ASDB Board Meeting (03/04/21)

001we are live sorry about that i have four o'clock i'm going to call the meeting to order um and i will do roll call linda bove brittany buchanan here lynn davison here having camera issues michael gordon from here dean howard here tv chance hello i'm here mike manley here myself sue k conifer and um president david nico present uh thank you sue k um for starting the meeting and we can go on to item 1.02 introductory new board members and recognition of board members leaving um so as uh you'll notice we're we're back at at full strength uh so that's that's great news um we've had uh the governor's made some some new appointments um you know first we'd like to recognize uh the surface of dr mark sims uh dr sims uh was on

002the board for many years uh he was president for a number of those years uh he led the superintendent search where we found superintendent reichman um and uh he was a stabilizing force through a difficult time at the agency uh you know some years ago so we certainly thank uh dr sims for all of his efforts on the board uh we also thank shelly herbald for her service shelley was on the board again for a number of years she served all of last year um without kind of beyond her appointment while facing a very serious health issue uh and she was still able to perform her duties as a board member and uh you know for that um i mean that's that's incredible dedication to the agency and uh we're all very uh thankful uh

003for her contributions and her willingness to to serve during that difficult time uh for for herself personally so uh that's um again we're all very thankful for the service of uh dr sims uh and shelly uh we have two new board members we have and i'll let them introduce themselves we have brittany buchanan uh and uh brittany if you can come on and just tell us a little bit about yourself that would be that'd be great um my video won't let me start okay there we go sorry so i'm brittany buchanan one of the newest board members um i have a daughter she actually recently just passed away in december but she my connection to asdb is she was considered deafblind um and was diagnosed at six months of age i also have two other

004children um an eight-year-old liam a two-year-old lachlan i have been married to my husband for 10 years and i'm an emt so super excited to be appointed and in this position and um ready to be here uh excellent uh brittany welcome um and uh uh we're certainly happy to have you uh the other new member uh pv chance uh pb if you can turn on your camera and let us know a little bit about yourself hello sure good evening my name is pv jam i currently work at um as the acdhh board representative appointed to this board i am the chair of acdh's board and i am thrilled to be part of asdb's board to represent acdhh as well as the deaf community as well as i am a community partner helping kids work through

005their education as well as transitioning into successful employment later in life when they have graduated from high school thank you for having me and i'm looking forward to working with all of you excellent pv thank you for that introduction so with that welcome to the the new board members and we will move on to the next item 1.03 call to the public on agendized items in these again because we're doing this virtually instead of time we're limiting it by words and we'd ask for public comment uh be sent to the public comment email address um and be limited to the 500 words or less we've received i understand several comments which sukay is going to read for us uh one of them is a video uh and i understand that after the uh suke reads

006the written comments she will uh we will play the video uh as well that was emailed to us as well so suki you can begin with that okay um the first comment i have is from jimmy wilson i am james archie wilson iv a graduate of asdb arizona school for the deaf and blind in may of 2012. i want to share the story of my upbringing i was born in flagstaff arizona to a hearing family we lived in page arizona for a few years before moving to tucson arizona so that i could attend arizona school for the deaf and blind while growing up my primary language for communication with my hearing family was american sign language fortunately i was given a wealth of opportunities i went to deaf camps attended youth leadership conferences played in

007various sports tournaments while growing academically i would like to mention that i was three years old when my parents found out i was deaf and they didn't know what to do for my future in regards to education there was a lack of resources for the families of deaf and hard of children hard of hearing children in page fortunately my grandfather was the one who knew about the deaf community and dust schools including gallaudet university he was a professor of three different universities one happened to be at asu in phoenix so he guided my parents and stressed the importance of language acquisition at an early age ultimately my parents decided on placing me an asdb in tucson along with myself they and grandpa too learned a new language asl not only did i have access to

008the language asl while growing up i also had access to educational and social opportunities in a language-rich environment such opportunities have shaped who i am and who i am going to become if it weren't for my grandfather i wouldn't be who or where i am now i am extremely fortunate to be where i am now even today not many families have access to such information or a grandpa like mine sb 1092 would ensure that all of families have access to resources and services and that their children don't get left behind in language and literacy acquisition i was extremely fortunate to be having these opportunities while growing up and i want the same experience for other deaf hard of hearing and deafblind children like any child in arizona they deserve it all of the deaf and

009hard of hearing children deserves a total enriching educational experience i have had please support hb 2863 thank you for your time and i appreciate it the second comment is from mark know that arizona schools for the deaf and blind is most eminently qualified to provide instruction in the primary language of choice for the deaf pupils they have the right staff that is properly trained in special education and uses that correct language of choice so i do not understand why the most rightful school gets this gets denied the necessary funding is this an unintentional act of asphyxiation or chasing our state's goal to eventually close the best school for this unique purpose to provide correct method of instruction and an equitable environment for the deaf students to thrive and prosper please do not fail to give

010the hb 2863 bill wholehearted support all the way thank you comment number three is from astrid goodstein chair nigro and the members of the board thank you for this opportunity to share my comments with you about item 7.01 discussion and possible action related to hb 2863 i ask that you take a vote in support of hb 262863 and make a public statement to that effect i am astridae goodstein a retired school teacher professor and administrator i believe i speak on the behalf of many people in the field of deaf education parents of deaf hard of hearing and deafblind children concerned individuals and alumni of asdb pdsd many of whom have become successful in their careers as teachers and professors service providers scientists lawyers business owners etc it is also true that too many students transfer

011from other schools to pdsd and asdb at an older age already language deprived and academically challenged teachers and service providers at asdb pdsd are certified and highly qualified to work with all students to ensure that they grow linguistically emotionally and socially and reach their potential as a total person the providers themselves should be totally involved in the whole process coursework ieps with parents grading maintaining transcripts leading to two diplomas from asdb and pdsd they definitely are to be held accountable asdb as an lea certainly should also be accountable for its curriculum program assessment of language and literacy development among other things make no mistake asdb already has been functioning as an lea for many many years they should continue to receive funds and grants from different sources i understand that the current bill includes a

012clause that further legislation may be needed when the asdb board completes the strategic plan this should address your concerns if any your vote of support will send a strong message to both campuses of asdb and the community at large as well as ade that you believe in the good of asdb per the asdb policy manual section b it is the right thing to do for all deaf hard of hearing and deafblind children and their families and dedicated asdb staff thank you comment number four is from mary rimron azad chair dear chair nigro and asdb board members we request that you vote to support hb 2863 during your board meeting on march 4th the arizona department of education has historically interacted with asdb tucson and pdsd as if they were a local education agency lea asdb

013tucson and pdsd are qualified and certified educational institutions that deserve the lea designation now is the time to put this in the state statute it has been a practice since the school was established a strong message was sent to the community at the december board meeting the motivation behind the decision not to send a bill to the legislature classifying asdb as an lea is unclear and can only lead to speculation now that hb 2863 has passed in the house and is in the senate it is it is critical that asdb take the four position this will allow dr annette reichman and maria murphy to do their jobs and advocate for asdb tucson and pdsd at the legislature the consequences of not supporting hb will impact each and every student an employee at asdb tucson and

014pdsd losing title 1 3 and 4 money during a pandemic is absurd teachers and staff are being pushed beyond their limits and need more support now not less please make a strong statement that the asdb board of directors supports hb 2863 this action is keeping with the mission of asdb and the powers and the responsibilities of the board members as stated in the asdb policy manual finally in order to avoid a conflict of interest we kindly request the arizona department of education representative mike manley recused himself from voting on this issue sincerely arizona association of the deaf president jason schmidt arizona association of the deaf education committee the next written comment is from linda beau hello asdb board my name is linda bove i regret i am unable to attend the meeting today however i

015would like to share with you that i was linda the librarian of the sesame street cast for more than 30 years i am deaf and primarily use american sign language asl to communicate in my role on the tv show i had the good fortune to expose kids both death and hearing to asl for access to communication and as a teaching tool in many situations often with the muppets that was fun to this day i still get comments from the older people who watch sesame street about how they appreciated learning a new language from linda the librarian i am proud to say i volunteer my time with passion to serve on two school boards one in new york and the other one here with asdb i am here today as a concerned member of the asdb

016board i believe asdb should be legally recognized as an lea asdb is what i call one-stop shopping for each child that goes to the school asdb is equipped with many different services by qualified teachers and specialists who are experts in deaf education this ensures that the child has full access to language acquisition and literacy development as well as access to her or his emotional social development each child would be surrounded with asol as well as other modes of communication all day at asdb and offered additional support services as needed at home according to the statistics ninety percent of their parents are not able to communicate with their deaf children and need to learn along with their children i wish i could show you my high school diploma to you i was proud upon receiving it

017at the school for the deaf in new jersey where i grew up and became a whole person in and out of class the diploma states new jersey school for the deaf this is to certify that linda both completely satisfactorily the prescribed work of the school when i opened it again before i came here it sure brought back the memory of the feeling of great pride i would want the deaf and hard of hearing children at asdb to experience this too some alumni of asdb are now successful in their fields as lawyers business owners actors educators etc i urge you to vote yes in support of hb 2863 quickly and get the asdb recognized as an lea so that the school remains be performing their responsibility as it has done in the past for 30 years

018does today and will do in the future to be on equitable terms with the school districts or better thank you very much linda beau and the final public comment would be the video hello my name is william bame i'm retired from teaching at the california school for the deaf at berkeley and fremont for 33 years i have also been a short-term and long-term substitute teacher here at asdb in tucson for 10 years i'm here to talk about hb 2863 i was shocked to learn that asdb here in tucson did not receive federal funding and they have historically received federal funding the arizona department of education ade did not pass on title 1 title 4 idea or medicaid funding ade decided to send asdb students data back to their home districts home districts that do not

019educate deaf children they would be held accountable for students learning even though asdb provides comprehensive educational services for their students asdb would no longer be able to offer diplomas to their students something that asdb has been able to do since it was founded ade decided that the school for the deaf and blind no longer qualifies as an lea a local education agency even though it has been considered one since it was founded and has received the associated federal funding without any issues for many years who has more expertise in deaf education asdb or ade come on asdb are the experts i support hb 2863 to classify asdb campuses in phoenix and in tucson as local education agencies leas to receive federal funding hb 2863 as amended was fully supported and approved by committee again why

020does ade which is not an expert in deaf education take away from asdb as the deaf education experts and give it to local agencies which are not educating deaf children that is truly offensive to us i hope that ade and the asdb board will decide to join us in our efforts to support hb 2863 to invest in deaf students education and job preparation for the future thank you all right um thank you thank you sue k um we can proceed to item 1.05 information item i'm sorry 1.04 information item executive team reports and this is a board members in your board docs you'll see reports from human resources i.t and operations um and uh kind of the way and again since i know there are a couple of new board members i'll try to do

021a little bit more explanation than i normally do um hopefully you've had an opportunity to review those reports um if you have any questions for the staff that have prepared them now be the time to ask them but i'd also have uh superintendent reichman if she had any additional comments uh beyond that no okay uh great so are there any any board members that have questions for the staff regarding their reports on operation information technology or human resources okay seeing none uh we will move on uh to item 1.05 assistant superintendent report assistant superintendent rex uh and again new board members um refer to the reports that are found in board docs um that you've been able to review prior to the meeting and superintendent rex you can begin with your report thank you good

022afternoon president nigro and board members you have my written report about the early learning program our campus programs the blind program deaf program are regional itinerant programs and the organizational development division but i do want to update you on the following we are still serving families in the birth to three remotely we have not been cleared to go back into the homes to do home visits our preschools are continuing their blended schedule to safely serve our students at both campuses on our campuses both of our teachers are continuing to teach in person but also using the digital learning platform there are currently 77 roughly 30 percent of the students at ptsd and 22 or 20 percent of the students from the tucson campus that are still using the digital platform the rest of the students

023and staff are in person and on campus the regional cooperatives are serving students both online as well as in person depending on the district's preferences our regional directors are preparing for their statewide advisory council meetings that will occur this spring tonight you have before you some agenda items that shows the work of many dedicated staff members who participated in screening interviewing and helping with the selection of region two's director as well as a selection for a new principle for phoenix day school for the deaf and that concludes my report dr rex is there an anticipated time where we're going to resume uh early intervention uh in home visits um i know that um dr kendra benedict is working with azip and they have a task force and so soon as we have more information on

024that i can send that to the board in an email as an update okay and they're i just want to be sure they're looking at um you know if there's some trepidation about going back to a home that they can look at alternative either alternative venues meeting outside beating you know somewhere where there's going to be good ventilation or something like that absolutely our teachers are very creative and they will find ways of working with the families in the place and the space that's most comfortable for them okay thank you other other board members that have any comments for dr rex no okay uh uh seeing none and again for the benefit of the the new board members um especially over zoom uh we try to give some long pauses make sure that everyone is

025able to open up their video and their mic in case they they want to speak it also gives some time for the interpreters um to do their work uh we don't want to overload them so that's why there'll be some long pauses there and i want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to speak should they want to next item is 1.06 information items superintendents report superintendent reichman you have the floor yes good afternoon president nigro and the asdb board assistant superintendent dr rex and ascb community about five minutes ago some of you may have heard a dog barking well yeah that was mine that was my dog i had forgot to turn off the audio and mute myself i apologize for that um so i just wanted to take a few minutes to

026say thank you to two board members shelly herbold and mark sims those two board members have were here when i started as superintendent in 2016. during the first few months i had an opportunity to talk with both of them shelley herbald her goals for the agency i asked her why she was a part of the board and she was giving her goals for the agency and she said as a deaf person and a mother of deaf children that she wanted asdb ptsd both schools to become more academically rigorous she wanted us to set higher expectations for our students and she was really concerned about the educational outcomes for our students and that's what she meant by her goals while she was serving on our board and that influenced me to really start figuring out how

027can we raise the bar and set higher expectations for our students that then started the school improvement activity secondly dr mark sims the first few months that we worked together he was president of the board and he told me his goal for the agency was to look at the early intervention and preschool programs birth to five and he strongly believed that hsdb should be focusing on the birth to five population that our deaf and hard of hearing infants and young children needed access to language to have a language-rich environment where language acquisition could happen in a first language and we did have some disagreements about that but we were on par with that goal i could agree with that as well but that also influenced me to focus on how we can work with our

028birth to three program and our three to five preschool program and that started the shift and that became our early learning program so i want to thank those two board members for their contribution their action and support to asdb thank you and i also want to welcome miss brittany buchanan to our board welcome thank you for joining us and i would also like to welcome mr pv dance who is a vr supervisor and now joining our board representing a cdhh it's awesome to have the two of you here today i'm sure you realize that this month is our one year anniversary anniversary of what you might be thinking the covid pandemic that's right just last year march 2020 our world was turned upside down and we went through a really disruptive change rapid changes starting

029off with governor's duty executive order that all schools in arizona were to close and that included asdb you recall that experience we worked hard to in two weeks to transition to a full online system to provide education on our campuses those teachers had never experienced remote education in the past and they had to rapidly figure out how to provide educational opportunities during the spring semester to our students and that included early intervention teachers providing remote opportunities to family instead of going into the home to provide services our itinerant teachers we're also providing specialized instruction and support to students across the state virtually truly changed our entire agency throughout this spring semester as you recall then we went through summer and we started planning and preparing for the fall trying to figure out how can we

030get back to school in person in the classroom safely for our students and for our teachers do you recall that video of the two principles showing you what it looks like to they create a safe space in the school in the fall we're trying to figure out what the classroom would look like what the hallways would look like what the playgrounds would look like what a bus ride would look like how to enforce masks social distancing hand washing and sanitizing and how do we keep ourselves safe and we thought we would be opening up the first week of august well then you know what happened that didn't happen we had to continue to provide remote education through the fall and we called it educational opportunities it wasn't actually education there were curriculum subjects so that

031first three weeks before august the teachers were working diligently to transfer their educational materials to a virtual platform they needed to learn new technology skills for example google classroom to provide education to their students so in the fall the students continue to stay home and access virtually their learning environments and then in october students returned to the classroom two weeks later tucson campus opened up as well and the students were back and the two campuses were able to successfully continue in person in the classroom until december at christmas break our teachers were exhausted and then looking to january we knew that with the christmas holiday and new year the spread was on the rise and our principles had determined to keep our schools closed and to continue the virtual learning through the month of january

032and we did that during that time the two principals and the teachers started to realize that our students were done with the virtual learning they weren't doing well those students were not paying attention they were not engaged in discussion with their teachers they were distracted and some students actually disappeared that's when the principals decided we have to get back to the classroom so the first week of february we were back in the classroom and as you just heard from dr rex most of the students are in the classroom some are still virtual and we're providing a hybrid option and the same thing goes with our itinerary services teachers are going into the school providing specialized instruction and support to students in person as well as providing some virtual and early intervention is continuing with virtual

033learning and we are hoping fingers crossed that as the numbers become more stable as the curve is flattened we'll be more back in person which means we can breathe and start thinking about the future start thinking about next fall our leadership team is now having conversations about what the fall will look like unfortunately we have the vaccine right so more and more of our teachers and our staff are getting vaccinated we finally have a light at the end of the tunnel and we will come out but that brings up a question so when we come out will it be normal will our normal be the same as last year before march 2020 does that mean we can go back to march 2020 and then just move forward from there hmm probably not i think you

034all agree we can't go back to march 2020 our world has changed we have to figure out how to adapt and make decisions with the new normal so how do we do that first we stop take a pause and think about this new normal try to figure out what the future might look like while we do that we need to remember our guiding principles remember that we have our operating principles that act accountability collaboration and transparency and we have committed to making data-driven decisions we will not make decisions without good data we have also committed to continuous improvement efforts so those guiding principles will help us to stay focused we have also gone back to march 2020 and looked over our list of projects our initiatives to look at which ones we want to implement

035again i'll give you a few examples we have a contract with mma to do a workforce analysis of some of our employees and we want to do that workforce analysis we wanted to do the workforce analysis in the spring but we realized that it wasn't the right time so we pushed that off to the fall but we will still do that that analysis will give us a lot of information about students needs and how we can best staff to meet those needs not over staff and not under staff we need to find the right amount of staffing to meet student needs so for example we will re-establish our language and literacy committee that we started last year but we had to put on hold in the spring we will start that up again and begin

036looking at how we can improve and support our students with their language and literacy skills we are going to back to looking at the bilingual bicultural excuse me the bilingual grammar curriculum or bgc we started that about a year and a half ago we provided training to some of our teachers on how to use that curriculum to align it with our national geographic curriculum and help students to acquire english literacy skills at the same time as asl that was somewhat paused last spring because of covid but now we are going back to that and reestablishing training to move forward with that bgc on both campuses we are purchasing the bgc curriculum to support the teachers in that english instruction alongside the national geographic curriculum so that gives you some examples of the projects and initiatives

037that we will revisit and focus on again i think dr rex just mentioned that our early learning program is looking at the future they are considering whether we will be back in parents homes to provide services 100 as we were before all of our early intervention teachers were going out into parents homes to provide direct services and support to families who have young children birth to three who are deaf or blind or deaf and blind so they're considering whether we will go back 100 in person i suspect that it will become a hybrid model where we will offer both in-home visits as we did before visiting the families in their homes as well as virtual support i do believe it will become hybrid so it will look different in the future our itinerant services are

038the next topic it used to be that all of our itinerant services were provided in person on an individual basis our teachers were driving all across the state of arizona going to schools physically on campus to meet with students and provide direct service to those students with specialized instruction and support as you recall prior to the pandemic we were beginning to pilot some remote or virtual services with just a few students about 20 to 30 students initially you just heard dr rex saying that we are currently serving 140 students remotely or virtually so the pandemic did accelerate the process of offering remote or virtual instruction in the future again i believe it will be a hybrid model where we offer both in person and virtual instruction depending on how we can best meet each individual

039student's needs i could say a lot more but i think i'm going to go ahead and wrap up now when we think about the future your role as a board and your involvement with this receipt strategic planning that you have been doing in establishing four pillars for us to follow do you remember the pillars excellence in communication and relationships outstanding student development superior organizational culture and effective resource management those are the pillars that we as an agency will implement moving forward and we will fit our plan into those four pillars i would say that right now it is more important than it has ever been for you as a board to provide us as an agency with direction so that we can move forward into the future with your guidance and we need your support

040thank you thank you superintendent reichman uh are there any questions for the superintendent on her report okay seeing none we can go to item 2.01 action item approval of the consent agenda consistent report policy to include items 3.01 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 7.03 704 and 7.05 and again for the benefit of the new board members the consent agenda is where we we put items that we can dispose of together in one foul swoop so to speak and they're items that are typically uh routine items so you'll see something like approval of renewal district agreements you know 3.01 and you'll see approval of donations and the minutes uh etc so that said that that doesn't mean that we can you know that we have to do it all at once uh

041if there's any board member that would like to remove one or more items from the consent agenda they can just talk about that and they can if they like uh make a motion to pull one or more items off the agenda and that would have to be voted on by the board and then we'd pick them up in uh the regular order of the agenda uh but we do this um to dispose of some of these items uh you know collectively but you know again we we're open to pulling any of them off so i see that uh pv your uh your video is open so you you'll have the floor yes um thank you for recognizing me and president nigro i would like to make a motion that we withhold agenda agenda 5.14 from

042the cassette consent agenda um because i have a concept of interest on 5.14 okay um i can do that uh or or if there's a second i'm sorry so i i see your motion um if there is a second uh someone would need to second it and then we would need to vote uh suitcase second uh all in favor um say aye aye hi hi hi okay hi all right um all opposed no okay uh so the motion passes um we're gonna have 5.14 is now not on the consent agenda um are there uh any other uh motions for or or comments from the board to remove additional items from the consent agenda pv hello again and thank you for the recognition president nigro i would like to make a motion um on the consent

043consent agenda as amended that we consent to jenna as amended that you approve it as admitted okay uh is there a second uh mike mannelly seconds uh all in favor say aye and again for the new board members you can say i you can you can hold up your your thumb uh zoom it's a little bit different than what we normally do so uh looks like we all have eyes uh any any opposed okay and the consent agenda will will pass as amended um we will go down um 3. down to 3.02 action item approval of new district agreements uh these district agreements that are new are typically not on the consent agenda items as the renewals are uh dr rex are there any comments that you have on on this or just the board

044has asked in the past that we make sure that we signify when we add new agreements we have a lot of returning agreements as you saw but we do we are adding somerset academy skyway campus to our asdb family so i just wanted to make sure the board knew that when they voted on that consent item okay um do we have a motion to approve 3.02 i move that we approve 3.02 okay is there a second okay mike gordon seconds all in favor say aye all right okay all opposed none okay thank you item 4.01 information item finance report shaina cooper shayna cooper executive director of business services good afternoon board president nigro superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rex members of the board and the asdb community our most recent finance committee meeting was held last

045thursday on february 25th with board members manali and gordon and superintendent reichman the formats as well as more detailed information was provided and discussed with the committee and in summary we reviewed in detail and discussed the january 31 2021 and 2020 budget to actual comparison reports the available cash balance student enrollment student student-teacher ratios and filled full-time equivalents and the grant revenues and expenditure reports we also reviewed the school year 1920 and school year 1819 instruction and shared service revenues and expenditures which also included the average revenue per student average cost per student and the average voucher reimbursement per student i did note in the meeting that that specific report will only be provided prepared on an annual basis and it is difficult to do the calculations when all financial activity for the school or

046fiscal year has not been completed provided to each of you is the most same financial data that was provided to the finance committee but just in a more condensed summarized version but before i jump into the financial report i did want to share that the joint legislative budget committee baseline book was published in january 2021 and the fiscal year 2022 baseline report for asdb shows an estimated 928 000 increase in our appropriated funds from the fiscal year 2021 amount of 37.3 million to a tentative fiscal year 2022 amount of 38.2 million this increase is attributed to the anticipated growth in revenues within the schools for the deaf and the blind fund from our institutional vouchers which is about 667 000 in growth inflation of 240 000 as well as the state land trust endowment of

047a little less than 22 000 with that information the team will begin the budget planning process and this will include working with the various departments developing projections and all budget requests will be carefully considered hover with any such process there may be requests for funding which will not be approved but those items that we will be considering and will be prioritized include items that will be required by law contracts grants and or agreements items that we've identified to meet our agency's strategic goals items that result in or offset by any additional revenue to the agency and any items that provide a net long-term benefit to the agency i also wanted to point out that since our january 14th board meeting ade did award aastb about 348 000 from the cares elementary and secondary school emergency

048relief also known as sr2 and the allocation amount was based on our non-lea status the funds are highly flexible however they are designed to help address local recovery efforts related to responding to coven 19 and if you recall we used the cares sr1 funds of approximately 80 40 000 for items such as postage supplies for mailing out student packets the zoom video license hotspots ipads chromebooks as well as the google chrome license for each of those the team is working with our director of federal programs melissa degrees to develop the budget for the 348 000 and we will submit that to ade for approval within the next few weeks i anticipate that we will use those funds to continue to purchase computer devices software ppe and safety supplies we're also trying to identify ways that

049we can continue to provide social emotional learning and mental health supports for our students over the summer we will also use the funds to reimburse ourselves for already incurred coveted related expenses that were not previously budgeted for in our original budget now on to the financial report as referenced on page one for enrollment as of february 1st 2021 asdb had 2206 students and as of february 1st 2020 there were students so there has been an increase from last year to this year of about 55 students i do want to point out though that on the bottom of page 1 it was an error on my part but the school year 2021 was not updated to reflect the february 1st 2021 count of 2206 in the chart that shows the student enrollment type by disability so

050please accept my apologies for that on page two you will see though as of february 1st 2021 there were 549.6 field ftes and 812 staff members there were approximately 60 vacancies actively being recruited for which include teachers instructional and residential service assistants interpreters bus drivers and other various positions on page 3 you will see the financial summary based on the comparative data for january 31 2021 and january 31st 2020 our collected revenues for budget fiscal year 2021 shows 14 million dollars which is 1.8 million lower compared to last year's amount of 15.8 million and again that's primarily from the decline in the federal and state grant revenues as well as the reduction in medicaid reimbursements that we've received this year rental income has also gone down as well as the gifts and donations that we've

051received thus far our total obligated expenditures are right at about 35.2 million dollars which is about 1.3 million higher when compared to last year's amount of 33.9 and most of that though is due to an encumbrance of about 1.5 million dollars and again that's related to external telecommunication charges electricity janitorial rent as well as repair maintenance additionally we've worked with adot to order vehicles for our agency fleet replacement that relates to the one million dollar allocation from the governor's emergency education relief fund which was established by the cares act there is an expenditure decrease though of about hundred and thirty six thousand dollars and most of that's due to a decrease in professional and outside services travel and food and most of that is as a result of the covid19 pandemic on page three you

052excuse me on page six you'll see the report that shows you our budget to actual expenditures as well as the remaining balance by object class by fund as well as by each of our various programs and on page nine you will see a new report that i thought would be beneficial to everyone and that report shows you how much of our january 31st expenditures totaling 31. million dollars where we have spent our day-to-day functions or activities you'll also notice as of january 31st we've spent about 69 percent of our expenditures providing instruction and student support and 12 percent in agency administration the remaining 19 percent are in the areas of plant operations transportation food services as well as our two statewide deaf and blind program services and then on page 10 so far for january

05331st 2021 we are still showing a deficit of about 3.3 million when you compare actual revenues to the 27.8 million again that includes what we've received as well as what we've expended from our general fund appropriations to the 31.1 million in expenditures now what does that mean it means we have to use our june 30 2020 available cash balance which was at that time 11.2 million this is not of any particular concern right now as there is a month-long delay of when our voucher revenues are received to reimburse us for expenditures we've incurred for the instructional site-based campuses our preschool program as well as our regional itinerant services we're also still waiting on reimbursement from expenditures incurred on several of our federal grants that we do have and as a reminder we do not receive

054all our appropriated funds of the 37.3 million dollars up front so those funds are received on a quarterly basis from the state as such i've been having to closely monitor our cash balance as well as making sure that any other funding sources are utilized prior to us getting our monthly voucher revenues from ade as well as before we get our quarterly appropriate allotments from the state based on again the review of the financial data as of right now there are no immediate material concerns based on what we do know for the remainder of the budget fiscal year and if there are no questions on any of the information that i've presented that concludes the report of our operational and fiscal data thank you miss cooper are there any questions about the financial report uh ms

055cooper i do have one question uh can you let me know when the uh the money from ade for the sr2 funds when was that transferred uh actually it was awarded maybe a little less than two weeks ago if i'm not mistaken and so we'll work on submitting the actual budget proposal and then we'll get the approval shortly thereafter okay do we need to enter into an iga to receive those funds no no okay great are there any other questions from other board members okay hearing done we're going to move on to 5.01 information and discussion item personnel changes of shane cooper jillian wettstein and i apologize if i am mispronouncing these names uh rosetta hicks and amber uh uh again i'm not sure i'm going to say this right unfortunately um acapenitus i believe

056um uh pursuant to ars 3843103a1 the board may vote to go into executive session for the purposes of discussion and consideration of employment matters uh superintendent reichman if you can uh just begin on this one if i could interrupt for a moment we will not be discussing amber appcapinnitis during the executive session uh correct she wants any discussion up about hers in the open session so you will only be discussing those three names uh uh correct well i guess uh superintendent i believe that we would just if there is discussion of her it would be in this in this item but it would be in the open session because it was her request uh so if if when we discuss the others uh we can do that under the exception um or the you know

057the uh the the under 38 43103 uh we can discuss the rest those folks uh in the executive session um and uh but not uh not that one individual but we'd have to do that in this item out of the open uh so if you know at this point um to discuss some of the personal to discuss some of the personnel changes uh i think it's you know typically um you know we do enter executive sessions so do we have a motion to go into executive session to discuss these matters actually oh thank you for the recognition president nigro i would like to recognize amber's request and make a motion um that amber's discussion of personnel be removed from the executive session and i also move that we go into executive session without amber's name

058involved for discussion okay um thank you pv i think um and the motion will uh be on the floor but uh you know from from this perspective we would go into executive session uh to discuss one or more of the other individuals uh we can come out of executive session and without moving on to the next agenda item we could discuss uh uh amber uh uh we can discuss amber anything we you know anyone has to say uh the motion that uh and i'll give you an opportunity to amend it it would just be going to executive session and we don't be limited to the discussion of uh the other uh the other folks on this agenda so again to clarify do you want me to amend my emotion now i i i think it

059would be helpful just to amend it to say we'll go into executive session to discuss employ to discuss employment matters okay um i will amend my emotion now i'd like to make a new motion that the board goes into executive session to discuss personnel okay uh is there a second uh great i see a second all all in favor um say hi hi okay all opposed okay great um through the magic of technology we will go into executive session do i not need to read this before we go into executive section yeah you you yes you definitely need to read that part um before we go in okay so pursuant to ars 38-431.03 a one the board of directors may vote to go into executive session which will not be open to the public for

060the purposes of discussion and consideration of employment matters thank you great and we are out as we've come out i don't see everyone but what we're going to do is uh we have gone 90 minutes so far so i'd like to take a 10-minute break uh to let the interpreters take a break um and make sure that they're well rested um so let's uh let's take a 10 minute break we'll come back at 5 44 and uh we'll we'll be on break be to foreign uh can you guys hear me now yes yes yes okay great uh i think my let's see let's see can i hear you can you hear me david i can yeah all right i had some okay i think my that's a i have some mic issues i think uh

061so now that that's resolved thank you um we are back uh in 5.01 superintendent reichman if you can have the floor and discuss anything else that needs to be discussed in this point i have nothing more to discuss okay um and the you know to be clear we do have uh amber for discussion in this 5.01 uh so and again she requested anything that uh he said uh in the open session which we're in now um is there is there any discussion to be taken on amber yeah lynn yeah i just want to make sure you know she'll be a new principal taking it and i know she's been there and and has been around courtney but i just want to make sure there's a lot of supports available for her to make sure that

062she can find her way down this path and that also feedback is considered and listened to from staff from community from parents stakeholders districts to make sure that everything is working and going along uh the way it should so that we can provide the supports that she needs but i just want to make sure that all voices are heard and to make sure that this school continues making progress going forward and keeping a positive atmosphere um where everybody feels good about what they're doing uh thank you lynn uh superintendent reichman yes i agree amber will be a new principal at pdsc and we would provide her with a lot of support we all want to see her succeed and because her success is our success and our students success so we will be providing her

063with internal supports and that includes dr rex will be there supporting her we have several other people from the odd the organizational development division team will be providing her support as well amber has been involved with the leadership training i do believe it was last year for one year she was involved with an isl the national institute of school national institute on school leadership and she did get her certification from that and i believe amber is a good choice and we will commit to providing all the supports we can okay are there other comments okay um this is more in general with all the discussions that we have held in this regard today i i am actually very pleased to see um that we are sort of looking within and looking at succession planning and

064moving staff up in positions i think that um is something that has been needed for a while and so i'm just in support of that so okay thank you other other comments no i certainly i i hope that we're able to give amber you know the resources she needs to be successful it's certainly a very important position and uh you know i wish her uh yeah i hope that she does really well should we uh you know adopt to offer her a contract in a later item uh okay so uh see see if there's no more comments on that uh we can move to uh 5.02 uh action item intent to offer uh fiscal year 2022 new employment contract to shaina cooper assistant superintendent operations and support services for this do we have a motion

065on the floor to take this action i i'm this is uk i move that we um take the action to offer the 2022 new employment contract to shaina cooper okay is there a second uh mike natalie seconds all all in favor aye aye okay any opposed okay no no opposed that motion passes we go to 5.03 and tend to offer action item intent to offer fiscal year 2022 new employment contract to gillian webstein director of business services would anyone like to uh lynn yeah i i move that we uh pass action item 5.03 and offer a contract to jillian okay is there a second um there's this i see a second brittany thank you um all in favor say uh i or raise your hand all right the opposed no okay the motion passes uh

0665.04 action item intent to offer fiscal year 2022 new higher employment contract to rosetta hicks reach it to director um do we have a motion to take an action this is 2k i um proposed that earth i motioned that we um take the action on action item 5.04 intent to offer fiscal year 2022 new higher employment contract to rosetta hicks any seconds i'll second it all right uh all in favor of the motion all right okay any opposed no okay uh that motion passes um 5.05 action item intent to offer fiscal year 2022 to employment contract to amber akanetis i hope i apologize i'm not pronouncing that right phoenix day school for the deaf principal um pv i see your hands up hello thank you for the acknowledgement i would like to make a motion

067that 5.05 related to amber at cap nidis make a motion to assign a new contract for principal of phoenix high school for the deaf okay any seconds uh brittany seconded all in favor aye aye any opposed and that item passes um we'll go down to 5.14 agenda item which is no longer on the consent agenda item uh or on the consent agenda intend to offer uh school year 2122 teacher employment contracts pursuant to ars 3843103 a1 the board may vote to go into executive session for the purposes of discussion and consideration employment matters um you know one uh is there any if anyone would like to go into executive session please please speak now okay seeing none is the word of any other discussion or a motion to extend the the contracts as as proposed

068lynn i moved that we extend the the contracts as proposed and we pass 5.14 okay um all in favor i'm sorry there's a second i'll second it uh i see cck seconding uh all in favor of that motion please say yes worries or raise your hand any opposed and then then i'll ask for extensions after that for the record i will abstain okay yeah i'll just ask for any abstentions and so um pv has abstained okay great um thank you now we go on to 7.01 discussion of possible action item uh state legislature bill superintendent reichman uh pursuant to ars 3843103a3 the board may vote to go an executive session which will not be open to the public for discussion consultation for legal advice reports attorneys as it relates to this item uh so superintendent

069reichman um perhaps you can uh if you have anything initially to say on this matter yeah my comment will be brief it's about house bill 2863. on february 28 2021 the house sponsored the by house representative dual udall so that bill did pals the house passed the house and is now over in the senate i heard that the senate education committee will hear this bill next tuesday so they had passed the bill in the or you have the bill it copy of that in board docs so it it just simply states that asdb campus will be an lea for four purposes the first purpose is to receive federal education funding second for accountability and for idea for those safeguards to be in place and graduation required criteria with including diploma and transcripts so just to

070simplify the bill you the board members now have an opportunity to discuss this bill if you want if you have a question that you would like to ask the ag's office you will have the opportunity to go into executive session to ask questions from the ag counsel deborah sterling and you will have the opportunity to take action or not take any action it's truly up to you okay um thank you superintendent reichman and again to be clear to the board members if we do vote to go into executive session it would be limited to obtaining uh legal advice from our attorneys um any other comments you know are going to be would have to be out here uh but you know typically uh if we're going to have executive session i think we usually do

071it on the front end of the item so if there is are there any board members that would like to go into executive session and receive legal advice from from our outside counselor mike um i think um i'd like to get some legal advice from our council surrounding this right now pit pad okay um all right well i i will move that we go into executive session to receive legal advice uh from our council and i see lynn uh secondly uh all in favor say hi or what's up okay uh all closed all right the motion's gonna pass sue k can you read uh our statement yep okay pursuant to ars 38-431.03 a3 the board may vote to go into executive session which will not be open to the public for discussion or consultation for

072legal advice with the board's attorneys foreign all right now it looks like we're out of the executive session okay um excellent all right so now we're back in um it's been uh about 50 minutes since our last break so let's keep going a little more um the uh so thank you for that as we come back you know the board uh will take some discussion in this in this matter uh you know as we've you know and again just to kind of set this this up from you know historical perspective i mean we've we've had uh you know a difference of opinion in good faith i believe with ade for the over this issue for uh a while uh and you know there's there's some question as to whether there needs to be any legislative

073change for the agency to be uh properly characterized as an lea in certain circumstances for the campus-based programs uh so you know there's there's certainly an argument and you know likely a good argument that that you know that no legislation is needed um but there's uh you know certainly there are other sides of this issue and people who believe differently so uh you know from here and again i'd like to take some discussion on it but again i want to remind the board that we can do anything we want um but we have to proceed knowing that the legislature does what the legislature does and whether or not we like it or endorse it or make a resolution or instruct staff to support it although maybe we wouldn't do that but we would you know

074have some kind of resolution in support of it it may not make a difference right but whatever the legislature does we have to comply with uh but they don't have to comply with what we say uh that's that's the way that it works um so you know that's the the realm that it's in uh and and it's you know the legislature does what it does and we have to listen and they do that on many issues i mean we work with policy uh issues all the time where they make changes to uh education law and we have to change our policies in fact we do it at almost every board meeting we have we have new changes that the legislature's made and we have to adjust our policies and adjust our operations uh because of

075it um and we don't necessarily uh are in support of every single one or maybe we have lukewarm support on some but we we do it because we have to and that's the way that the the educational system works so uh you know with with that said um is there is there any discussion now on on this particular legislative bill uh is it so there are there any board members that would like to speak on this tv okay so i've been listening and thinking one thing i do want to say maybe what we what we think we really what is the potential benefit of the board taking a position to this bill and what are the negative consequences from and i've been weighing those out and what i've seen the board would have more benefit

076than more consequences and we can continue to play what if and go around and around or we can say we take no position but my in my opinion that doesn't do anything we have to do everything we can to maximize our financial potential and those federal funds will help the students receive their legal free and appropriate education especially for a vulnerable population who needs the most support and that's why idea is there to ensure that the students with sensory disabilities hearing and vision loss are receiving 100 percent full support of receiving their free and appropriate public education so i would support that so that they can become independent adults working citizens and contribute to their communities the potential consequences far does not outweigh the positives so as acdh representative we do support this bill and

077i think that there is a need for this board to show support of this bill as well and if there's any issues we can deal with that after legislation passes if it passes but i think that we should show that we support it um and support of the campuses having more financial support and what they need for the future uh thank you pv um for those for those comments um and just to give some of the new board members uh some context of how this board has dealt with this issue um in the recent past uh you know we we talked about a piece of specific proposed legislation in december um we decided not to move forward with that for various reasons um and and and the idea you know kind of one of the

078ideas is that we would begin to look at this issue uh over this you know through this year so we're nearing completion of our strategic plan which is going to guide the agency over the next number of years and after we're finished with that and again we're we're nearing the end of that uh you know by the middle of this year hopefully uh that we would be able to take some time in the second half of the year uh and determine kind of all of the i don't say hidden consequences but all of the you know what it means to to to be an lea you know for the campus-based uh uh schools and what what that means um and versus the services and operations that we have now um and what it means if

079we weren't an lea uh and and what that would look like and try to you know comport that with what uh you know our guidance that we have in our strategic plan and if there's any uh if we needed legislative change we would you know thoughtfully propose some uh at a later time that likely that would be uh early next session uh so that was our original kind of plan was to think about this at the end at the end of the other half of the year and we're still going to do that and i think in the legislative intent it seems the legislature is you know they've recognized that they've you know there is that legislative intent that recognizes that we're going through that strategic plan and that they're you know there may be

080additional changes that are needed uh next year should the board decide to go you know in whatever direction uh so that's kind of how the board is you know is addressing it this this legislation kind of arose uh you know uh it arose so it wasn't this it wasn't something the board put forth and requested uh so that's that's some other history for you but a pbsc you're raising your hand thank you again president nigro i just want to make a point of clarification my understanding the discussion from the previous meeting had to do with a different draft bill with the understanding there was some issues or concerns about that bill and this bill in discussion is completely different from my understanding of reading this bill this is more clean more direct clear transparent um

081and that is what is being requested with this bill now this legislation if it passes will this help the board with the strategic plan if so then the board should go ahead and support this bill um other other tv oh just real quick sorry sorry to interrupt um if we could switch interpreters okay um great and uh and people you are right that the the proposed legislation uh from the december board meeting uh was was very different uh this is this is the legislation that's now pending is uh uh is very different um and it is in board docs uh you know right now and it's it's uh it is much shorter and much different um brittany so um as i'm obviously a very new board member to all of this um i've heard the

082legal side of it and i've heard a lot of this discussion obviously what from a student or family standpoint um would be the benefit of having ptsd and asdb designated as an elliot what does that mean for the families and these students um if they are an lea versus if they are not in lea uh sure and i think that's a great question um you know and and i'll ask superintendent reichman to expand on that in a moment um you know there are several federal funds that flow to the agency part of those are title one funds to the campus-based schools part of those are idea funds part of those are medicaid funds i understand that there may be some funds from uh some of the various covet uh related acts that congress has passed

083recently uh that you know that the agency would otherwise be eligible for in some manner uh we we did hear that um ade did just a couple of weeks ago indicated that they may provide some of that funding that that had some more they had some discretion on it to award to the agency and again i i asked miss cooper about that and um she gave us some information uh on that amount uh but those are the different funding streams and i think i might be missing title four too uh but if maybe superintendent right can you maybe explain a little more detail you know exactly what those funding streams help to produce on the campuses i don't know that there's any direct benefit to the families but there is a benefit to the students

084um when you're talking about idea funding that provides monies for purchasing curriculum materials so for example we have used that money for curriculum with to use with the students that is what we have been doing historically in previous years we did summer school for students they were able to get we were able to use federal funding to provide tutoring to students during the summer so there certainly are benefits to the students they're not direct benefits to the families per se um when they have been designated as an lea up until this past year to my understanding on the students diplomas are they coming as an lea from pdsd asdb and now that they've lost that designation did the students diplomas come from like their school district how is that can you clarify that correct so

085historically asdb has been issuing diplomas for our students the certificate if you want to call it that when we were told that we were not considered an lea we had to establish an agreement with each school district and ask that school district to allow us to use our own graduation criterion um because each school district has their own district graduation criterion so we work with 88 different school districts in the state technically we are supposed to follow their individualized graduation criterion if we are not an lea so part of our agreement with the school districts um is that we ask instead of us following all of these separate criteria depending on where the student attending our school has their home district that they allow us to use our own criteria our graduation criteria is in

086compliance with the rules of the state of state board of education so we are complying with state law however the non-lea status did create some changes for us one that's one example of a change is that graduation criteria uh pv yes thank you i'm superintendent reichman i appreciate your comments would you mind expanding more regarding the diploma situation so if asubb is not operating it as an lea does that mean we have to request permission or negotiate with that district to provide that diploma and if they say no then um what are the consequences for the students that are trying to graduate are they not receiving a diploma so annette's saying i'm sorry providing what um providing their diploma or some kind of documentation that they graduated from high school if we're not an lea

087so annette is saying last year we developed a policy an agreement between our schools and the school district in that document or that policy it says that if you choose to send a student to asdb or ptsd you agree to allow us to use our graduation criteria so the school districts sign that agreement so they are then agreeing to allow us to use our graduation criteria so far none of the school districts have said no however you do need to know that with 88 school districts only 10 school districts have actually signed the agreement the other 78 have said that they're not going to sign the agreement because [Music] it doesn't um they don't agree with taking on accountability for our students or their students in our schools thank you superintendent for following up so

088for those students um in those 78 districts those school districts that refuse to sign what happens when those students graduate with their diploma status the diplomas are still valid the diplomas are still valid because we do follow the state board of education graduation criteria however with the lea designation officially that would make the campuses job in providing that appropriate education as the lre for these students easier which is that correct i'm sorry what was the question again sure so if um asdb were designated an lea and officially recognized as an lea by this legislation passing would that allow the two campuses um staff board superintendent et cetera to provide the most beneficial free and appropriate education to these students in their least restrictive environment and that is saying from our perspective yes i do believe

089so and pv is saying so regarding the lea issue and that bill before the legislature if it were to pass would it allow asdb to receive equivalent funding or or funding um i'm sorry the interpreter needs clarification if we were to receive that designation of lea by the legislation passing would that allow the schools the campus-based programs to receive funding to operate and provide education to those students or would it have any kind of negative impact on the budget in terms of providing education so annette is saying if it passes um the senate then it does become law and asdb would uh work with the arizona department of education or ade to figure out how the federal funding would work out um and we have we would have the resources to support our students on

090our campuses thank you okay there are other board members that would like to speak no okay um seeing none um you know i think at this point uh tv i apologize thank you president nigro for uh recognizing me i would like to make a motion that the board adopt a position in favor of this legislative bill designating asdb as an lea okay and i okay and i i see that um mike uh we can't we can't hear you uh i'm still i still can't hear you mike can you hear me now yeah now we can hear you okay i'm so sorry i need to abstain i was trying sorry my technology is i i'm not gonna call vote just yet but in a minute i will yeah i thought that the second and i was

091trying to my technology got it yeah no i i i understand so um brittany have you seconded that is that right yes okay um all right uh is there any before we have a vote is there any uh you know we could certainly take discussion on the on the motion as well that we have on the table uh would anyone like to discuss the motion no okay um you know this is uh this really is to be honest this isn't our issue today uh you know in my opinion uh the legislature uh you know put forth this bill uh they can you know that's they make legislation that's what they do um and uh it's no matter what we say here today they're either going to go through with this or not go through with

092this and then of course the governor has to sign it or not sign it uh and and we have to deal with that either way uh either either it passes or it doesn't and uh and it just doesn't matter what we say today and you know that's that's a political process that's kind of separate from from our board uh the other part of it is you know we we might come back uh later in the year and decide that we want some different legislation uh maybe some legislation that um has perhaps is better tailored uh to get a certain effect um or or not we might we might not want that um and i don't know that we know enough as an agency have collected enough data to know um what we want to do

093or or really more importantly how we want to do it even if we decide to be in it or to try to seek to be an lea uh is this the right vehicle to do it i think that if you go back and look at the december third meeting you know there was some discussion on that point um you know was that the right vehicle to further these ends and and i think there are some board members that thought no at least that's that's what i heard in the comments uh and i think we have to think about the same issue here is is is this legislation the right vehicle um will it accomplish what we wanted to accomplish and is that is that the right vehicle um and i think there's clearly in the

094legislative intent there's some acknowledgment that it might not be that it might have to be revisited next year uh with more of the board's input we've had the time to look at the facts we've had the time to make that comport with our strategic plan to see if we can if if that change again whether it's to be an lea status or not we'll further our strategic plan and help us improve as an agency you know that said there's you know what what harm is there in this in this bill this hurt the agency right because i think that's the other thing that i've thought about over the last few couple of weeks or so is you know if this bill passed and it becomes a law is it going to hurt the agency um

095i think it's pretty clear that walt um you know i i haven't heard any discussion that this bill would would hurt the agency or have any negative consequence for the agency it will likely allow the agency to receive federal funding from those streams that we talked about i know ade has a different position um you know which you know i think perhaps some of us here disagree with uh but you know is it would it hurt you know would this hurt the agency and again that clear answer's um so those are those are my thoughts on it i see lin and sue k i'll take you guys up but again we're you know we're discussing the motion that's that's on the table right now so uh suit you can go first oh sorry hit the

096wrong one um so i think in regards to pb's motion i think something um that was brought up earlier i think is worth repeating in that you know in support of this if we if we vote in support of this um as a board then does that allow us does that give us more um control is probably the not the best word but gives us more control to then um vote on directing the staff meaning annette and the administration to work more directly in crafting the rules or whatever of this legislation so that it does suit our needs better and i think pb is the one who had mentioned that before so i think that's one thing to consider my only concern um that i don't think we have fleshed out well enough is those

09778 districts who have not signed that agreement are they also going to oppose um you know will they continue to send their kids with us or are they going to then pull it back and keep their kids and then this really doesn't benefit us in the way that we thought it would and those would be my only comments on this okay you had your hand up as well i did david i agree with what you've said i think we really need to consider this because being an lea does involve the funding for sure but there's a lot of other aspects of being in lea that we as a board and as schools need to consider and the responsibilities and things that go along outside of the funding the fundings you know obviously very important but

098there's a lot of other aspects that i think we need to look at and and be able to deal with if if this is the road that is chosen for us uh correct and uh are there other uh comments and and uh sue kate can i ask you a question and and uh pb let me let me ask okay i just want to ask a question about one of her comments we'll get to you um okay in terms of the districts that uh are are resistant um to getting the their data back i think with this bill that they would the reporting would remain with the agency so the so that so all of the students uh data would be collected with the agency so when we look at the agency we look at the

099campus-based students we're going to have n equals you know hundreds as opposed to sending data back out to the districts and having end be you know two or three or ten or twenty or however many uh students the district is sending so um this is you know it's it's essentially kind of going back to this i mean my understanding of it is that this would essentially go back to the status quo where the agency would own the data and have it and not send it back to the districts um but it would be you know have all of the other benefits and burdens of being an lea that's my understanding it seems that's what the legislative intent is as i read and thank you david i appreciate that um clarification i just was looking at

100it more from the standpoint will this in fact impact the um on campus enrollment will we see a decline in that and maybe an increase in the itinerant services that was more my my viewpoint on it yeah um thanks i i see uh you know to me it's it's not necessarily you know choosing between i mean to me that the decision between uh uh you know if a student needs to be on the campus or needs or would uh benefit from itinerant services is really based on the individual iep teams and that's really based on student need and would the student benefit from being on the campus or with the student is the least restrictive environment the campus for what those students needs are or is it their is it their school uh support in

101other ways via you know for example the internet services and other services the home school district may have uh so it it's uh wouldn't necessarily mean that to me anyway because that's a needs-based uh decision uh that's based on an individual student uh that shouldn't be the deciding factor whether or not they go you know people don't come to our campuses because they you know they need that that's the least restrictive environment they need the services that we have they need the campuses that we provide um it's it's uh and that's that's the reason so uh but in terms of the data reporting and uh who owns that it would be the agency as opposed to the districts that send it to us which is you know that was the status quo uh so again

102we may think about that and you know certainly i'm open to thinking about that later is that the right thing to do is not the right thing to do you know we all should be open to thinking about that uh but you know it would be it wouldn't be a change um and pb i think you had your uh your hand up yes thank you thank you president nigro and i agree with your comment um i think one thing for sure um is that um we are going to have to change and then move forward in some way or another as an lea or without that lea designation we are going to have to modify our practices depending on what that ends up being so my question um to you annette and for your staff

103is if the board were to support um this lea designation and this legislation passes would that help the campuses and in terms of the strategic plan discussion would that help develop policy or definitions help with the budget in any way susanna so there are two points here one is um what lynn was recently talking about in terms of the responsibilities of an lea we had those responsibilities um mostly and um it might change some with this bill if that if it passes there may be some additional um but broadly speaking um we have had those responsibilities of an lea prior to it changing last summer if we are an lea that would give us the opportunity to work with the school districts when they refer students to us and once the student is enrolled in

104our school we can take full accountability for that student for their education for their test scores and so forth and for their graduation requirements all of it we would take that responsibility back we had that responsibility historically we had systems in place we were functioning as an lea that system was put on hold because we were not considered we are not currently considered an lea we could very quickly go back to that practice we still have the staff here who have that experience and expertise and they are able to do the reporting that would be required of us as an lda does that answer your question thank you yes but the second question so to clarify um perhaps this question is um better to go to the board but as far as the board if

105we uh were to support the designation of an lea would that help us to kind of better establish a strategic plan with the appropriate vision in mind as in as a designated lea um if the if the question is whether becoming le first would help us inform or change this future plan uh i i think the answer is no uh to that because our plan uh is you know and again i know you're new so we haven't you know gone through this process that we've been through the last several months of developing it um but the the idea is that we're going to set forth kind of the the the map of the road map uh to achievement for the agency and the individual taxes that we take to get there might be different and

106in fact they might change over the time horizon of the plan but we're going to be able to ask but the plan is going to tell us uh when we get there uh so uh as as an example if we were to decide this now or take a position now and say we need to be an lea uh that that may or may not help us uh you know in furtherance of the plan at this point today that might be different in a few months after that's finished and if we have a better idea of the you know exactly in a detailed granular manner what being lea means and what it doesn't mean and what not being an alien means and what doesn't that's my perspective anyway other board members certainly can comment i appreciate

107your comment and i would ask um as far as this strategic plan is concerned um we as a board supporting the agency need to know what operations will look like and what our legal authority is what our funding potential is and what the educational requirements are that we're obligated to the educational needs of the students that we're serving if we are an lea it seems to me that that would help to give us a better idea um of what we're aiming toward if we're not an lea we are not operating as an lea if we are if we take a neutral position if we do nothing we're still sort of on the fence um lacking clarity as to how to move forward i believe that that legislation if it passes will make that decision for

108us having listened to the conversation it seems that the campuses have been operating as leas with a system in place to record data and report as required and their family campuses are familiar with lea requirements as a board member representing the deaf community and the achh representative to me it makes sense for the board to support this legislation specifically to give us back that lead as a designation because i think that gives us clarity and how to move forward being recognized by the legislature as an lea i think we can all see the potential benefits of that that law provides clarity in establishing our designation we already have the resources and the staff and the experience and the expertise who can immediately begin operating as an lna as they were in the past thank you

109thank you are there any other comments uh mike yeah yeah i'm gonna just just weigh in a little bit because there's so much going on um you know we're back here two months after we we voted not to go lea and all of a sudden here we are discussing it all again uh with seemingly just the fiscal intent or just the intent legal intent for to draw down federal money um we all had our concerns we continue to have our concerns excuse me this is pv point of clarification my understanding is that we had been the board had previously talked about a draft bill um yeah we already said that let me let me just finish okay we yeah there's a different bill but we did have concerns and i recognize that regardless if if

110uh if we vote on this or not there's a very good chance this will pass the one caveat that we do have that i appreciate is that we will have an opportunity to address this later on so uh they they clearly put that in to seemingly give us a oh seemingly they put that in to give us the opportunity to address this later on so um i just find it interesting that you know we we voted on this two months ago and now we're discussing it again at length and with a certain potential futility that it's gonna it's gonna happen regardless so so anyway i kind of like to move this on uh mike i i appreciate that and certainly you know it wasn't our intent to be talking about this today but uh there's

111a bill in the legislature and that's that that's really what drove this conversation now um as opposed to you know several months from now so um with that said pb and some other i understand that david i appreciate it yes mike i do appreciate your comments and i wasn't able to participate in the board meeting back in december and i recognize that you all have had this conversation before my understanding was that conversation was related to um a proposed bill that asdb decided not to move forward on however the legislature the legislators proposed their own bill um and my understanding is that this bill is to give some direct clarification um whereas the previous bill that was discussed was was was just different so my understanding is that it was a different conversation um so

112i believe that it's beneficial for us to discuss this specific bill um and have a clear understanding of um of what to do and if we decide i believe we should support the bill proposed by the legislature okay um thank you unless there's going to be a further discussion uh we can take a vote uh on this we do have a second emotion on the table um so if so we have that motion uh on the table if there's any other discussion i'll wait just a second uh then then we'll call that the vote there's a the motion on the table uh this is pv's motion to uh support to have the board support the bill um which has already been seconded by uh board member ken uh all those in favor of the motion

113okay we see pv and uh reporter buchanan okay and now there's all all opposed i'm going to say no i'm going to say i'm voting no others are there any other no's no okay um any abstentions it's okay and then mike i'll abstain also and the other mic um so we have a two to one uh so it's not we don't have the plurality uh i don't think i have my robert's rules of order at home to see if that passed um it doesn't seem that you know we don't have a majority but we have the plurality so i don't think that it does um pass but i uh looks like it doesn't um but uh thank you everyone for for the discussion um and uh that's over we're go the next next item it's

114going to be 7.02 information item it's i don't believe there are any um miss murphy if you can confirm that yes president nico i can confirm that we have no new policies to bring forth for a first read all right thank you uh and the next item is call to the public we're actually um the next item is 801 call the republic for non-agendized items uh it is been another 90 minutes um i know we only have probably not that much longer left in the meeting but i do want to give the interpreters a short break um so is can we take a 10 minute break is that uh we don't need a motion for this but it will take 10 minutes um and uh give the interpreters a break foreign uh hello everyone can

115anyone hear me yes i can david okay good um and and i uh i do before i acknowledge your pv we're gonna go to 802 but before we go to 802 which is the next item i do want to say that uh we are reviewing um the 701 vote um i think we do get a clarification on that uh you know i i briefly was looking through some of my notes and researching that um so we're i'm sorry i don't have a better answer for you right now i uh uh you know we'll uh we'll we'll look at we're gonna look into that so it either passed or didn't pass but uh we have to look at a a ruling on that um so now we're at 80201 pb yes thank you president niger for

116acknowledging me and i would like to acknowledge your 7.01 conversation and i'm not sure either i am not hearing oh hold on a second hold on just a second hold on just a moment i'm having some trouble getting back from break here okay uh can can you say something can you hear all right can we try that can you hear okay uh hold on now now if we try that testing yes got it all right sorry about that apologies okay did you want me to to go back to where i dropped where i am dropped off yeah i yeah no i didn't i didn't uh we're on 802 right now i'm sorry 801. uh 801 call the public for non-agendized items okay thank you president negro um i wanted to recognize your uncertainty about the

117vote regarding 7.01 and if with your permission can we go back to that agenda item i have a potential solution that i'd like to discuss i don't think that we can go back because we've already moved on um unfortunately um but we uh we'll we'll get the the issue as to whether or not past will resolve it i think our policies uh are maybe ambiguous we have to cross-check with some other sources to make sure that we um you know we get that right then um what i would like to do is to make a motion to table that conversation temporarily um and allow that excuse me table that rule temporarily and allow the motion to pass based on plurality rather than majority so i don't know that we can do that we're not at

118an action item agenda item right now um and and and we're not in the action item uh you know for that purpose so in other words we've already moved on we went on to 702 we talked with ms murphy about the information item and then we moved on to 801 point of clarification um i am a bit if we're not sure whether um the motion passed or failed i think that um the fact that were that we had technically moved on i'm not sure that that's uh that that's relevant at this point um you know in my perspective uh whether it's passed or failed that you know we're gonna guess we're gonna resolve that and uh uh it either passed or didn't uh uh maria oh i see marina raising uh yes uh board president

119nigro i don't know if this is helpful or not but according to asdb policy bedf which is voting methods all motions shall be carried by a majority of the members present who vote or is otherwise required by law yes that was the policy i looked at uh you know the questions are abstentions um you know count as voting and and there's there's that's the ambiguity that i'm concerned about i see okay thank you yeah that that's the ambiguity uh and that's um that's not in our voting policy which i reviewed during the break uh so that's the you know whether or not a past is you know you know we'll take a look at that um in uh we're now in 801 uh called the public uh on non-agendized items and i don't believe that

120we have any uh sue k is that correct that is correct okay and we can move on to 802 discussion accident item agenda items for the next regular board meeting scheduled for may 6 2021 and whether to meet in person in tucson or virtually um that is kind of a couple of things there uh when we ask for other agenda items that board members may want to see on the next meeting and then two uh since you know covet you know we used to meet in person and now we're going to have to discuss whether or not we would like to resume meeting a person i would say that any means we have in person are still going to be massed and socially distant in may but we can have in person we can have

121hybrid where some members join via zoom and some are there in person and maybe all their person depending on their preference and whether the uh the meeting is set to go in tucson uh and that's if we were to do it personally so we could change any of that so uh lynn um i would suggest that we do hybrids so you know not knowing what may brings that we have the opportunity if everyone if anyone's comfortable to be in person and those who are not to be virtual if that makes sense i i to me that sounds like a great idea um you know i think uh having we've had a hybrid before i think in the fall and then i know kind of the rates got higher but then also we have vaccine now

122and we see uh community transmission lower that unfortunately could change you know by may hopefully not but uh you know the situation can be unpredictable um sukay i agree with lynn i'd like to support a hybrid idea only because not all of the counties and cities have masking mandates and things like that and so i would prefer to kind of wait and see and see what the numbers look like okay so all right any others with a preference okay so mike david i'd support a virtual or hybrid model also i think this is a type of meeting meeting that certainly does uh allow a virtual participation so i'm good with that also okay all right i'll move then that we uh we schedule the the may 6th board meeting for uh hybrid in tucson second

123all in favor [Music] no okay great um and then the other uh we're still on this for any items that anyone would like to see at the next regular board meeting that's okay in in relationship to agenda item 7.01 um would it be possible to see some kind of um fiscal impact um on on what it would look like if we had that funding and if we did not have that funding based on the campus numbers yeah i mean we yeah i would certainly agree that we we definitely need that information you know along with all the other information talked about with regard to that issue um but in may i think that's you know superintendent recommend if you can add that to the agenda um tv similar to suitcase comment i would like to

124add um as well any clarifications regarding um if the passage of this law will help with policy development or if it will help with the strategic planning process and you know for reference we have a work study session scheduled for april and there again to the new board members so we'll be meeting again uh in in april for work study sessions it's not a regular meeting like we have now with this you know the agenda and kind of disposing of regular board business um this is going to be a meeting that's just focused on uh the strategic plan so uh if i were you i'd go back to board docs and take a look at some of the other meetings that we've had on this there's a a good um you know kind of the

125documentation how the strategic plan has been built uh over the last several months uh we're at the point now we're filling out what i like to call the bottom of the page these are the you know the particular um you know real fine points of the plan we had a meeting on that a work study session on that in february and we've made some progress but the agencies continue to make progress on that i hope to have a much closer to final version of that ready the staff will have that ready for us by the work study session in april and then once we work through that we should be able to have that strategic document almost complete for for may uh potentially uh you know there's certainly potential for that could be another we

126could stretch into the other board meeting depending on where our progress is but you know certainly i like to have it done by june um so that we can uh implement it for the next uh fiscal year uh and but we but uh that that's kind of where we are in terms of the strategic plan um and and uh uh superintendent right but i think at the at the success i mean we we're gonna have to start looking at the at the la issue a lot more closely uh i know that we've been keeping kind of a running list of areas to kind of investigate uh to gather our data so we can make an informed decision here uh i don't know if that's going to be ready for may because i know that a

127lot of your staff is working on this strategic plan but if we if we can have something to view that might be that might be helpful so not just the finances uh you know whether we're gonna lose money or not i mean um that's that's one thing but if we can look at what the the other details that it means to be an lea what are the other things that we need to do that we're not doing if anything um and what are the things that um you know other operational changes that we might have to make even things that might seem unintended we'll want to know that to the extent that we can in may and then of course the and then of course this bill will likely either pass or not pass [Music]

128you know by then so if there's another you know if it if it does pass we probably want to talk about what it means and we'll probably have to work with ade on that uh so we'll we'll certainly want a status update uh if it if it passes and if and you know what if it doesn't pass we'll also get a status update of how uh of how that's gonna affect the agency for the next year um until uh you know unless and until we come to the the next legislative session with some additional uh legislation if any of the board decides that okay is there anything any other item for for next next time uh pv yes i would like to add an item to the agenda that if um it hasn't uh if

129a decision hasn't been made then a clarification of whether that motion passed or failed i'm sorry the interpreter needs to clarify um we need clarification regarding policy as to whether that motion 7.01 passed or failed yeah so that that will uh we're going to we're going to uh the agency is gonna consult with the uh experts on that we should have that tomorrow i mean you know if not monday great thank you yeah oh yeah no that's yeah that'll get taken care of right away we just need to uh research some of our orders the the uh i think that situation's happened before uh since i've been on the board um and we need to do some more research there i'm sorry okay all right um that is uh 802 and 901 uh is our

130action item adjournment uh we have a motion to adjourn lin that we adjourn is there a second uh on that sukay uh all of favor hi hi uh all opposed no good all right uh that passes uh again thank you to everyone um i know this board meeting was a little bit longer than we normally have but we had a big agenda today um thank you uh thank you to the interpreters to to the media and the other staff to uh that assembled this um i think it's again you guys have gotten really good at producing this and you know certainly i think you should be proud of the work product today um and again thank you for the board um we uh uh did have quite a hefty agenda today we're gonna meet next

131month uh to talk about the strategic plan and get that almost to the finish line i think uh and i look forward to seeing everyone then um virtually uh but other than that have a good night and thank you very much for your time today thank you good night everybody bye-bye yeah have a good night