001we are live good afternoon everyone uh now is the time set for the board meeting of the arizona state schools for the deaf and the blind uh i'd like to take the roll call sue k do you have the the role i do great um david nigro president lynn davison mike gordon i'm here mike manley i'm here linda bove i'm here mark sims dean howard shelly herbald present and su k conifel is present uh thank you sue k the first item on the agenda is 1.02 call to the public call to the public on agendas items um so as we've been doing uh for the last few months uh during covet we've accepted public comments uh via an email system i believe we have one of those and and sue k can you uh read
002that comment david that's for a non-agendized item oh i'm i'm sorry i i thought that was for agenda so i i don't believe we have any for agenda's item is that that correct i don't have anything other than the one non-agenda item okay um that's the only yeah that's the only comment that i have so uh thank you for that let's move on to uh item 1.03 information item executive team reports um there are the reports are given in the uh in board docs that we've all have a chance to review uh before the meeting um superintendent reichman do you have any any comments uh before we open it to the board members no just wanted to let you know we have written reports hopefully you had the time to read and now is the
003time to ask questions okay um are there any board members that have any questions about uh the reports that we were given in particular human resources information technology or operations this is linda bove i have a question okay uh david oh i don't know if we're looking at me or if you're looking at another screen so i just want to make sure we are making eye contact and you do see me here raising my hand thank you for that i would like to take some time to read all of these reports um i mean i feel like i'm reading a novel um and i did enjoy reading all of these reports it has been wonderful to see the agency and the staff and how we've all managed to cope with covid19 and to adapt through
004all the changes and the staff within asdb we've all made incredible changes and i would love to take this time to applaud everyone within the agency for all of your hard work your commitment and providing access to the children and i know it's hard especially with deaf children providing services for those who live in remote rural areas and how we've been able to provide food to these students i just think how amazing that is i can't imagine how the students would survive without everyone here we've been a great team i would like to take note to hear a video that i participate i saw was a very adorable video that was put on for christmas and just to see the light in the kids eyes the holiday cheer and what really impressed me seeing the
005difference between the parents and the families and the difference between those whose family sign and those who don't um how those children respond to this video and that was something that i recognized and very impressed with the importance of how uh the parents need to sign at home and that's important for the children's learning especially with how we've been doing this remote distance learning that's one comment i have another comment um here from jay johnson the director of itinerate services so i was looking over his report that's some really neat information i know it's really not hard to find teachers who are qualified for the school for the itinerant areas the last part of his report i was interested here a little bit nosy but something i wanted to take note of the aligning external
006support uh are you familiar with this this area this part of his david i don't know presentation anyone is following me uh linda and just to interrupt i uh appreciate you um where everyone has been coming together every month with the expect with the special ed um group so i thought that was um interesting and fascinating how they've all still been able to come together so um the names of all four of these the organizations the universities and the collaboration that has taken place they've had um the deaf ed track program um and so with that has that been able to meet the level of expectation as far as professional development has that doll been met for example deaf ed deaf education continues to change and to collaborate with other schools within the nation i
007just have a question about that so who is it that i need to ask about that and address this question too i apologize for talking too much um go ahead okay um uh linda this is david um i think that's that's a great question um but i think that falls under our next item uh when we talk about the superintendent of reports um this is the uh this item is the executive team reports so it's it's just limited to human resources information technology and operations okay thank you oh no problem we'll hold that um for the for the next item if there are any other board members that would like to comment on the items from 1.03 and and hearing hearing none or seeing none we will go to 1.4 uh the assistant lieutenant report
008um for dr rex and i think dr rick's a few initial comments um and then you can address um uh linda's uh question and we can go from there thank you linda could you repeat the question um jay johnson has been meeting with those groups and yes we are continuing to try to develop external partnerships as well as internships to bring people to our campuses or to let them shadow our itinerant programs so we can probably give you some more information on that but it it was more to let you guys know that even though kovid's here we are still meeting and connecting and trying to support our students in the best way that we can does that help answer your question yes it does right i understand that with the the covet and the
009current situation um i think it is a lot easier of course to come together in person but remotely you know we are connecting with the external agencies and here's someone in california there is a program there with deaf services there is a department with a deaf ed program and so that was one program that part that i picked up on um because i i was familiar with it in california so i was wanting to see if there was an expert or someone who had the expertise that would be able to present on the deaf ed just giving that as a tip if that's been considered thank you i am writing that down and if i have any follow-up questions i will send um through a net some clarifying questions to you if that's okay okay
010i also do have another question the university of arizona i'm not familiar with them but we do i know that asu does have a teacher's program in this program there is a special ed component now with covet i've lost my connection as far as who is the contact person or the director of this program within asu we did have um one connection where they wanted me to come and speak to the students about teaching in a special ed and deaf ed really wanted them to see what it was like to be able to come and ask questions too but i've since lost that connection and that peace so you know if we're interested in getting those recent graduates um and come to the school for the deaf we want to make sure that they are
011completely equipped to teach um you know that's the the bottom line here you know not just a general teacher we want them to be on the track for the deaf ed and those are my thoughts awesome and the university of arizona um does have the deaf education and the here they do help support our special education so i will try to actually i'll try to find that contact for you maybe even but thank you for your thoughts sure no problem good afternoon president nigro board members and superintendent reichman you have received my report and thank you for reading it i'd like to also give you some additional information in our co-ops we are continuing to work on our redesign with the focus on delivering student services some of our districts are still in person some
012of us are doing work remotely we are still serving students in the co-ops depending on which way the districts want us to work with them we are also meeting weekly to align our procedures and we continue to collect data on what is working well already within our co-ops and establishing protocols to ensure that we have these protocols in a state-wide equity format i wanted to give you an update on the dvr director search this week there is a team that is scoring applications and interviews will begin at the end of the month around the 1st of february so far the team has 19 applications and 14 resumes for the director of dvr position the pdsd and asdb tucson campus students are being served remote we continue to meet with the principals weekly we review the
013data from the public health agencies and we develop our reopening plans and share this information with our staff our parents and our students i wanted to give you an update on the pdsd principal search we posted the position for principal in december we have been collecting applications we have a team designated to score these applications and refer names to the interview committee interviews are slated for mid-february as of today we have received seven applications and 11 additional resumes that have not got completed applications our birth to five early learning programs our students are being served in the preschools remotely and we currently have 37 preschool students at the tucson campus and 58 students at the phoenix day school for the deaf campus we also had some birth to three supervising teachers that reported to azip
014and had a launch party on december 17th the purpose of the launch party was to give information about how asdb will be working with unilateral students now there were 46 participants at this early intervention provider meeting and we are we are happy and excited to watch our unilateral services grow in the coming year my final goal for you is to hopefully bring a dvr director candidate as well as a pdsd principal candidate to our march board meeting and that concludes my report uh thank you dr rex uh are there any board members with additional questions for for dr rex all right seeing done we can move on to the next uh agenda item and that is one point here i'm sorry i um dr rex was talking about um recruitment um and i'm thinking about
015the principal position at ptsd miss courtney fritz um i know that soon she will be leaving and she is really irreplaceable so um yes we do have one year uh i'm wondering how confident are you dr rex about the potential of any of these applicants do you see potential or do you have any ideas or is it too early to tell it's a little too early to tell at this point in time but i haven't okay thank you and i i i am i agree with you courtney fritz has really been a powerful leadership force at pdsd and at times i have waves of panic but um we have some we are growing our own within the educational teams we have sent out to all the deaf um schools to let them know that we
016have this fantastic position so information is going out and applications are trickling in so hopefully i have more for you all soon thank you um we will now move on to item 1.05 information item superintendent's report uh superintendent reichman alright thank you um good afternoon president nigro mr asb to be born i'm assistant superintendent max and those of you watching us the estb community welcome to our january 14 2021 award meeting happy here it is 2021 i'm happy to see you all here this afternoon is my annual date of the agency report to the board so my presentation will be a little bit long but hopefully you find the information interesting i hope you engage your interest and of course i am starting with a story so long ago there was master a master he
017told his favorite student he had glory to share with him and the reason that he wanted to share this story of two minds because sometimes the teacher felt inadequate because of other persons and causing him to feel he was much confused so in telling the story to the student of the two minds she starts with one mind believes that people are faked and only has to be woken up the second mind believes that you can learn and grow and become rape the first mind believes that don't learn anything so me as the master have nothing to teach the second mind is anxious and listens to my words the first mind believes that everything stays the same we're staying the same starts to the second mind believes that we can learn well and to make change
018the first mine become embarrassed and angry and hurt the second mind however when they make mistakes they laugh and learn from the mistakes and then they move on the first mind when they see success of their friends they become jealous of them the second mind when she's discussed her friends feels inspired and learned from their experiences the first mom believes that there's no way of moving forward with work but this other mind believes the only way forward is to work the first mind believes there are no changes there's like that mind beliefs must change first mom believes that the world the same all the time the second mind recognizes that the world is constantly changing so as the student was listening to the master the student began to realize hmm and abstract are telling me
019i have two minds and the masses says yes you have two minds but it up you to this rich mind you decide to feed and i think that's a big metaphor we have here about the fix the fixed mindset and the glowit mindset depending on our mindset it really affects how we teach how we learn how we make decisions so when i became the superintendent of in the summer of 2016 i had a really simple four-year plan at that time i recognized that asdb had just been special times that trust had been breached and that i don't learn as superintendent so my fourth plan was this the first year i would just focus on listening learning seeking to understand i wanted to focus on building us and building relationships both internally and externally the second
020year i focus on strengthening those relationships to really build a solid foundation then the third year would be focused on problem solving and beginning to make and torment improvements here and then the fourth year we would get to the innovation phase and as it turned out the first year at the time the opportunity to really meet the asdb community i went to different groups different meetings i traveled the state i even also got into cars with teachers enrolled with them to schools where they provided itinerant support services to students i got into cars with the early intervention teachers went into family homes and observed how we provided support to families with infants and toddlers who were deaf hard of hearing blind and visually impaired so that first year was a wonderful time of really being
021able to focus on and get to know asdb the second year though the summer of and the fall i got back from you a dsp board of directors that i needed to start expediting the process there was a lot of interest by board members and discussion about programs that asdb had and about how fiscal resources were allocated to support those programs i heard that sense of urgency and began thinking about how do we problem solved where do we even start and it was around that time in the fall of 2017 that i learned that two of our staff members staff members mr owen patkov and miss melissa de reeves had just published source about soon to publish a research article and this research article was about those school districts in arizona who had students with
022disabilities with much better academic achievements and they worked for asdb it seems that the previous superintendent lamer hired them so i asked them to provide a presentation to asdb leadership team about their research and what they learned the research that they conducted was that they looked at all of the school districts in the state of arizona and charter schools and they identified those who seem to be doing much better with academic achievement with students with disabilities and they identified i think 32 school districts of the 32 they were able to go out and interview nine school dis leadership teams and in collecting that data they were able to analyze what were the common characteristics of those school districts we know that often students with disabilities including students for deaf and hard of hearing blind and
023visually impaired and deafblind are behind their peers other students without disabilities we also know that for those students to succeed they really have to have two things that have to have full assets to the general curriculum and you have to have high expectations you really have to believe these students can succeed so in analyzing the school districts they identified six common characteristics what were those common characteristics they were a culture of high expectations highly effective teaching strategies in the classroom frequent data collection and decisions being made based on that data the use of data to figure out what interventions to provide and enrichment opportunities core instruction spending time on core instruction as much as possible meaning english and math and sex effective leadership those are the common core characteristics of those school districts so then
024the question becomes asdb how do we become like those school districts how do we provide the best education and supports to our students so with that question we made the decision to use the advanced ad accreditation process that accreditation process really gave us a roadmap as to how we can improve our education and our assistance in providing supports to our students so with the advanced ad accreditation the plan to seek and get that accreditation we convene about 53 [Music] agency-wide leaders from all over the state to come together in one place in the fall of 2017 and that was the steering committee and during that steering committee we we set up tables and we had six to seven people set at each table and we did an analysis of our effectiveness as an agency reuse
025the advanced ad system quality in the indicator's diagnostics that systems quality indicators had seven eight seven areas that we needed to focus on and i'll give you those area and under each they asked us board engagement and teacher engagement community engagement parent engagement and we rated ourselves based on those so those four were one a clear direction a healthy culture high expectations impact of instruction that is effective teaching resource management efficacy of engagement and seven the capacity for implementing systems change now remember this is the fall of 2017. as you can imagine we asked the leaders within asdb and that self-raiding we rated ourselves pretty low had a lot of work to do so we decided to use advanced ed they had three focus areas for us you might remember we had building leadership capacity
026building learning capacity and building resource capacity that jump started us and we got involved in different activities that fitted into those capacities for example in the leadership capacity we set up a leadership academy that we pulled together the executive directors to learn about leadership we did that over the course of one year we also in the fall of 2017 did some other activities for example at that time the arizona department of education had identified our three schools that is pdsd on the phoenix campus asd and asb on the tucson campus as in school improvement status so with that we conducted a comprehensive needs assessment we did a root cause analysis trying to figure out what the issues are and what we needed to do to begin the school improvement process that became our action plan
027school improvement plan we submitted that to arizona department of education and they provided us with funding to begin that process so it was in 2018 in the spring using funds from that grant we were able to convene teachers after hours to look at research look at and select the curriculum for english language arts that is english and behavior curriculum you may remember approving the curriculum that we selected our english curriculum is the national geographic we were able to use those funds to train our teachers train our leadership team to bring people together during the summer time and then in the fall of 2018 to roll it out all of our english classes had a national geographic curriculum and we went from there so in looking back you know when i was thinking about this afternoon's
028presentation i realized oh that second year was the linchpin that started rolling out all of these different activities that led to some real significant system changes that we are engaged in today we of course in the second year rolled out the math curriculum and then last last fall we set up the science quickly so we moved forward with implementing those and i believe in our march 2021 board meeting we will be asking you to approve the social studies curriculum i think i will check on that so think about that and that's just the tip of the iceberg and of course last year in march 2020 our role changed with the covered pandemic and the need to really address those new challenges so in the last year we've had to become champ problem solvers try to
029figure out first how do we keep our students and staff safe we don't transmit the virus on campus and with each other and second how do we continue to provide education to our students both virtually and in person when we were able to go back to school last fall to do the hybrid approach the in-person and the virtual at the same time and we have met the challenge we have met the talent so to some extent we've had to redirect our energies in meeting both challenges in the last year all of this of course has caused a lot of stress from the system on our teachers our staff our students a lot of stress and if we hadn't had the glue to hold us together that glue of trust strong relationships collegiality collaborative problem solving
030we may not have survived but we have survived and we will continue to survive and in some instances we've been able to move on with just some saying this so that means we have completed in building our foundation if you look at asdb with the metaphor of a house if you remember early on i talked about the foundation or the bamboo tree with the strong roots we have finally achieved that we have those roots that are deep enough and they're strong enough where the house metaphor that foundation is there you're done with it you've just started building the frame of the house and that frame of the house is the four pillars that you board members have identified for asdb those pillars are excellent communication and relationships they are outside outstanding student development they are
031superb organizational culture and they are effective resource management so with the foundation and the pillars and the frame of the house we are now beginning to do innovation awesome understand of course with innovation it means we have to take risks and we won't take risk if we don't feel trusted safe and secure and supported we have to have that sense of security and support and we won't take risk yes failure is not an option risk me occasionally failing now and then and with the growth mindset we will learn from those failures and move on to even greater success so with all of that ultimately we are engaged in this great work uh continuous improvement of making data-driven decisions of cultural transformation and of providing the very best education and support to our students around the
032state of verizon there are many many more examples of system changes including early the early learning program the general services program the odd the organizational development division and the information technology grew the operations which includes transportation food risk management and whatnot many more system changes i haven't taken the time in this presentation today to share those with you they are in our agency profile report that report is in board docks under the superintendent's report i hope you take the time to read that report if you want to understand the work that we've been doing the many accomplishments that we've made if you want to understand and see the strides that we have made in improving asdb it's in that report it's a beautifully written report i've read it all the way through some of the
033things in there i didn't even know what they're doing so please read this thank you for your time in listening to my summary of the state of the agency this afternoon i look forward to continue discussion with you and we'll take any questions at this point in time thank you superintendent reichman um are there any questions from the board members for the superintendent um i i don't see any um so again thank you superintendent reichman for the uh report um we will move on to uh item 2.01 action item approval of the consent agenda consistent with board policy to include items 3.01 7.02 7.03 and 7.04 is there anyone that would like to remove any of these items from the consent agenda hearing none we should entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as
034presented this is lynn i move to approve the consent agenda as presented is there a second okay i'll second it okay i see 2k seconds uh all in favor um you can turn on your video and either say i or hold up a thumbs up try holding mine see mike [Music] thank you looks uh all opposed and the motion passes thank you um we'll move on now to item 302 action item approval of new district agreements uh assistant superintendent rex as the board has requested whenever we bring on a new district to our asdb family we like to have it formalized through your action and we are adding two new districts one in the current desert valley regional cooperative which is cave creek unified school district and the second one is in the southeast regional
035and it is called city center for collaborative learning it is a charter so at this point in time i am looking for a motion and a second to bring these new districts into our asdb family this is 2k i still move second okay um all in favor of of the motion please say i or give a thumbs up all right all right thank you and i see all there all of any opposed and uh the motion will pass um thank you uh we're on now to item 4.01 information item finance report uh ms 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 friday on january 8th with board members
036manali ann gordon and superintendent reichman the minutes of the meeting have also been included with today's consent agenda items and in summary we reviewed in detail and discussed the december 30 1 2020 and 2019 budgetary and fiscal year budget to actual comparison reports the available cash balance the grant revenues and expenditures report the second quarter basic financial statements and also reviewed the student enrollment as of december 1 2020 in comparison to december 1 2019. provided to each of you is the same financial data but more in a condensed summarized version as referenced on page one there were 517.65 filled full-time equivalents and about 60 vacant positions as of december 1st for enrollment as of december 1 2020 we had 2108 students and as of december 1 2019 there were 2 students so a difference from
037last year to this year of 24. you will actually see the details of the decrease on the bottom of page 1 and on page 2. page three begins a financial summary based on the comparative data for december 31 2020 and december 31 2019 the budget fiscal year 2021 collected revenues of 11.5 million dollars was 1.3 million lower compared to budget fiscal year which was 12.8 million dollars that decline is primarily from the decline in the federal and state grants medicaid revenues rental income as well as the gifts and donations that we've received thus far as it relates to our expenditures our expenditures as of december 31 2020 are at 27 million dollars which is higher by about 1.3 when we compare last year's amount to the 25.6 most of that is related to payroll and
038that's because we had 14 pay periods this budget fiscal year compared to the 13 pay periods last budget fiscal year there is a one point mill 1.8 million dollar increase in our encumbrances which include our requisitions and purchase orders and that increase has is about 2.05 million and that's related to the purchase orders for rent water electricity janitorial as well as charges we've also began to initiate purchase orders to the school districts for our tuition reimbursements that are owed for our regional cooperative students we've also worked with adot to order the vehicles for the agency fleet replacement that relates to the million dollar allocation from the governor's emergency education relief fund established by the cares act you'll see on page nine the budget status report and so far six months into the budget fiscal year
039as of december 31 2020 we are showing a deficit of about 4.4 million dollars when you compare actual revenues of 22.6 million again that's collected revenues plus what we've expended in general fund appropriations you can compare that to our actual expenditures of 27 million and what that means is we've had to use our june 30 2020 available cash balance which is at that time 11.2 million as of right now that's not any of particular concern as there is a month-long delay of when we receive our voucher revenues to reimburse us for those expenditures we've incurred for the instructional site-based campuses our preschool program as well as the regional cooperatives it should also be noted in contrary to what people may think we do not receive all of our appropriated funds of the 37.3 million up
040front those funds are actually received on a quarterly basis so we've been having to continuously monitor our cash balance as well as utilizing funding sources that are available to us until the voucher revenues and quarterly appropriated allotments are received you also notice in the report are the second quarter basic financial statements beginning on page and as a reminder the basic financial statements show us our balance sheet the income statement as well as our statement of cash flows for the fiscal year not budget year in summary the business services team is continuing to work on processing payroll and invoice payments as well as we're working on our july through december monthly budget package updates based on a review of the preliminary financial data there are no immediate concerns based on what is known other than the
041recent information we received from ade as you may already be aware the contract that we expected to have an agreement on and receive five hundred thousand dollars in funding from ade is not going to be awarded to us this fiscal year if everyone recalls we lost over a million dollars in funding primarily from the title and the idea federal grants because of our on our non-lea status and the 500 000 was supposed to help us offset that loss and assist us in focusing on school improvement and other accountability efforts unfortunately the budget team included the 500 000 in our original budget based on the commitment by ade since those funds will not be awarded i will need to work with the team to revise our budget expenditures and cash balances very closely along with student
042enrollment since those numbers are tied to our voucher revenues usage of the general fund appropriations will also need to be closely watched with the recent covid relief legislation that was passed by congress i'm hoping that we do qualify to receive some of the funding that will be allocated to ade and hopefully the same criteria that applied to the existing ess er cares funding is applied to this new federal funding we'll cross our fingers but again if a potential for shortfall is identified and the numbers are re-reviewed i will inform the superintendent and i will then work with the various departments to have them review their upcoming purchase requests and identify cost savings and or i will possibly decrease the budget allotments to ensure fiscal solvency whereby we have sufficient revenue sources to cover our expenditures
043all non-essential purchases may be asked to be put on hold and possibly some of our funded capital projects may need to be reevaluated that being said while the goal is our commitment to the education of our students and seeking improved outcomes my goal is addressing fiscal sustainability for the agency and our students our financial success is dependent on planning and prioritizing as we move through the rest of the fiscal year as well as looking into the future i appreciate all of the support collaboration and efforts the agency instructional and support staff along with our leadership team have made and continue to make as we continue to look at cost-saving initiatives using the resources that we have available to us which definitely applies to pillar four of our strategic plan which is effective resource management if
044there are no questions on any of the information presented this does conclude my report of the agency's informational and fiscal data for business services thank you are there any questions for ms cooper i do have a question this is shelley i was wondering about this 500 000 it's unfortunate that we won't be able to receive this um i wonder as far as the different grants that we may be available to are you looking into alternatives hi shelly thank you for that question and yes we are um actually because of our non-lea status we have not been eligible to apply for a numerous number of grants so we are hoping to be able to beef up our donations looking at other resources that are available to us but we are limited in what we can and
045cannot apply for because of that current status right now does that answer your question [Music] yes it does thank you you're welcome are there any other questions for ms cooper okay uh thank you ms cooper we appreciate your report as always um and next up on the agenda is item 7.01 information item introduction of possible discussion policies gdjcs g c f and g c b c uh miss murphy good afternoon uh board president nigro members of the board superintendent reichman assistant superintendent rex um you all have before you the red lines of the aforementioned policies um i have not heard any feedback from of the board members at this time and the policies were uh posted on the website i have not received any feedback from members of the public and at this time i
046would like to make myself available for any questions uh hi ms murphy um thank you for uh producing these in in gdj uh there's a proposed change um to allow um a transfer or reassignment of a staff member to a position of greater or lesser pay and that requires previously that required asdb board approval um i can tell you in the last five years i don't recall that ever being brought to our attention we would typically handle these you know on a routine basis uh every year when we do contracts so you know we're doing this work every year it's just there's not a change mid-year um in response to a a change in need at a particular site or in a particular program uh and i understand that there may be a desire to
047have these types of changes if they're needed and again they're rare um to uh to have the superintendent approve it for uh you know for the purposes of expediting that change um you know in terms of the in terms of that change i'm wondering for the the rest of the board members if they have comments on it you know do we wanna have it as proposed um and and that's proposed as the superintendent would approve uh or or or make make that change after consultation with the the board president that's that's what's written uh or proposed to us um you know an alternative could be that the the superintendent would be able to provisionally make that change subject to the ratification of the board um and that would put that before the whole board in
048a board items that the board would be able to see it um i think that you know to me i could be convinced you know either way um but i at least want to put that out there to get the board um you know to discuss it i see uh shelly go ahead hi yes this is shelley i do support the idea of having the superintendent making this decision understanding though that there is a also consult with the board president before proceeding with that decision this is what my thoughts are uh thank you shelly uh is is there anyone else that would like to comment on on this change no okay um all right i wanted to make sure that that we you know we looked at both options um you know because it is
049you know it is a change there so i want to make sure we looked at both options and and uh you know we can get some feedback from this murph if needed um you know this comes up for second read at the next board meeting so you know we can change it prior to implementation we just want to discuss it now that's that's our purpose of first read here that we all get to discuss any potential changes and and uh you know and then we can go forward with it at a later time when it comes up for uh for approval okay thank you um i think seeing no other further comments uh thank you miss murphy thank you all right um the next item on our list is 8.01 called to the public called
050a call to the public on non-agenda items and this one sue k if you're able to read the one comment that we did receive absolutely thank you we received a non-agenda item the subject being importance of board service to a parent from danny lawrence and her comments are good evening thank you board of directors and superintendent reichman for the opportunity this week i was able for the first time to attend the finance committee's public meeting in the past the meeting was held privately and the general public was unable to attend i appreciate the transparency of being able to at least observe thank you by email i requested that documents discussed in that public meeting be made available to members of the public via board docs but was told by the administration that those documents would
051only be viewable in tonight's financial report it is better than nothing but not as effective as having them for the actual meeting i hope you would reconsider in the spirit of accountability in the finance meeting an issue was discussed that i wanted to address here this evening a conversation took place about the creation of the committee and the two board members who have served on it for years in that discussion it was also revealed that only two board members read the policy change suggestions from the government affairs liaison and report back to the board if there are concerns having faced so many difficulties in my own situation getting equitable statewide services from asdb i wanted to express how frustrating it is to hear that only two board members trouble themselves to remain committed to the
052organization's financial situation and that only two of you actually read policy statements that affect how the organization operates additionally in the two years i have attended your board meetings i've watched as board members complain about the six total meetings of this organization they have to attend annually i think it's important to understand that the work of this board truly truly affects in real time whether two thousand children graduate are prepared for college and life reading all the material and paying attention to finances is par for the course for any board service much less appointment from the governor to this board if attending a meeting every other month dissecting finance or reading policy statements is not what you want to be doing please step aside so that someone with a vested interest and passion might be
053willing to serve in terms of service there is always a huge benefit from the perspective of of all the board members what a lawyer and a state employee of an organization that could benefit from policy changes made here have in perspective might be different than a businessman and a doctor all of those thoughts are valuable to make the desired accountability changes that this board sounds committed to in strategic planning it's going to take a lot of work i hope you all can find it in your heart to recommit to taking on the challenge your service here is appreciated and so much needed for so many great kids in our state uh thank you sue kay we can move on to the uh next item uh and that is 8.02 uh discussion item agenda items for
054the next regular board meeting scheduled for march 4th uh 2021 to include discussion to meet in phoenix or virtually i guess the first part of this i'd like to ask if there are any particular issues or items that board members would like to have placed under the agenda for the next meeting on march 4. david is mike gordon hi mike um this isn't necessarily an agenda item that would be uh for the march meeting but uh one of the discussions that did come out of finance committee with mike and ned and shaina and myself was uh the possibility of one of our our work groups uh one of the the um intensives uh that we could we could have a night that would be dedicated to interpretation of finances and understanding just the different um
055how the different funding streams come together the expenditures there's a lot of information and uh and the reports are very thorough as are always the presentations uh of finance committee um you know one thing when we talked of our service on the uh on the finance committee and having been on there for an extended tenure it wasn't as a uh as a burden of service by any means from mike and myself i just want to make that clear um but we'd like to talk uh maybe more thoroughly about some of the finding not that we would but a presentation to the full board i know we've talked about it before and we've done some but i think we probably just kind of uh as mentioned just kind of the tip of the iceberg so i
056think at some point for one of our study sessions that we might want to use that as an agenda okay so what i'm hearing then is instead of an agenda item for the next meeting maybe it can be in the subject of one of our work study sessions later in the year i know we have a few uh planned uh regarding the strategic plan uh coming up in the spring but maybe in the summer fall time period do you think do you think that would that would make sense absolutely that's exactly what i meant yep thank you yeah and we did have one you know a few years ago um you know we had a different um uh uh finance director and or business services director at the time and the reports looked a lot
057different um they're right they're much improved today uh so we're you know we've made a lot of progress since then but i i agree that we could you know i'll use another uh uh hour or so with ms cooper to discuss that thank you okay um are there any other comments about the agenda items for for march 4th okay uh here hearing none the next the the subpart of that um is going to be uh where to hold it whether we're going to meet in phoenix uh whether we're going to have it in person whether we're going to have it virtually uh whether we can try a split um you know hybrid in person and virtual i know we did that with some success in a prior work study session late last year uh you
058know i think uh wanted to get the board members um opinions on that on which mode uh might work for us i know with you know the vaccine being rolled out um that that you know there's gonna be a time this year i i hope maybe later in the spring or early in the summer where we won't have to have this discussion every time and we just you know kind of meet person like we used to do um but in any event for march 4th i think it's close enough that we we want to have a brief discussion about it um is there any any preference amongst the board members for one way or the other and this would be either in person uh hybrid where we have in person and zoom and then totally
059on uh uh on virtual hello this is shelly um i think march 4th is still too soon for an in-person meeting right now um people are still getting vaccinated and then people will need their booster shot so i believe it would be better to meet virtually um for the interim and then we'll see what happens later on in the springtime okay um that's a great idea and i guess i should caveat that with any any in-person um meeting that we would have whether it's you know fully in person or hybrid uh you know we'd still have masking and social distance as community transmission rates are as high as they are today we'd still have those um you know restrictions in place it won't exactly be like it used to be you know maybe when community
060transmission rates go down later in the year hopefully uh you know we we can go back to some semblance of that but any kind of physical gathering i would propose would involve masking and distancing i agree with shelly i think march 3rd is still too soon um and we should probably do it virtually but just until all the vaccinate vaccines kick in and everybody gets a chance and that's my opinion okay this is gordon i i agree david uh particularly here in pima county that the whole vaccination out roll or roll out is uh is quite the cluster so it's going to take a while to get that straightened out for sure so uh i would say hybrid at best but probably totally virtual i think this format works uh well enough okay no i
061i know um you know i i certainly i think like most people i prefer in person but uh you know i want to make sure that everyone's safe and the staff is is safe and and uh you know even though we we do like to be in first moment can be um it looks like then we will have a and we don't need an action on we're not gonna have an action on it but it seems it sounds like having another virtual meeting on march 4th is is going to be the way that we're we're going to go and then we'll you know likely revisit it at that time for the next meeting and and we'll kind of just gauge uh the board and see what their opinion is for the next meeting hopefully by
062the summer we'll be able to to meet at least you know in person again to some extent okay uh the next item is an action item 9.01 adjournment uh do i have a motion to adjourn i move to adjourn this meeting is there a second a second uh always linda on favor hi great and any opposed no no great um excellent thank you so much everyone for your time today uh i really appreciate it um next board meeting is uh usually the march is very full so um we'll uh we'll be prepared for that and uh thank you so much and thank you to the the production staff the interpreters and and everyone that was able to produce this and uh and distribute it um i think you've gotten pretty good at it over the
063last year so thank you again thank you guys have a good day