn't understand it we you know following all of the social guidelines of course we were going to the home home and being outside but talking them through the steps and then if able to if they could get on a zoom through their phone parent guys were also holding the zoom session on the phone so that they could show the tablet and say you know

029walk the steps of what the tablet looks like and we're saying okay push just buttons go ahead and do the update that kind of thing just making sure that they really understand understood what what steps were needed and if we weren't able to troubleshoot we made arrangements to pick up the device and then swap them out if needed yes so when um the cares grant when the federal money start started coming out um there was uh uh health and human services had made some money available and because we had a federal grant already we were we became eligible for that and so we were able to apply for about a 70 2 000 grant to really beef up all of the different services that we were provided at that point we were able to buy

030laptops with much larger screens we were able to through consultation with the i.t department at asdb we were able to figure out the internet issues um and and do it in a safe way that eventually could transfer over to asdb so we purchased um 45 of what they called the khajiit hot spots um that are very locked down hot spots and that's what the the rest of your agency is using for school kids um they have a one-year contract although the money expired in april we we purchased the one-year contract in december so we continue to have internet access for 45 families through the end of the year we made sure that we had had ability to monitor the use and the access and to make sure that we knew what what was going on

031each one of those hot spots gets about 30 gs per month so we're able to expand what they use the tablets for as um as heidi alluded to part of the fact that this was a health and human services grant they were very happy to see that we allowed families to use the hot spots to meet with their doctor or other therapies or even if they were doing early head start or some of the family visiting programs they were able to use that in fact we encouraged them to use the hot spots and the tablets for anything that could benefit their kids and their families and so we had families that for the first time ever had internet access and and you know all of the the tools and all of the opportunities out there

032so heidi's going to talk about the new opportunities thank you this is heidi so when we talk about enhanced parent support we really had to evaluate what we were going to do as from hands and voices guide by your side perspective and so immediately after shutdown we went into obviously the virtual platform we opened it up to families to kind of jump on and talk about what their concerns were what their needs were what were they frustrated with whatever it might be and it happened to fall on a wednesday and we started dubbing it what's up wednesday and we did that for about seven weeks in a row just having an open agenda just letting parents come on and talk and then when we we took that conversation and listened we talked listen to what

033they needed what they were what concerns they had and we turned that over into topics focused uh events and started inviting special guests many times we have kendra and and her staff on to talk about what services were going to look like what they could expect during this time and anytime changes were happening what what to expect next or what the new changes might be just recently we in february we had them on when it talked talked about unilateral uh services for unilateral hearing loss just um and we've had speech and language pathologists we've had different awareness type things different hard of hearing adult panels things like that and the biggest thing is we provided a family camp back in february where we had 28 families that participated and three of those families were tablet

034receivers so we had families from from oh gosh cells and i i'm blanking on the other reservation i apologize but uh we had so two families from two different reservations and families that you know normally wouldn't even get in-person services just because we don't have guides in that area so this has been a really i hope a really great eye opener for what we can do virtually and like lila said is just really meeting the family where they are and letting them use these devices for not only you know parent support not only early learning program but their their doctor's appointment their visit their tele audiology home visiting programs any of those resources and services that they needed now going into the um last section talk about some of the funding that we just to

035give you guys an idea of the funding that actually went into this over the last year or 14 months as kendra pointed out um the initial investment carryover was as i was mentioned from the previous hursta grant uh was about twenty thousand dollars for the initial investment to purchase the tablet and start that and then there was a ten thousand dollar supplemental piece of the first year which just ended this past april that was also uh put into this collaborative project and as we've mentioned very many times the amp chip funding which was approximately 77 000. and then moving forward you know the for guide by your side for our organization we don't plan on stopping our services and we will continue even though the funding has ran out and we're not purchasing any new

036equipment we are continuing to support those families and we will continue to reach out to them and check in on them make sure that they're still utilizing the devices they're still connecting um and then you know until we make the full transition to back in person you know we with not knowing what that looks like if it's a hybrid mode that kind of thing but we'll we'll still provide those online opportunities for families and our support won't won't end and we have additional funding that continues support to support guide by your side from the hersa grant and it is 16 sorry the existing uh equipment is still out there so as it's still usable we will continue if somebody transitions out and if it's you know still a good device we'll get it back out

037to a new family and so those things will continue to happen and we'll continue to provide the support and be a support not only to families but to asdb elp providers and joining with them and servicing and supporting the families thank you so heidi i just wanted to add one more thing as you can imagine giving a tablet to a two or three year old um our equipment doesn't last very long so so um we we say as long as the the equipment's still working it doesn't have cracked screens it hasn't been stepped on and all of that but we currently have about 115 tablets out there and 15 laptops as along with the 45 hot spots right thank you both very much i so appreciate our collaboration and everything you do for us uh

038president nigro i will turn it back to you and again i want to express my gratitude for allowing us to uh to speak today and share with you all the great things that uh elp is doing so thank you very much and thank you for that presentation did any of the board members have any questions seeing none um again thank you for all for that presentation we can move on to uh 1.05 information item executive team reports uh as we've done in recent meetings we have the reports that were made available on board docs for us to review prior to the meeting are there any board members have questions for the executive reports in this thing again this is for human resources information technology and operations i see superintendent right when your your video is

039open do you have something to add here i just wanted to say that if anybody did have any questions at this time to just go ahead and ask okay i don't see any board members asking questions uh for this item so we can move on again thank you to those who prepared those reports we can move on to 1.06 information item assistant superintendent report dr rex good afternoon president nigro and board uh you have the submitted reports from the directors and principals uh as our year-end closes you know it's a very busy time if there are no questions with regard to the report that i submitted what i'd really like to do at this time is give the board an update on our asdb tucson student that truly has an amazing miraculous happy ending a

040couple weeks ago we had a student collapse in class at the tucson campus the student was unresponsive and if it were not for the fast action and teamwork of principal kelly creasy and daniela franks who administered cpr then this story might have a different ending i want to acknowledge some of the people that made sure that in a time where fast reaction and quick thinking was necessary these people truly are part of this happy story i want to acknowledge donna lambert for relaying the instructions from the 911 operator and and offering comfort and trying to provide comfort to the student i want to acknowledge danielle barnes for contacting the student health services as well as security finding and copying all the health student record information so the paramedics would have it soon as they arrived

041and was able to keep the area clear during the emergency to our teachers our marvelous middle school teachers susie mckenna um marla coke melissa brown who immediately supported the other students during the emergency and made sure that things were happening smoothly for the other students safety and for our staff that came over to cover classes sarah gaines bain sarah allen shelly shipley bill paresa for alexis viscara for directing the paramedics to the area and our nurses who contacted our parents mary pick morris and cynthia bibi without the training and the teamwork and just the quick reaction time our student maya would would not be here today maya was taken from our campus to banner hospital medical center in tucson and it was determined that her pacemaker had failed and that she would need emergency surgery

042at the phoenix children's hospital so on the evening of april 23rd maya was then airlifted to the phoenix children's hospital and had surgery to replace her pacemaker on saturday april 25th maya was removed from the ventilator and was able to sit up and walk to the restroom on tuesday april 27th maya was then moved out of the icu intensive care unit to a regular room and was able to take a shower and wash her own hair by wednesday april 28th maya was discharged and sent back home to tucson maya currently is at home and will be doing intensive cardiac physical therapy she is still working with her cardiologist and will be hopefully cleared soon to do online school with us as we finish up the school year and she'll be online for the remainder of

043the school year and today principal kelly creasy had the opportunity to go see maya in person and visit the family and was able to check on her and asked mom if we could share this report with you all today and she is doing well and she is recovering and that is all i have for my report uh thank you that is some excellent work there um on behalf of the staff to to keep that student safe we certainly i would give you guys a standing ovation if we weren't on zoom um but really that was just excellent work and and uh i'm really happy that the staff was able to work together uh and ensure the safety of this of that student uh did the board members have any questions for dr rex either um

044the report that she gave orally or any of the the written documentation that was provided in board docs all right seeing none uh thank you dr rex uh for that uh we can move on to 1.07 information item superintendents report superintendent reichman good afternoon president nigro and members of the board assistant dr rex and the asdb community i am happy to see you all here may 6th 2021 i do want to highlight several different topics first i'd like to acknowledge our new board member aaron wonders welcome erin to our board we are very happy to have you here second thing i would like to acknowledge are all our teachers professional staff who have helped to save the life of our student maya that's a truly wonderful relief that she is home and she's safe i

045would also like to recognize our current 2021 school year this year we're coming up on the end 20 20 21 has been one of the most challenging academic school years that we've experienced for our students as well as their parents and our teachers our professional staff our administration leads our teams truly has been a challenge we've worked hard to make sure that we continue to provide the best education and support to all of our students and to their families i just really wanted to take a moment to recognize all of you and your hard work i cannot name you the board members to let you know that we are here situation upon us we have a graduating class from may 2021 and both of the tucson campus those students and their academic careers all have

046had that opportunity to recognize the far and that they have persevered thus far 19. i also would like to make two points one i will talk about 5.03 on the agenda that is proposed to provide a cola or cost of living adjustment for various members of staff who are not teachers and that would be a two percent cola the reason we're proposing that is because our teachers have gotten a twenty percent increase over the course of the last three years this is the third year which would which completes their twenty percent increase for our teachers and our other staff members have not received that much of an increase they've gotten 1.5 percent um increases slowly over time through that same three-year period we would like to propose that the non-educating staff receive a two percent

047cost of living adjustment our executive director of ms cooper has done a budget analysis she's looked carefully at the numbers and projected that small surplus for next year and the surplus is sufficient that we can cover that two percent cola increase again for our non-teaching staff so that's the first thing i wanted to mention the second thing is regarding 5.02 as the board members have heard from our staff this afternoon and as well as from emails that you've received we have proposed to eliminate the supplemental pay including stipends and additional duty pay that proposal would impact about 30 staff members the reason we are making that proposal to the board is because over the last year we have been analyzing our payment system we've analyzed all of the stops payment system to try to better

048understand how we're providing salaries and supplement supplemental income across the agency and we have learned that our system is rather complicated it has multiple layers and it is not standardized across the agency and it is not equitable across the agency at all we have found examples of two individuals that have the same job title the same responsibilities and one is getting the stipend while the other is not getting a stipend and we are not able to explain why there is a difference there are several examples of that happening in the agency and we have spent time to try and figure out how we can create a more standardized system a more equitable system in terms of providing pay to our staff the deafblind transition specialists the vocational specialists indeed you are correct they have very

049specialized and unique skill sets their skill sets contribute greatly to our students and they are able to provide support in a way that other professional staff are not able to provide and i do want to recognize that skill set the question on the table here is how can we improve our system of pay can we sometimes provide supplemental funds and at other times not provide supplemental funds to staff individ to staff members our proposal is that we begin eliminating the supplemental income and if we have professional staff who do something that is specialized and unique a unique skill set or service provided to our students that we look at the base salary and pay an equal salary based on their skill set and contribution and how they support our students so that is our goal

050at this point we effectively communicated that with our staff obviously we have not we did not i did not take the time to thoroughly consider [Music] how our leadership team could effectively inform individuals after being informed themselves so that they would have the opportunity to provide us feedback and figure out the most equitable way to move forward addressing this issue i know that the board members will want to discuss this more and i'm sure that you will have questions i welcome your questions i welcome your feedback let's figure out the appropriate next steps here the final comment i wanted to make is that while we are getting ready for the july board meeting we have asked you all to look at the decision to go to sedona for that board meeting we want you to

051consider your commitment for that meeting and we will have a discussion about that later on the final thing that i wanted to say is that the july agenda will look a little bit different the agenda in july will follow the strategic plan and those four pillars as well as the priorities in each pillar that we've identified for the strategic plan so when you see that july board agenda be ready to see things formatted a bit differently we will start providing information according to the pillars and priorities of the strategic plan and also some beginnings of the data and metrics that we've established in the plan and that concludes my reports i'm happy to answer any questions you may have there any questions for the superintendent uh su k i do have a question so um

052in regards to the agenda 5.02 item and the removal of that with the comments that you've made about looking at the payment system and how to make it more equitable across the board in that regard um would those individuals that would be losing that stipend be part of those individuals be in that group of individuals that would be um receiving the two percent cola increase yes okay and comparatively if they lose that stipend and receive the cola increase how i mean are they going to be back to where they are with the stipend or does this give them a little bit above that as well without looking at the math i can't say for sure but i think it about evens out um what they're currently earning in addition to the cola should about even

053out the statement so um i will stir the pot here um so is there a way to take another look possibly at that cola increase so that it actually feels like a cola increase and doesn't feel like we are just giving them to appease them for what we are taking away to look at the implementation of a better payment system we can go back and review those specific positions that will be impacted with this decision we can look at those special skill sets and their additional duties the work that they do in supporting our students and including their job description um and ensure that they're receiving an appropriate salary adjustment that it would be separate from the cola so i just in my very humble opinion here i i think right now perception makes it

054look like we're borrowing from peter to pay paul at the expense of qualified staff in a very specialized niche area and i don't want the message to be that we don't value that specialty um and that we don't see the absolute need for that specialty um and i don't want to make it look like smoke and mirrors either i want us to be as transparent about this with them as possible and that's my two cents and superintendent reichman um just to follow on what you just mentioned um when we're going back to look at some of these uh uh classifications uh and looking at the job description and looking at the people who perform those functions um what you're telling what it sounds like you're saying is we're gonna look at the the pay grades

055and they may those individuals while they may lose a stipend their pay grades or steps may change some based on that analysis is that right it is a possibility um each pay grade has a range and so it may be that we say within that um it may be that the pay grade itself increases um but if not then we need to take another look at those additional duties and the purpose of that increased payment in terms of the functions they perform for our students um or that stipend um and the purpose for which they are in that stipend that may be something that we need to add to the job description or it may not be but we would need to analyze each position okay um in order to it and it would have

056to be on a case-by-case basis for per job description sure but that second part hasn't been done yet so what we have on our agenda today in 5.02 is to eliminate the stipends but that other assessment hasn't yet been done yet we do want to go ahead and eliminate the stipends for those classified staff um that is our proposal today to the board we would like to eliminate the stipends for the classified staff and again we would also like to increase the duty pay excuse me eliminate the increa interpreter made a mistake we would like to eliminate the increased duty pay okay uh okay that sounds uh thank you for clarifying are there any other questions for superintendent reichman all right seeing none um thank you superintendent right for your report we will move on

057to uh section 2.01 action item approval consent agenda consistent with war policy to include items 3.02 5.01 5.02 5.03 and 7.06 um i will open discussion uh to to this although i i will express my intent to to i would like to pull 5.02 from the consent agenda is there any other discussion on this pv yes this is pv jans i i do have a question because the consent agenda includes um the teacher pay increase do i need to um abstain from that vote or should i propose to have that as a separate item as well um if you believe that there's a reason for you to recuse uh then you can recuse yourself when we pass that we we could pull a specific one from the agenda and when we get to that item

058if you believe that you should recuse yourself you can recuse yourself if you uh would like to abstain you can abstain um recusals and again this is probably a good refresher for the board uh recusals are when there's a perceived or you believe that there may be a conflict of interest we have a conflict of interest policy uh that i hope everyone has reviewed but typically when there is a conflict of interest or you believe there likely would be uh you can recuse yourself the importance of recusing yourself is uh or the effect of that is that you leave the quorum for purposes of that vote uh so if someone were to recuse themselves and we had five people in the meeting five board members in the meeting uh we wouldn't be able to have

059that vote uh we couldn't take that action uh because the recusal uh if we were in person you'd step down from the dais uh an abstention uh it means that you don't vote um but you are still there for purposes of making quorum so if there were five people and and you were to abstain uh then uh you know that you're still there for foreign purposes we can still have the vote uh but uh you know you're just not voting so if you believe that you will need to recuse yourself from one or more of these items then we should consider you know you should consider asking us to pull that from the consent agenda yes i would like to make a motion that we sent agenda number 5.03 i would like to have that

060as a separate vote 5.03 okay is there any discussion on that on that motion uh linda can you please repeat the motion uh pb i want to clarify before i make my comment i apologize president nigro oh sure sure pv had had uh and i wanted to make a motion and now i'm a little bit lost so if you wouldn't mind emotion uh sure pv has has um made a motion that is unsecondary at the moment uh to remove 5.03 from the consent agenda 5.03 correct not 5.02 he he said 5.03 okay and i'm sorry what is that 5.03 let me i'm trying to find it real quick here 5.03 is the proposed salary increases okay okay um i would like to well um that's okay do you have something to say i think you're

061on you yeah there we go just second yeah i was going to second the the pulling of 5.03 i i uh i would like to make a if i could make a cross motion to remove 5.03 and 5.02 i would second that you would second that yep uh thank you is there any discussion on that okay okay so we have a seconded motion uh linda hey president nigro that's what my intention was i had missed the uh talk the discussion of polling 5.02 and i wanted to talk about that i thought it was only 5.03 i didn't hear the [Music] discussion of 5.02 so who was the one who brought up polling 5.02 if you can clarify that with me that was me i i i i made a cross motion to add 5.02 uh

062to that okay great um and and that was seconded by sukay uh if there's any discussion on on removing other items let us know if not we'll take a vote on removing uh 5.02 and 5.03 uh lynn do you have would you like to know just okay okay great uh all in favor of the motion to remove 5.02 and 5.03 from the consent agenda um please uh again be a zoom you can hold up your hand you can give a thumbs up we'll take a count and i believe that that's unanimous i don't see dean i see dean there you go all right so we're all that all opposed none okay uh so now if what's left what we would need is a motion uh to approve items with what's remaining on the consent between

063the 3.02 5.01 and 7.06 so i i move that we approve the consent agenda items remaining um minus 5.02 and 5.03 right okay and lin seconds okay 10 seconds okay all in favor all right pve and all opposed all right um then that passes so the consent agenda 3.02 5.01 and 7.06 have been approved and we will move on to 3.01 action item adoption of social studies curriculum dr rex good afternoon president nigro and board members this is our adoption of the social studies curriculum and i have oren catch off that will be giving you some background information to help you with this action item this is oren good evening board president superintendent and board members if you recall about three years ago four years ago when our day schools were deemed to be in

064school improvement each principal did pull a group of people together their improvement committees we looked over assessments and assessment data and then we brought teams of people together including the teachers in the day schools and asked them what were some of the biggest barriers uh to instruction two of the biggest items that came up were materials were outdated our curriculum in some cases was 15 or more years old and they also asked for time to collaborate together we continue to work on the time issue to where they have a lot more time to collaborate than they did three or four years ago the first year that we were in school improvement we brought together teachers from both campuses they looked over the english language arts curricula that was out there and made a decision as

065to which ones they wanted we presented it to the board and the board approved it the following year we did the same with math we brought educators from both campuses together they looked at all the curriculum that was out there they made their suggestions we brought it to the board for approval and the board approved it last year we did the same with science and this year we did it with social studies there were approximately eight educators representing both campuses that were on the committee all of the curricula that they wanted to look at we'd have available for public review for 60 days per board policy as the case with every adoption we've done so far there have been no comments if there were i would report on them but there have been none after

066we started this process on february 1st on february on april 19th my apologies the group came back together and gave the recommendations pdsd would like to adopt the history alive curriculum for middle school and high school the tucson campus would like to adopt savis s-a-v-v-a-s formerly known as pearson for middle school and high school and both campuses would also like to adopt is called students of history as a supplemental resource the supplemental resource provides a lot of supplements for history in much simpler language which they believe will be crucial to a large population of our students at both campuses the elementary schools did not want to adopt a social studies curriculum the ela curriculum that they adopted uh was up three years ago has quite a bit of social studies within that and they feel

067at this point um that that's good enough so at this point uh same in previous years we i can answer uh any questions if there are any and if not we would appreciate the board adopting the curriculum we have everything uh ready to go so we can hit the send button and try to get these materials to the teachers so they can start looking at them before the school ends and start scheduling the training that they'll need on the materials as soon as possible okay thank you um do we have any questions uh for oren or on uh any of these uh curriculum that have been discussed uh seeing none would anyone like to move that we adopt the social studies curriculum as proposed i'm moved that we adapt the social studies curriculum as proposed

068thank you leonard is there a second sue k okay uh all in favor okay looks like uh all opposed and it looks like no one is opposed excellent thank you next up we have uh 3.03 action item approval of new district agreements uh dr rex yes we have a request from the board that whenever we bring on new stakeholders from school districts to join our asdb team that we let the board do that formal adoption it lets the board see who is coming and joining us so action item is for the approval of the hopi junior senior high school joining our asdb in region one and it is an action item are there any questions for dr rex on this agreement do we have any uh motions to approve this lin i move that we

069approve the new district agreement okay is there a second the we have a second okay um all in favor or i there we go all opposed okay great that motion passes and we can go on to 4.01 information item finance report shaina cooper anna cooper executive director of business services good afternoon board president nigro superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rutz members of the board and the asdb community our most recent finance committee meeting was held last thursday on april 29th with board member gordon and our assistant controller gillian wetstein in summary we reviewed in detail and discussed the march 31 2020 and 2020 budget to actual comparison reports the available cash balance student enrollment student-teacher ratios and filled full-time equivalents along with our grant revenue and expenditure reports with the third quarter basic financial statements provided

070to each of you is the same financial data that was provided to the finance committee but just in a more condensed summarized version and before i discussed the financial data as a part of our budget development process the leadership team has continued to identify cost-saving strategies while at the same time ensuring we continue providing a strong education to our students and not putting the students and staff at a disadvantage unfortunately some of these strategies have included looking at payroll which includes evaluating staffing and the various payment mechanisms since those expenditures amount to over 80 to 85 percent of our agency's budget and as with any cost saving initiative it includes overcoming the culture and the politics to get to the fiscal savings i have been transparent with our fiscal position the last several years and

071over the last year there has been concern about some of the loss of our recurring funding with that our revenues and expenditures have had to be re-evaluated to slim down yearly costs and to ensure our agency goals and strategic priorities are met we have to be able to make tough decisions by looking at efficient ways to streamline our operations and save money trust me i know it's easier said than done but we need to be able to continue to find a happy medium between balancing the desired impact and learning goals for both students and staff with the realistic budget as it relates to our financial data as you can see on page one for enrollment as of april 1st 2021 we have had 2210 students as opposed to april 1st of 2020 there were 2

072186 students so a decrease of about 76 from this year to last year you'll also see that since march 2021 enrollment our enrollment has increased by 29 students from the 2181 to 20 to 10. on page two you'll see that as of april first we had a little less than 543 filled ftes and 804 staff members there were approximately 67 vacancies actively being recruited for which include our teachers instructional and residential service assistants interpreters bus drivers and other various positions page three begins the financial summary where we compare the data from march 31st 2021 compared to march 31st 2020. the budget 2021 collected revenues of 22 million was 2 million higher compared to last year's of 24 million primarily from the decline in our federal and state grants medicaid revenues rental as well as gifts

073and the donations that we have received our total obligated expenditures are 1.1 million higher when compared to the last year's amount of 42.4 this year the amount is 43.5 most of that increase is due to the equipment and that's because most of the vehicles purchased for the agency fleet replacement relates to the one million dollar allocation we receive from the governor's office and there also has been an expenditure decrease of about 240 000 mostly to the decrease in travel because of the covid pandemic and the travel moratorium page six shows you some of the same budget to actual expenditure information but just in a different format looking at the remaining balance looking at things by object class by object fund and by program and then on to page nine the report actually shows you our

074march 31st expenditures where we have spent our day-to-day functions or activities you'll notice for the month we spent 67 percent of our expenditures providing instruction and student support and 11 percent in agency administration the remaining 22 of our expenditures are in the area of facilities transportation food services as well as our deaf and blind program statewide services on page 10 you'll see our budget to status report showing a current deficit of 1.3 million when you compare the actual revenues of 39.2 million to the actual expenditures of 40.5 million again i say the same thing for the last several months but this is of not any particular concern since we do have a month-long delay of when we receive our voucher revenues when we receive reimbursement for expenditures incurred for the instructional site-based campuses our preschool

075program as well as our itinerant cooperatives we're also still waiting on reimbursement from expenditures incurred on several of our federal grants and as a reminder we do not receive our appropriated funds from the state up front that's received on a quarterly basis also included in the months board report are the third quarter basic financial statements as of march 31st 2021 and 2020 which begins on page 11. and as a reminder these basic financial statements show our balance sheet income statement and statement of cash flows for the fiscal year not the budget year and in summary based on a review of the financial data there are no immediate material concerns based on what is known for the remainder of the budget fiscal year and it does appear as if we will end this year with the

076surplus similar to last year if there are no questions on any of the information presented that concludes my report for the fiscal data from business services thank you thank you so much are there any questions for ms cooper all right uh seeing none on to 5.02 approval of pay schedule changes uh for fiscal year 2021 2022 anita pyatt um so we're in that now uh i want to take a moment and we're almost at 90 minutes um so and i and i think if we don't let this go we'll go over 90 minutes so i'd like to take a break for the interpreters we'll take a 10 minute break we'll come back at 5 32 and resume then on 5.02 all right thank you okay everyone it's uh 5 32. okay can you hear me

077okay yeah okay okay everyone um thank you uh that we are back from break uh we are at 5.02 approval of pay schedule changes uh for fiscal year 2021 2022 anita pyatt uh this is one that uh we pulled from the consent agenda uh for discussion um are there board members that would like to discuss this or uh superintendent you have your video opened would you like to say uh any comments in addition to what you may have said already in the superintendent's report no i have no additional comments um i'm just open for any board feedback at this point okay are there board members who'd like to take discussion on this or ask the superintendent questions pv i do have a question um i'm curious for um the board or perhaps for superintendent reichman

078with um additional discussion and consideration with 5.02 i'm wondering what the best procedure or course of action would be if we need more time to review data and the analysis we discussed and perhaps bring this back at the next board meeting or if with some guidance we should make a decision at this point so i'm wondering how the board is feeling about this uh there's no other board member uh comments right now i think uh pv that's a great question uh you know my opinion on this is you know these pay schedule changes were made in an effort to reduce the uh the reliance on stipends and duty pay uh that produce or what the superintendent believes produces in equitable results in salaries across the agency uh that's that's her position uh unfortunately with respect

079to some of these changes that we were asked to make today uh the the commensurate or the associated uh study or assessment of those individuals the jobs that they performed the job descriptions for those positions uh and their uh paid grades and classifications uh hasn't been done uh and as we understand it um once that assessment's been done their pay grade may change uh or or it may not but but it's got to be determined on a case-by-case basis uh and i think that before we were to do something like this at least in my opinion that we should do that that second piece of the work uh that we have to look at these the individuals that are going to be affected by it make some kind of recommendation as to whether any changes

080uh regarding their overall pay or grade or job description or job title uh should be made based on the work that they do and the work that they've done and bring that to the board and again that may result in pay you know decreases in some cases it may result in pay increases i suppose it could it could result in uh a net even result and and i suspect that that case may be different um depending on the situation you know but at least for me and i i think we should take no action here um and to the extent that we do eliminate the stipends uh we do it after the full assessment's been made for all the individuals affected and those individuals have a much better idea of where they're going to be

081at the end of this process uh it's you know again the board can think about the roles that the stipends uh play as a kind of an overlay um to to allow for extra pay for certain scenarios but i could see superintendents uh reichmann's position that that they may lead to an inequitable result at some point so you know that overall motivation you know may be good but we really need to do a better job of making sure we know the effects and who it's going to affect and how it's going to affect them and communicate that and to them effectively uh before you know before we take action so uh you know my position is let's let's do that work take no action now uh and and have the administration come back to us

082uh with a complete you know package of changes you know with with respect to these individuals that were being affected it looks like around 30 individuals to be affected by this so i see a few people um uh you know if we can go uh maybe lynn first and then we can go uh to sue kay and linda and mike i agree david linda said i was actually here first are you there first i pretended i or president niagara i apologize i i popped up first and i would like to be recognized first oh okay i i i didn't notice that so i'll go go ahead linda okay yeah i did um try to get some attention um but without interrupting your discussion but um i would like to to add some input from my

083end as well um regardless of who is hearing or deaf i would appreciate that you recognize um the board member who comes on first and i um i am speaking in front of the board to just recognize the fact that when i've popped up a couple of times now i was not recognized equitably with other board members so i'd like to put that on record and um i hope that i do understand your opinion president nigro and i agree with most of what you just said i too would like to know more about what those changes will be and how they will impact staff before we make a vote on eliminating the stipend one of the things that concerns me is some of our staff or our teachers may lose motivation to stay we may

084lose some of our retention if we're not acknowledging and compensating them for their expertise so i would like to have some further information like president nigro said about how this is going to impact staff and hold this vote until a later meeting um and superintendent rickman how much time do you think you need would we be able to have this at the next board meeting that would be my next question for you superintendent reichman this is superintendent regman we i believe we can have that um information ready at the next board meeting in in july on july 22nd um we're not talking about very many staff um the proposal regarding the stipend and the additional duty pay um is maybe 30 staff members all together so we can take a look at each one of

085those individuals and then come back to the board with more information and more a more detailed proposal so again um the goal here um is to standardized standardize and create a more equitable pay system um and we want to stop the individualized um situations where people are going around the system and getting additional pay when it's determined that the salary itself is not sufficient what we would like to do is set a salary that in and of itself is fair and is equivalent to that individual's responsibilities and expertise that they're offering to the students and to the agency so that's the goal of this proposal so the question then is how we're able to do that most effectively that's the question that internally asdb has been running with and trying to figure out exactly how

086can we do that how can we address this differentiated pay and these supplemental pay systems that we have that seem to really be individualized and really on a case-by-case basis we need to become more standardized and consistent and more equitable linda singh thank you okay lynn i think you are next uh well i'll get a turn i'm sure um i agree i think we really need to look at how it's going to affect individuals and i'd like to see i know that there are um inequalities even between the campuses what's happening on tucson it's not happening at phoenix is not happening in the um the co-op so i would i would really like to see us standardize that and um and make sure at the same time making sure everyone is treated fairly sue k

087take it away i would support pretty much everything that is being said at this point and i just would like to reiterate that for those people receiving extra duty pay and stipend pay we are not looking at the cost of living increase um as a way of just replacing that that we're making sure their cost of living increase is equitable based on the pay that they are currently getting thank you sue king tv thank you i would like to again um hone in on that concept of giving giving superintendent um annette reichman the opportunity to create equity within the agency and i agree with her determination regarding this system and i would support her decision to create a more equitable system being that only 30 staff are impacted it does seem like a small number

088but at the same time i think it's important we recognize that these are specialized areas and it is a challenge we need to ensure that we are thorough in determining the value of these specialized areas and making sure that they are supported and that their pay is fair at the same time we want an overall on the whole equitable system i think that it would be wise for the board um to allow superintendent reichman the opportunity to do a little bit more analysis and determine what the best approach might be um and bring that back to the board and then if we are we don't like that or we don't we're not satisfied with that we think there should be a different approach we can have that conversation about a different approach but superintendent reichman

089um i with your comments do you have any comments or questions on the approach to this particular topic is the superintendent reikmann no i can see that the board obviously wants more information and i'm happy to provide that information if you just give us a little bit of time we will also do a more in-depth review and we will become more prepared with additional information for the board at the next meeting pbe saying great thank you superintendent raymond i think that from the view of fairness it would be a great idea to re-address this at the july board meeting and have some additional answers to questions before this the school year starts in the fall if at all possible okay mike thank you david um having worked with shanna cooper over the last maybe i

090don't know three or four years maybe a little longer i've noticed how how keen of a mind she has financially and if she's been charged with the task to be able to put this project together and i also trust her in her ability to recognize cost savings as being necessary particularly with a 80 to 85 percent administrative um payroll and ere cost to the agency so um i'm sure with with uh the opportunity to to flesh this out and uh to really uh with a deeper dive as they say uh she'll be able to come up with very good uh solutions or uh or agendas to to strategize uh how how to get this done and if not just directly around that and i understand over time too that these inequities can just develop and

091you don't quite understand why there's different pay i didn't quite under also understand a bit about some people are coming around the system to uh to increase their their pay while others aren't so that's that seems like that's a whole different issue that uh is more than just necessarily cost savings but uh but like i said uh not to reiterate any more that's obviously been done here uh i trust uh shayna's abilities uh immensely so and it's been a pleasure so i'm sure i have confidence that she'll be able to to uh give us uh exactly what we're looking for uh great are there other speakers on this issue uh phoebe i would just like to um say mike well said i agree shayna's um expertise um are outstanding and even just in the short

092time that i've been on the board with my time as well prior to that observing her work um she has been an outstanding benefit to this agency she was an excellent hire and i support her promotion as well so um if nothing else kudos to superintendent reichman for that hire if an action item is required on this do we then need to make a motion to table this issue until the next board meeting no so i'd like to take the opportunity to make that motion uh no we don't need to take any any action um action item just means that we we can take action um and if we do take action we have to list it as an action on the agenda uh at least 24 hours before the meeting although we you know

093we tend to post it the friday before so about six days before um so we don't need to we're not required to take an action so we can simply pass on to the next uh the next item uh and you know without approving this uh is there and again if there any other comments i'll get ready to move all right on the next next item is 5.03 approval of proposed salary increases uh for fiscal year 2122 uh superintendent reichman on this one um i believe the pv had would like to recuse himself is there any uh other discussion that would like to be had before uh there's a motion i i think i see pb raising his hand so so pv yes i would um like to recuse myself from any discussion regarding this issue

094okay um is there any other board members that would like to talk about this before uh sue kane i was going i was getting ready to make a motion to go ahead yeah okay uh so so you can go ahead with that okay um i move that we approve um agenda item 5.03 approval of proposed salary increases for fiscal year 2021 to 2022. and do we have a second for that uh lin okay one second um all in favor and any and then any opposed and we have one recusal okay great uh thank you very much uh we can go on now to 7.01 information discussion item lea update maria murphy ms murphy good evening board president nigro superintendent reichman dr rex members of the board for the record my name is maria murphy director

095of policy and government relations you all have been receiving hopefully the updates regarding house bill 2863 otherwise known as the lea bill the latest information that i have is as you all are probably aware um the prime sponsor representative udall uh refused to concur in the senate amendments after it passed out of the house and um members were named to the conference committee however as of this morning and speaking to representative udall she has changed her mind and decided to concur with the senate amendments and so we are expecting now that what will happen is that the bill will go to a final read over at the house of representatives and then go over to the governor's desk hopefully for signature so uh at this time i am getting in touch with um leadership as

096well as house staff to hopefully get the bill calendared within the next week or two for a third so does anybody have any questions for me at this time maria could you um explain what uh the amendments were certainly um so yes thank you board president nigro um board president uh board member davidson so essentially what the um amendment did was it created um what's called session law which means that for the next school year uh asdb is being definitively determined to be the district of responsibility and the lea for pupils who are being served in phoenix and in tucson and specifically denoting that asdb will be responsible for providing faith the free and appropriate public education so um this is session language that is good for the year in order for us to continue

097those conversations with ade and iron out any details so that we can go ahead and put all of those issues to rest but the underlying bill remains the same but this is basically making it very very specific that we are the district of the of responsibility and that we are the ones who are responsible for providing faith when the local school districts refer a child or the iep team refers a child to phoenix or tucson thank you you're welcome hi this is linda hello maria hi linda a question for you sure what is the purpose for having the ade involved with the board and whoever it is that you're coming together to discuss um this is something that we will be being recognized as the lea but what is the other further discussions what's the

098core content for these uh discussions is there any uh agenda for that do you have any information on that thank you you're welcome and it's a great question um so essentially there are a lot of um issues that uh would need to be ironed out um so specifically we know that transportation and specifically who would be responsible for the transportation of some of these campus-based students that's an outstanding issue there's um but those those are going to be discussed in what's called the interim so after the legislature signee dies or adjourns for the year we are going to be having those ongoing discussions to iron out issues such as transportation accountability things of that nature so that we are all on the same page and very clear about who is responsible for what and we

099view ade as an integral partner in those conversations so because they are the ones who are responsible for education statewide erin i see you have a question so pop on in uh thank you very much uh president anger members of the board uh maria and just to maybe dovetail a little bit with maria from the agency's perspective looking forward to that work over the interim and the the session law piece really creating that bridge while underlying statutes are worked on so if the agency wants to move into the lea that all of the accompanying underlying statutes that tie in with issues around enrollment are reflective of those processes thank you aaron you said it much better than i did are there any other questions for miss murphy uh i guess uh can you explain the

100uh the origin of that amendment the amendment that does it only be session law yes as so um board president nico it was um that actually came out of um discussions and stakeholder meetings um and it it was felt that this would definitively say who is responsible for what for the for the time being for the year to sort of as aaron said provide the bridge to get to those particular solutions but a way of definitively stating asd is considered the lea asdv is considered the district of responsibility asdb is responsible for faith the free and appropriate public education so this particular language arose out of a stakeholder meeting where the lease the ade and asdb all met to discuss some of these outstanding issues and this was the language that everybody sort of agreed

101to and so that we could move the legislation forward but at the same time acknowledge that we still have issues that need to be worked on and by year you mean the rest of the calendar year or through next school year so 21 22 which would end yes so june 30th or 2022. so so the language says um school year 2021 so that would go so that envisions starting august of 2021 going through may of 2022 which dovetails nicely with the legislative session in winter spring of 2022 so hopefully we will have everything ironed out well in advance and be prepared to hit the ground running with permanent solutions in school year 2022-2023 um okay had we not had this amendment and again i know that as a board and we're going to be doing

102this in in likely in july um having a deeper discussion about it um but without this without that amendment uh and this would be a you know permanent change i mean this kind of cements us into going back to the legislature next year right is that correct yes it is it is my understanding and it is also a way to ensure that we are receiving um idea and title funding as well so it would um make us whole uh financially for the next um school year uh right um so we'd be we'd still that would go away uh at the end of next school year and depending on our you know whether we were able to resolve our differences with ad or not by that time we you know potentially would have to go back

103correct linda did you have your video open thank you president nigro i missed a comment or so of yours um but i did want to ask you maria murphy about the timeline just so i can get a better idea here of what to expect so the timeline we're saying 2022 we're hoping to get this approval finalized by legislature is that correct yes okay thank you what's going to happen from here until then from august 21 to the next school year how will we have that particular funding to support um medicaid you know that's something that's really important for our students so what's going to happen until that final deadline thank you that's that's another great question and so um what we are envisioning is is after the bill is third read if it is approved

104and if the governor chooses to sign it the legislation would become effective 90 days um after after sinai die uh we are speculating that sinai die or the adjournment for the session will be happening sometime probably within the next two to three weeks uh in the meantime we have a couple of different parallel tracks running uh asdb uh is going to be meeting with the department of education to set up these interim stakeholder meetings to discuss these ongoing issues and we would envision starting that um essentially once the legislature signee dies the on a parallel track um the asdb board is going to be doing work study sessions to discuss the direction that the schools and the agencies want to go into so um the asdb board will be contributing feedback to asdb and informing

105a lot of the discussions that we're going to be having with ade and stakeholders throughout the summer and the fall so the hope is that we would be able to get these um permanent solutions sort of figured out by fall winter and have a bill ready to go in january 2022 now once the legislature approves the bill and the governor hopefully signs it into law everything would become effective in terms of finances it would be with the beginning of the new fiscal year which would be july 1st of 2021 and we would have that funding in place for the 2021-2022 school year and is that clear or is that clear as mud because i know i threw a lot of numbers out there that does make sense thank you so much maria okay thank you

106okay um are there any other questions regarding this status uh seeing none uh thank you miss murphy uh for your your work on this thank you uh and we can move to 7.02 uh information and possible action resignation of karen grandin on bud's person and so for the the new board members uh a little bit of background we we have an agency on buzzperson we developed this policy several years ago uh we thought there was a you know we didn't have one uh we thought there was a need for one uh i i still think there's a need for one uh and so we developed this policy and we hired uh an ombudsperson uh and her name was karen granted she was our first ombudsperson uh she has some other uh career uh changes uh

107in her life so she is gonna resign or she has resigned um and that leaves us with an opening so in terms of you know kind of assessing state procurement rules and things like that um you know we we've kind of we think we've figured out uh where uh you know the path for procurement um but we need to identify potential uh candidates so i'll let superintendent reichman um you know add some additional information or speak to this as well but uh part of this agenda item is to kind of pull the board or at least get the board thinking of potential candidates uh that might be good uh for this position and superintendent right click you can even add what you what you'd like sure i would like to add to that board members

108um you selected karen grandin and then we tried to figure out how to set up a contract with karen grandin we learned very quickly that there are pretty strict procurement guidelines and rules that we are obligated to follow so the way to get around procurement rules was to directly hire karen as a part-time staff member she did not report to me she still reported to you the board so now karen grandin recently resigned she has a new job in washington dc and now we need to reconsider how we want to set the ombuds person within the agency do we want to again have the board members identify the ombuds person they'd like to hire and then do a direct hire with that person or there are a couple of other options we can consider one

109option is to open an opportunity for work and then publish a scope of work and then we can receive bids from potential candidates the board can review and select a candidate from those bids and create a contract um for an individual as a contractor not an employee and the other option is to go through the arizona procurement system procurement has several vendors who are already in the procurement system that provide ombuds type services we could do some research into who those vendors are and then potentially propose to the board which of those vendors we would prefer so we have three options currently in terms of looking for an individual to replace karen grandin the important thing is that we know uh who we're hiring uh in either way it's it's uh just a uh which

110you know which which process do we have to go through to comply with the various procurements for the board um would you like to move forward with creating a scope of work and then we can publish that scope of work and collect bids um and then once the bids are collected and we can review those and the board would have the opportunity to identify and select the best candidate um that would be a process that may take three to six months to complete um and uh it would be that long until we are able to contract the next ombudsperson uh superintendent rickman uh concurrent to that we can also look through people who may already be on state contract that we can hire through state contract correct so so if someone is if we find

111someone suitable on that's already on state contract we can proceed with that and as long as they agree to it obviously uh we can get them much more quickly okay and once we publish that scope will work we don't have an obligation to hire that one in other words we can publish that scope of work look through who's on state contract and if we find one that is acceptable we can go from there and cease work on the uh on the scope board yes okay yes um so the third option would be that we would look through and identify the current contractors that have a contract with state procurement and see if any of those individuals might meet our needs so we could start there i think that i mean i i think it sounds

112reasonable to look who's already on state contract to see if they're suitable they might not be um but you know concurrently just because of the amount of time that this would take to work on that scope of work which i think we have some of that documentation done it's a question of formatting it into the right format um are there any board members that would like to speak on this this is linda um superintendent or excuse me president nigro and i've got a few thoughts here and i do think my feeling is to go ahead and start with option three to see what's already available and if we find someone that we like go ahead and go through go that way rather than taking the time and the effort to do the scope of work

113i think that that might save us quite a bit of time if we don't like the options currently available then we can proceed with option two so that would be my thought thank you superintendent rifen this is uk um i also think we should look to see who is already on contract my one caution with that is i i would like to make sure that whoever um we even consider is sensitive to the needs of staff and students and or parents um and stakeholders that may have disabilities and require accommodations um i i think we need to be cautious in the sense that some of the folks on contract may not have had that experience before and i would like to make sure that anyone we do pick have some of that background or at

114least that sensitivity yeah it's okay that's a great point um and i know we were you know especially careful with uh you know with karen i would agree with that as well yeah yeah i know that that's certainly something and that's why you know i agree that we want to look at state contracts first but you know we may or may not find that specialized experience that already on state contract okay um so and there this is a possible action item i i i suppose um we could make a motion to direct the superintendent to review um buds people who are on state contract for their suitability and concurrently produce a scope of work that would be you know suitable for publication so i will so i'll make that motion um to direct the superintendent

115to to look through appropriate resources on uh who are already on state contract concurrent with creating a scope of work for publication uh for the intent of a procurement of those services i would suck at that motion okay uh there's no discussion on that all in favor of that course of that motion okay are you opposed okay great all right so the next item 7.03 discussion possible action on replacement of finance committee vacancy uh as you all know um you know mike natalie was on our finance committee with mike gordon um he did an excellent job again i had that background as a sped director and principal really understood school finance um but he's not on the board anymore uh so we will need someone to join mike gordon on that committee uh requires a

116commitment um to go to those finance committee meetings uh typically they occur uh just prior to the regular board meetings so there's about six of them a year uh and i know they've been they can be in person but you know they've been virtual for the last year uh so that's gonna you know requirements of it um if there's anyone that would like to volunteer um we can certainly talk about it now uh hopefully no one will have to be voluntold this is uk i am interested in in serving on this committee i i do want to say this is not um my strongest suit but it is one that i'm extremely interested in learning more about um i'll just leave it at that okay uh pv thank you and um i am also interested

117um i used to have good math skills but now i'm not so sure it's been a while so we would have to see test those waters again um but if um there's any kind of training or uh something along those lines and maybe we consider having a fourth member as an alternate if one isn't available we could have an alternate to meet committee forum so that those meetings could continue all right we have two now there's just just two um and i think we could have three i don't think there's a reason why we couldn't have three we could yeah uh uh mr wonders i'm president negro members of the board i would also be happy to continue on in mike's role um although certainly uh appreciate any other board members that would want to

118do so this is linda um please don't think that i'm volunteering president nigro i don't want to be on that committee but um math is my absolute worst subject so that is not my bag but um i did want to ask superintendent reichman if you would be comfortable if you're comfortable with having just two members of that committee do we need to have three i don't really know how those committees are structured so um are you are you content with two members or would it be nice to have potentially a deaf board member on the board as well or on that committee as well have the opportunity to participate give some feedback and learn that process perhaps contribute to the finance committee just a couple of thoughts from my end thank you this is superintendent

119reichman um i will comment just briefly the finance committee is um the only formal committee that our board currently has there are no real rules that dictate how many members that committee has to have um and personally i would prefer to see a minimum of two people um and if there are more than two that are interested that's fantastic we can have three or four committee members again it is up to the board members to decide how much time they want to commit those meetings are typically an hour to an hour and a half every two months so if you want uh to offer that um overview of the broader budget and things like that we can also provide a training for those interested in that committee um and for me um those two the

120two mics mike manali and mike gordon being on that committee and in those meetings i had the privilege of being in those meetings every couple of months and i felt it was very beneficial because they took a very close look at our budget and provided some direct feedback to us which was very helpful they guided some things that they wanted us to look at and we were able to provide a better analysis for the board so for me i think it's a really beneficial um practice and if we have three um board members that would like to be involved in that committee i think that's fantastic um we can certainly include you and if you want an orientation to the overall asdb budget to help you kind of start to understand those numbers not a

121problem at all we can certainly provide that yeah in terms of that i mean i i'm not opposed to having you know addition more than two board members uh you know the board you know we're all different uh we all bring different things kind of to the table part of that is by design um and the statutes and and why we have the makeup that we do uh you know part of the reason that we have committees like the finance committee is so that we can you know use that specialized knowledge and you know the board can kind of delegate uh some of those uh tasks to to those committees uh and then have them come back and report you know through shane's report every uh every meeting um to see some of that that

122information and we know that you guys have taken a closer look at it and we see all the reports too we see shana's report we can ask questions um but that's you know that that helps the board uh understand these issues so uh certainly i'm not opposed that the the actual determinations is just by the president's designation um so uh you know we don't need to have a vote uh on that or not uh so i know that we have several members who expressed interest um so so far we have uh aaron sue k npv that would give us uh four members uh and and i'm i'm i'm not opposed to that i just ask that if that if you're you're on it that you make the commitment to it um to attend the meetings

123uh and and to uh you know take a look at that work with uh miss cooper um you know uh if you all know how to use excel all the math can be done on excel so that works out well so um so as long as you're as we're up for the commitment uh which is really the only thing that uh that i ask um then uh success committee okay and and uh mr wonders and and pv yes okay well it looks like we have four members it's not just gonna be mike alone next next finance committee meeting so that's excellent so uh i will move you over to the finance committee and we will we will go from there so so thank you again for your your commitment to this and your service uh

124in this aspect okay the next item is 7.04 discussion and possible action approval of the strategic plan uh and here um you know and again i know it's the superintendent reichman and i will hand it to superintendent reichman in a moment uh but in board docs we have the strategic plan which we've all seen we've worked on for a number of months we've seen which has only been made available to board members that you know the input the stakeholder input that's been gathered by the agency since that we last met five or six weeks ago and there was some additional material there uh that we were able to review so so we have had access to all of this um superintendent uh if you uh can speak now as well yes you may have all

125remembered at the work study session you had requested for us to collect additional information and reach out to various stakeholders and collect some information from them well we have done that since our last work study session i will turn this over to nancy alexander she will provide you all with the summary of the feedback that we received from our stakeholders nancy thank you we provided the summary in your board docs you can see that we received several stakeholder input i'm not going to read the document to you but i'm happy to answer any questions i think it's important to note that your stakeholders believed that on early language development data collection having comprehensive goals that dealt with growth and looking at ways to improve communication and really the depth of the activities were the strengths

126of the plant we will share all of the comments which included over 150 of them with each pillar leader and they will incorporate those ideas as they move forward i apologize for the stripes on my face but my son is shining in on my lines and i cannot move right now so i do apologize are there any questions about the input from stakeholders president nigro do you have any questions uh i don't have any questions no i'm just uh waiting to see if anyone else does uh and if there's no questions on the on the feedback that we've received if there's any other comments that we have before we consider taking a vote here well i don't i don't see any okay do we have a motion then to adopt the strategic plan as proposed

127well well i well then i'll i'll move that we adopt the strategic plan as as proposed this is uk i will second that okay um all in favor okay uh all plenty opposed okay great um and that that passes that that's uh that's excellent thank you um you really for everyone for their their hard work over the last uh you know several months on this um i think this is uh when the the real work begins and we have this if we we have a good vision of where we're going um we uh uh no no that was the real word that was the start of the the real work so um again thanks for to all those involved with this and uh we're going to begin uh you know implementation right away thank you

128president negro okay um the next item on the agenda is 801 called to the public on non-agendized items i believe it's okay we have one comment is that right that is correct okay great um the topic is just non-agenda item um the person submitting it is richard mclaughlin and the subject line is incoming principal amber act i'm not just amber i'm not going to try and um get her name because i know i'll say it wrong and i apologize for that and the comment is i want to appreciate the board member voted amber a into as the next principal at the phoenix day school for the deaf ptsd when she was a fourth grade teacher she was tireless work to develop and to ensure every ptsd student received an excellent education thanks to superintendent annette

129reichman and assistant superintendent dr kristen rex to feel confident confident in amber to be the next ptsd principal congratulations to amber on your next chapter as principal at phoenix day school for the deaf looking forward to seeing pdsd provide better and top-notch education to every ptsd student okay great uh thank you ckay next is item 8.02 uh discussion possible action item agenda items for the next regular board meeting scheduled for july 22nd uh 2021 in person in sedona and the possibility of a future work session and you know here there's there's kind of a few a few items to talk about uh uh here uh you know one of those just the agenda items that you know anyone would like to talk about um so i guess we can why don't we talk about that

130first are there is there is there any particular item that board members want to see on the agenda for the july 22nd meeting uh it's okay um this is uk and i just would like to see the follow-up on um the 5.02 from this agenda um all right we can we can note that uh and then if you can make sure we note that in our notes yes we'll do okay i uh in terms of the the possibility for the future work session uh or maybe for the next meeting and i want to open it for discussion here you know the you know the the lead uh discussion again we've been kind of delaying it because the legislature i mean one for the strategic plan now that's now that's done with uh two the legislature

131um uh you know has been doing what it's been doing the last few months which was a bit unexpected uh if you know but but now is kind of the time when we need to have deeper discussions about that uh and we can do it in the context of regular board meeting um but we may want to consider having a work study session because i think some of the so there's going to be a lot of data to review it's going to be there's going to be some some quite a bit of material to review before we discuss that and that may get out of hand if we have it in a regular board meeting uh if we have an hour and a half let's say work study session on it um that is probably

132going to be a little bit easier to digest i think we'll be more effective in that regard so that's again we could do it either way uh but i want to open that up for poor discussion uh and part of that specifically is well really there's two parts you know what does being an lea mean um what is what are the obligations that arise because of that uh and are are there any obligations that arise because of that uh that we aren't doing now uh and and if so how can we know what would be the plan to be able to do them if we you know we're to be an lea or if they're board members i think feel that uh you know we shouldn't be an lea for one reason or another that

133would be the time to talk about it so uh we would need that that kind of deep discussion and the other part of the discussion is you know how do we relate to the legislature and how to relate to add right because i mean i think the basis of this is you know a good faith dispute that we've had with uh you know for a year and a half or so um and and how do we you know how do we resolve that when two state agencies don't quite see eye to eye on several things um so that's the the second part of that uh discussion is what's our once we figure out what we want how do we get there uh so again i think that's that's a lot to fit in the context

134of a regular board meeting so i'd prefer that we set a date uh for a work study session perhaps in august sometime but i'm open to the discussion on that uh linda this is linda hi um president nigel thank you i do fully support your decision with having a works study session in regards on the lea i'm partly and have been involved with this and just over time it's been a little overwhelming understanding every aspect so i think it might be best if we have a fully full understanding on what it means so that way we can move forward in our partnership with ade with my short and brief experience being in the house um and being sworn in not as a board member but just a community member i've realized and learned so much

135from ade and their representative and just how little that they know about asdb and the impact that will we will have if the le was removed i understand that there was not open communication between the two or agencies so i would like to tear down that trust i'd like to build better understanding so we do not have any assumptions moving forward i want every board member to have a full understanding of of the responsibilities and their roles what asdb is all about what ade is about and what it means to have and be an le so i think it's important to have open transparency and communications i think it's crucial for asdb to have that with the other state agencies so to have another meeting in august um sure and and let's not discuss this

136at our july board meeting this might be a little bit of a sticky topic so we should refrain from discussing that did the board meeting and then just have that only focused on the work session i'd like to hear more about this topic ask as many questions possible to anyone from ade see what they know about us how familiar they are with our school our campus philosophy strategic plans and so on i think we should be exchanging information amongst the two of us and communication lines should be open thank you i agree i think we need a work session i would hope that we could invite some people in from ada uh will rely on aaron and his expertise but to make sure that we get both sides of the picture and that everybody's clear

137on idea being an lea what that what that looks like in in its raw uh look but um i think we need to get a clearer picture of it's not just funding it's there's so much involved in being an lea so we need to have some expertise there to be able to educate the board um and i would just say i think it would be very productive to have a work session and dive into this and we'll certainly be happy to be a conduit back to the department and the agency um and bring information uh back to this board yeah yeah i agree or okay linda yes thank you president nigro aaron i appreciate um your willingness to openly communicate with us um and be a liaison between us and ade um i think that

138we have gotten some information from ade um but we aren't really we haven't had a great opportunity to educate them and to communicate our information to them um i think often it's hard for um people who are not in the deaf community to understand what it means to go to a deaf school and graduate from a deaf school and how that impacts your future so i think there's a lot of information and insight that we could provide to ade um to people that have never been in my shoes as a deaf person and so i appreciate the open-mindedness and aaron i'm really grateful that you're willing to join this conversation um and again i think um we need to work in alignment with our general education partners not um separate from each other and so

139i think we do want to understand ade's perspective and at the same time we want ade to understand ours and we do want that transparency we want that balance um we want our deaf p our deaf kiddos and our hearing kiddos to have an equitable opportunity for education so thank you aaron for your willingness to participate in that uh thank you lydia yeah and i agree with linda i mean you know being lea is is yes there's the federal funding aspect of it um but there are a lot of other obligations that go along with that and you know i think we do very many of them already but we need to think through every touch point we have with other agencies with with ascending school districts with with the ade um and look at

140all of what it means to be an lea to make sure that we're doing all of those things and if there are areas where we're not you know we we need to work on that um you know and again there may be you know board members that think we we uh should agree with ade's position that that the agency is not an lea you know we're certainly open to hearing that uh if if that is a sentiment of one or more board members um you know that's certainly something we would hear uh but you know to the extent that the uh the board wants to continue to assert that we're an lea uh you know based on various opinions of you know that we've received over time uh and and potentially with the new law

141which again may or may not uh you know be be uh passed and signed by the governor uh you know but to me i think it's important for us to figure out what we want as an agency and if what we want and how that how that fits with our strategic plan um and once we once we do that then we can talk about ways to interact with ade and ways to interact with uh the legislature so to me it's two it's two questions we have to figure out what we want first uh so you know for august i just don't know that we're gonna be in a position to have people over from ade uh other than uh mr wonders uh to talk with us before we really know what we want i think

142we have to know that first uh and then uh shortly there after thereafter and perhaps september we can start that uh you know that process of once we know what we want we can pursue how to get there uh so that said um i hope everyone has their calendars out um we can i mean we can do a doodle poll why don't we do why don't we do this uh if we you know um leticia can send out a doodle poll uh and we can respond to it and for the for the new board members it's uh kind of a fun google thing where we submit a couple of dates and then we pick one and and go with it sometimes we get all board members available on that date not we sometimes we don't

143always get that but um you know i would think that sometime in you know a tuesday or a thursday uh in you know sometime in august um you know we can do that uh if that that'll come back on the july 22nd meeting or that that would occur after the july 22nd meeting so i think what we should do then is do that doodle pulse see when we're all available and then in july 22nd meeting we can have an item on the agenda to approve that work study session and you know while we're at it we're probably going to need at least one other one to follow up from that in terms of how we're going to relate to ada and the legislature so uh that doesn't have to be until you know september perhaps

144early october but uh if we can maybe get some dates for both of those we can set two work study sessions and then hopefully by that point we'll we'll have we'll be much further along in this issue than we you know than we than we have been uh and i don't think we need to vote to do that but if there's any objection to that let me know okay the other item that we have uh here and it's not it's we're all in the same item the meeting on july 22nd is set for sedona uh and it's set for in person uh right now uh the you know and and the board and again the board has several new members now that it did in december when we passed all these dates and and set

145the meeting locations and things like that um but the uh you know i know we've done uh the media production has done some uh research at the site uh i think the first set that we looked at didn't have uh appropriate bandwidth but um superintendent reichman i i believe that we've identified a place in sedona that has appropriate bandwidth and has an appropriate space is that correct yes yes that's correct okay so we can run we can live live stream from that correct yes i think so um but i think it would be better to ask aaron um from our moira from our media department um i know that we could do zoom but i'm not sure what the live stream would look like um so aaron moya could you pop on real quick and

146answer that for us yeah well there he is hi um sorry for that yeah we still have to evaluate and see what the download speeds upload speeds are at this location um so depending on what that is i wouldn't really feel comfortable giving you an answer right now uh do you think that we can run a zoom i know in some of these talks that we had recently um it might be a case where we could run a zoom hybrid situation but we'd have to we couldn't live stream at the same time we'd have to tape the broadcast we'd have to tape the meeting and then put it on youtube a couple of days later is that is that still a possibility or yes yes absolutely so we could definitely record and upload after the

147fact that's definitely a possibility uh but but you understand your understanding is that we have bandwidth to do zoom at that location yes okay all right so so that's one i guess that's one issue for the you know for the board to consider um you know and the second is is attendance as you you know as you know it it does um you know all of our meetings you know cost money right i mean to have uh the staff here to have all the the media production that goes into this um you know especially in the i mean the live broadcast or the zoom broadcast there's there's there's media uh production that goes into it uh when we have in-person meetings in phoenix and tucson uh there's travel costs there's gonna be travel costs to

148sedona at least in phoenix and tucson there's um some uh you know there's some staff that live there that are local so they're only traveling a little bit so to that extent uh you know there's some added cost and i know we've we've given you that in board docs the the added cost um to go to uh to sedona so you know i just want to make sure that the the board is committed to you know to attending um i i know that i'm going to attend uh in person um but i want to make sure that we that you know the rest of the board is um uh you know we have some some commitment to to go there this is linda and i do want to apologize president nigro and superintendent reichman um

149i would not be able to make it on in on july 22nd i would love to go to sedona but unfortunately i have a conflict i've got some family things going on that day so um family trumps the board unfortunately so i apologize for that okay um and that's certainly fine linda we we understand and we know that you know not every board member can make every meeting um yeah we just want to be sure that we you know we have a sufficient number of people there um uh you know so that we all we all could be heard um okay uh so there's not any other comments then we just wanna uh i guess if i if i can impress upon you the you know the importance to either you know let us know

150if you're gonna be there in person or not so that we can we can set up appropriately and undertake that meeting up north uh pv thank you president nigro um i would like to um add a comment that i would not want to miss an opportunity for my very first in-person board meeting so i will be there that's that's great uh mr wonders uh and i believe i should be able to make it as well okay um 2k me too i don't see a conflict at this point okay great and dean's saying yes okay good and good excellent well great uh then we look we look forward to it um you know again we will have zoom uh you know that is available um so we will have that uh depending on bandwidth it may

151not necessarily be live streamed it may be recorded and then uploaded uh to the internet uh you know a couple days later or so um uh yeah we are gonna have you know we're gonna be masked and uh you know we'll have some distance if you know for the public so uh and we're not gonna be sitting right on top of each other like we were before um we still want to have that um but it's uh uh it is uh exciting to be back in person to some extent and that was all that i had for this item there's no nothing else then we can move on uh to 9.01 action item adjournment lynn i moved to adjourn this meeting second second all in favor aye opposed uh great thank you everyone so much

152uh for being here for your time especially over the last few months to get the strategic plan uh completed um you know again now now our hard work begins to implement that and to live that at every meeting uh and thank you to again all the the media production to produce the meeting and the interpreters um who helped us uh so well um and the rest of the staff so again thank you very much uh and the meeting is adjourned thank you bye everybody thank you good night