001I'd like to call this meeting to order and we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance. And uh Mr. Webb, would you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Use your teacher voice to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisibley and justice for all. And this is some kind of a record. I don't believe we've ever had this many people come to a board meeting unless they were mad at the whole board and the school and the world and then they came to complain about everything. So, I think this is going to be a great night. I appreciate you all being here. I hope you stay till the very end. We'll start. Um, Dr. Wright, I'm going to turn the these recognition
002awards over to you and let you go through those and take care of that part of the agenda. Thank you, Mr. Merrell. We'll start Mr. Kluff and Miss Ashcroft, can you come up please ascrep and introduce the teams and let's start uh coach with the junior high with and then we have coach Kodlesie and coach Willilifford. Here they are. Is that it? I want to come up here. Squish in. Squish in, guys. Are you done? Are you good? Hey, could I have all the high school track athletes please line up right here? Give me Give me seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen. So, just a a brief rundown real fast on on spring sports as it stands. Our our boys were 13 and four on the year. Boys baseball, they were the 11 seed going into
003the tournament. They played a playin game last week against Chin Lee. They won 4-2. They're currently playing down in Snowflake right now in the first round of the playoff. Yeah, back up a little bit. Girls softball didn't make the playoff. They were six and 12 on the year. They were ranked fourth in the region, but they were 32nd overall. So, they didn't make the playoff. And then golf season just finished up this last week. They had 14 meets this year. They did their White Mountain Invitational, they had 22 teams show up this year and and did really well. So, they're in a little bit of growing year. Uh Noah Chi, who is also a baseball player, doubled as a golf athlete and a baseball player. So, did fantastic on the year. Really good. So, what
004I'm going to allow these kids to do real fast since they never get a talk is I'm going to allow them to introduce themselves and they're going to say what event events they qualified in. Hey, shh. This isn't hard. Quick. They're going to do it quickly. Okay. So, here you go. Introduce yourself. I'm Spencer Brandon and Whoa. I'm going in the 800 and the 4x8. Uh, I'm Josh and I'm going for the 4x8. Pass it and go. Go. I'm Andrew and I'm going for triple jump. I'm Zay Jud and I'm going for the 4x4. I'm Micah Hills and I'm going for the 4x8 the trip or triple jump and maybe the 4x4. I'm Sydney Jones and I'm throwing discus. I'm Ga Dro and I'm running the 4x8 and the opening. I'm Ashlin Smith. I'm doing
005discus shot put in and chaplain. I'm Carter and I'm running the 4x1. I'm Holland. I'm doing pull vault. I'm Scarlet. I'm also doing pull vault. I'm Jacob and I'm doing the 4x1. I'm Daniel and I got triple jump. Tray going for triple jump. I'm Brax. I'm going for the 300 pull vault in the 4x1. Uh I'm Bre and I'm going for the 100 and 4x1. I'm Miley. I am going for the 4x1 4x4 100 meter hurdles and 300 meter hurdles. I'm Caitlyn and I'm going for the 4x1 4x4 triple jump and the 100. I'm McKenzie and I'm going for triple jump and disc. I'm Whitley and I'm going for pull ball. I'm Payton and I'm going for a 4x1 and 4x4. I'm Molly and I'm going for a long jump. I'm Bri and I'm going
006for a long jump. I'm Victoria and I'm going for the 4x8. I'm Marina and I'm going for the 4x8. I'm Chloe and I'm going for triple jump and high jump. I'm Noel and I'm going for the 400 high jump 4x1 and 4x4. I'm Darien and I'm going for high jump. I'm Jet and I'm going for the 4x8 and open eight. I'm Gage and I'm going for the 4x8. So, our kids did really good this year. We qualified 32 athletes for the division track meet. Um, this weekend it's going to be at Deer Valley High School on Friday and Saturday the 9th and the 10th. We'll leave Friday morning to go down and it's a it's a two-day track meet. Really excited. Um, just some some notable things up there. Um, we have a lot of
007great kids. We want to tell our seniors that we love them. We're grateful for all the work that they've done over the last four years. Notable um performances this year. Ashlin Smith, who was really modest in her introduction, um is top five in the state right now in either the shot disc in Javelin um doing really really well. She scored 199 points this year in the nine qualifying track meets that we we attended. So did a really good job. Really proud of Ashlin. So, and then our coaches um that helped us this year. We have Bob London who helped with the throws, Jamie London who helped with the jumps and the hurdles. Coach Gro that did the horizontal jumps. Uh Mike Saray also did the horizontal jumps. Um coach uh Greg Saray did our short
008sprints, the one and the two and the 4x1. You have uh coach uh Gary Corkran who's our distance coach. And then, am I forgetting anybody? I said everybody right. Harris. Oh, and then Britney and Luke Harris. Both Britney coaches the high jump and the hurdle and Luke helped with the high jump as well. So, nine coaches on staff this year. We had an excellent season. We're super proud of our kids. And go Jackets. This I just got to say that's an awesome representation to take to district. That is that's pretty impressive. Great group of kids. Good job. Great job, kids. Mr. Lefront, could you come up and introduce the uh engineering solar go-kart team? testing. All right. Thank you for letting us uh come today. Um, part of the reason why I wanted to uh
009come is to share um the team and uh there's been a lot of you that have asked questions about uh the engineering program and so we just wanted to um give you um uh feedback on how we were doing. Um, one way uh we can do that is by going to these competitions that were sponsored by tax donations through the community um and other things. And so um we had this competition um down in um Tucson and we came back. It was a solar go-kart competition that involved mechanical engineering and structural and electrical and things like that. We got two awards, the rookie as well as the endurance award. And we have quite a group here. And uh basically a return on investment. Um you want to know that what we're doing is um providing
010um growth and really helping the students out. And so um this is that. All right. Hi. Uh, I'm Justice. I'm captain of the robotic engineering team, pardon me. Uh, I've got a few people with me over here to speak today. Uh, Aiden Weber, the vice president, Jenna, one of the lead mechanics, Robinson on VEX, Damian in the back there talking about our SARS solar go-kart race. And Kay, the rookie, who is going to be talking about, well, the benefits of this program. So, uh, with that, I'm going to be taking my leave on that, and I hope to continue working with you guys in the future. So, BRUSD engineering it, we focus mainly on VEX robotics and um a go-kart competition called Racing the Suns. During Racing the Suns, we performed very well. And I
011believe that it was our skills we learned doing VEX, which is more of teaching us the um skills of engineering where we could apply it in the solar go-kart race that we really did well. Here is K, our rookie who can testify on that. We've worked on this for a long time and uh was really new to it, but my brother and Jenna um were the people who helped me out the most. I learned from almost nothing to a lot in the span of almost like two months. Who will pass? And now we have Robinson talking about VEX robotics. Some of the importance about VEX robotics mainly consists about what was it designing a robot and more practically using our abilities for designing and putting them in the field for like more of our what
012was it the challenges they have each year. So then we would have to cooperate as a team more directly to at least make a robot come up with a strategy and score as much points as we could while obtaining or getting through the obstacles. In addition to that, we also work with the we also work with Arizona Game and Fish. We've been 3D printing some skulls for them to use for demonstrations. We've been making dissolved oxygen sensors, etc., etc. And now, lastly, my father, Mr. Adam Jerard. Uh, hello, my name is Adam Gerard. I'm the executive director, Arizona at Work, Nor Eastern Arizona, the DO funded workforce program. Uh, I took interest in this program because I don't know if the school board knows, but these fine young people spend anywhere from 12 to 20
013hours working on robots, working on cars, the SARS. Um, and I also want to commend this teacher you have here. Um, I don't know how he does it cuz he's down there 24/7 working with these kids in that lab. Um, but just some highlights from our race because I think we've kind of bypassed that a little bit. Our car broke down the day we got down there and all these individuals huddled around each other and I me and Mr. Lefront sat back and watched because we're not allowed to help and they figured it out and the even the judges were impressed. Everyone was impressed. In fact, I had a meeting with him Benergy this morning and because it's a solar car, I have actually been able to recruit five solar companies that now want to
014invest in this team. So they are they are the only rural SARS solar car team in the state of Arizona. They're the only ones. Everyone else has got a what a 20 $30,000 $40,000 budget. We did it with 5,000 or less using a car that we knew had problems. Um, but they figured it out and at the end of the day they won the endurance and they won rookie of the year because out of all the teams that they were playing around with, this is the team that stuck together like glue. Uh, they huddled together, they moved together, they figured out problems together. Um, and I want to commend my son. He did an amazing job of of leading. But I I found that there were multiple leaders in this group. So, next year, what
015I want the school board to be aware of is that we are going to get an entry- level car. Uh, it's it's another investment that I found a sponsor for. Uh it's about $2,500 there. And this is for our freshman, uh Khloe, who's coming up out of junior high. It's going to be for the freshman team. And then our senior team is called a maker class. They have to make the car from scratch. So that's what they're doing next year. They're going to build their own car. So again, I want to give a special praise to this team and this teacher, this coach, and all the people that supported it. It's amazing. So please, please support engineering. And with that, purple and gold, let's protect the hive. Well done. Well done. Come on up for
016your picture, please. Come on up here, kids and sponsors and coaches. I'll add to the school board, too, for a couple of you that are newer, that's the only Fab Lab in the state of Arizona that a that a public school has. And so, great things happen in that program. And Mr. Lefront's been doing a lot of work in addition to this team with the Fab Lab generally. Courtney Hoffmire has also done a lot of work in scheduling and supporting that effort. And so it does give us a unique a unique uh offering for our kids. in in addition to the Fab Lab. I also want to give a little bit of a shout out to our auto program and our construction programs. We brought those back about six, seven, it's been almost eight years
017ago and both of those programs are thriving and they have tremendous outcomes. And so our CTE programs, if you're if you don't know, are among the best. And so we're grateful for the teachers that and sponsors and for those that invest in those programs and put in time. It really fills a unique and important need. So thank you. So now we'd like to go on to the students of the month. If I have the principles coming up, uh Mr. Grace, Principal Hoffmeer, and Mr. Webb, you can come up please and announce the May students of the month. Good evening. Our May student of the month, Giana Sparrow, come on up. All right. All right. So, Gianna is a fourth grader here at the elementary school. Um, her teacher nominator for student of the month and
018her teacher or uh wrote, "Janna is a wonderful child and an outstanding student. She consistently demonstrates respectful behaviors, works well with her peers, and always puts forth her best effort in class. Her positive attitude and dedication to learning make her a joy to have in the classroom. In addition to her academic efforts, Gianna is also a participate are also participates in choir where she continues to shine as a committed and enthusiastic member. She has shown notable academic growth this year and is finishing out a fantastic fourth grade. Gianna is truly a role model and an excellent excellent example of the kind of student that we hope to have throughout our schools. Um Gianna is is great. Um I see her every day at lunch when I have lunch duty. I've never seen her in my
019office for anything. Um, she's she's the type of kid that we want to have in every single classroom. She demonstrates everything we want. Um, Janna Sparrow Good evening. Could I please have Gabriel Spencer come up? And there is a cookie. There's a free cookie or free card. So you go ahead and stand. Okay. All right. So, I had some um I had some really great things that some teachers sent me that I want to share and then I I want to share a little bit um myself as well. But Gabriel is an amazing young man and always a pleasure to have in class. He's exceptionally kind, thoughtful, and polite with everyone. Gabriel is a great student, always challenging himself to learn and grow. Gabe's kind spirit and quiet strength shines in all that he does.
020Gabe consistently demonstrates a respectful attitude towards both peers and teachers. He participates in classwork, showing a strong effort to complete tasks to the best of his ability. When faced with challenges, he shows great self-awareness by recognizing when he needs assistance and confidently asking for help. Gabriel is also the best timekeeper I've ever seen at the junior high. He will always let me know when recess is over or when there we are scheduled for something, he lets me know exactly what time it is. Um, and so he but he begins every day with respect towards his teachers. I hear him saying hello to people in the hallway. He always greets me with a hello. Um, and then as he leaves every day, he he always without fail says goodbye and have a nice night. So, he
021is just an a great example of uh he's just a role model on our campus and we are so lucky to have him. We've got him next year as well. He's only in seventh grade so we've got him for one more year. So, Gabriel Spencer Good job. All right, Dylan, come forward, please. High school, we'd like to recognize Dylan Nez as our high school student of the month, month of May. All right. So, I want tell a little bit about Dylan. So, throughout his high school years, Dylan has demonstrated his work ethic through his involvement in NHS blood drives. He's also set up water stations for the White Mountain Half Marathon, all while pursuing his passion for running. You probably seen him running around campus in neighborhoods. He's a runner. Um, he has also been
022committed member of the track team for four years, showing teamwork and perseverance. He has taken honors in AP classes in high school and performed well. His efforts in and out of the class classroom were evident as he was awarded and he's kind and knows when to help out. He was awarded the prestigious Gates Scholarship, which is impressive as one of 750 scholars chosen from a pool of 48,000 applicants. Yeah, it's impressive. So now Dylan is he belongs to an elite group of young leaders, individuals who exemplify the very best in academic achievement, service, and commitment. The Gate scholarship covers full cost of attendance, including tuition, fees, room and board, books, and transportation. So this fall, Dylan will be heading to ASU to study civil engineering. The Gates Scholarship recognizes his leadership, dedication, and his potential
023to create meaningful change. Congratulations, Dylan. We're proud of you. All right, I'm up next. Okay, let's uh I need to I'm going to go ahead and do this as a combined award. We're going to recognize Rachel Thompson and Sydney Lento as our teachers of the month for May. All right. So, probably understand a little as I go through this recognition and of why we're joining them together. So, both Rachel and Sydney have shown exceptional dedication and flexibility this year. Rachel, who teaches math and serves as student council sponsor, and Sydney, who teaches both math and biology and is also a student council sponsor, both willingly stepped outside their comfort zones to teach subjects that were unfamiliar to them. Not only did they rise to the challenge, they exceeded all expectations. Their commitment to student success
024is evident in everything they do. From their efforts in the classroom to their tireless work in building school spirit, their devotion to our students and school community is truly inspiring. Thank you Rachel and Sydney for your hard work, enthusiasm, and unwavering support of all the kids and the staff at school. We appreciate you. and and also very proud that they are Blige students as well. Next up too, keep going. It's the Blige High School show. And finally for our the be our star award for this month, we want to recognize Denise London. Denise unfortunately can't be here tonight, but we still want to recognize her. And let me get to my page on her notes. So we're proud to recognize Denise London as our be star. She exemplifies what it means to be a dedicated
025Blige employee. Her commitment to our students and school community shines through in everything she does. Denise works tirelessly to ensure students are informed about scholarship opportunities and she plays a key role in guiding them through the application process. She's a constant present at nearly every high school event. It's an impressive feat given how many there are and always goes the extra mile to capture and share those moments. Through her photography and outreach, Denise highlights the achievements of our students and staff, helping foster a strong sense of pride and community at Blige. It's been an honor to work alongside Denise these past six years at the high school. Her passion, energy, and drive for Bluidge will continue, I'm sure. And this is why we want to recognize her as a PR star. Very welld deserving. Hey,
026real real quick, Lauren, before you um I don't know how many The Gates has been going on for about 20 years, and I'm sure for a school our size, we've had way higher percentage of Gates scholars than any other school in the nation, probably. And most of that is because of Denise London. That's right. Thank you, Mr. We we've also had about four merit scholars I believe during the history of of BR and they're they are the only four merit scholars that have been on the mountain. It's an amazing honor and every year we send our kids to some of the top universities milit militarymies and our kids assume important roles as HVAC plumbers. They go on and work in civil service. We have an outstanding kids. Thank you for highlighting that Mr. Grenal it.
027Now it is with great pleasure that I introduce our Tommy Crane recipients for 20 242 school year. And so for those of you that are unaware of what this award is, our BR stars are named monthly. They come from all walks of the BR family. Every department, everybody's eligible to win. And we have had we take from that pool of winners. We name two. They used to be Br be our superstars, but we changed that name two years ago to the Tommy Crane Award and and those of us that had the pleasure and honor of working with this sweet and know that he uh best of all exemplified our core values of integrity, courage, commitment, and respect. And so, lucky enough, Tommy lived long enough to see us change that. And uh he was here
028last year. Um I believe he was here last year when we awarded it. That was the last time. And he he passed away a couple months later. So this is the highest honor that we have to bestow upon any of our BR family members and it is given a lot of thought that we make this uh presentation and there are two people and they're always outstanding people. There are two people tonight that I'm going to work really hard to get through this. First of all, as I said before, those core values of commitment, courage, respect, and integrity, these individuals exemplify that daily. They are just quality human beings. In addition to being outstanding educators, and I mean outstanding educators for all students, they have a belief that is easy to see that a light that
029radiates within them that causes them to help all kids. They are exceptional teachers. They are also outstanding human beings. They are unbelievable role models for our kids to look up to. And so it is with absolute great pleasure and honor that I introduce the 2024 2025 Tommy Crane Award recipients, Rebecca Woods and Justin Reop. All right. Thank you, Mr. Merrell. Boy, those are we have some outstanding students and teachers and it just brings me a great deal of pleasure and I know it does to the whole board when those recognitions are passed out like that. We It makes us proud. We see that. We see that the board the board sees that uh that extra effort goes into the entire school district from every employee here. Appreciate it so much. So much. Next item on
030the agenda. And by the way, I need to excuse Margaret Gab. She went to the dentist today and she really can't talk right now. So, she's decided to stay home. Um, next item on the agenda is a consent agenda. Uh board, are there any items in the consent agenda that' be at 2.1 through 2.8 that you would like to take out and vote on independently or can we vote on as the consent agenda? Nothing you'd like to take out and vote independently. So then can we have a motion to accept the consent agenda as represented in items 2.1 to 2.8? Have a motion. I have a motion from from um Michael, second from Sivana. All in favor? Appears to be unanimous. Okay. Item 3.1, recommendation to approve the revised budget. Um Kimberly Dougell, would you
031like to go over that with us? Oh, sure. Oh, I forgot to turn my I know you just love to go over the budget every Yeah, sure. It's exciting. Okay, so um part of ASRS statute is uh ASRS, not that's retirement. See what I have on my mind? Part of the Arizona revised statute is that all school districts have to revise their budget um by May 15th. You can revise your budget as just for some knowledge, you can um revise your budget as many times as you want. It's really not needed, but you do have to revise it by May 15th of every um year. It's just part of the law. So, this is our um revised budget. And then for um our second revised budget in December, um sometimes the Arizona Department of Education
032tells you you have to revise your budget. So sometimes you have to revise in December. Some people choose to revise in December. Um, also some people choose to revise in September because the auditor general's office does not release the new budget forms in time for us to stay in compliance with the law which says we have to approve the new fiscal year budget by July 15th. So they used to just make us wait, make us wait, make us wait, but there's deadlines that have to be met and they're in statute and there's no way to get around them. So, in the past couple years, instead of making us wait until the last minute and have you guys have to have an extra board meeting and all these extra meetings, um they've just decided to release
033the old forms. So, you adopt the new budget on the old forms and then you need to revise either you can choose to do it in September. Um, you don't have to, but most people decide to just do the revision in December, um, just so they have it on the new forms for the May revision, but you can wait until May to put it on the new forms as well. Um, it's just up to the school district. I would recommend that moving forward, you just like we've been doing, revise in December, get it on the new forms, um, with all the new weights and all of that, just so it's up to date for the May revision. All right. So, um, our student population did not change very much. We're only down 7.9. And just
034an explanation, the reason there's decimals is because they're not counting students. We're counting FTE, full-time equivalency in our district. So, we have students that are all at different um, enrollment um, percentages. And so, that's why you have those percentages. We don't really have We didn't really lose 7.9 students. We we lost 7.9 FTE. I can say since I've been at Blige, we really have slowed down on our enrollment loss. So, I have I feel like we're kind of at a a pretty good point with our declining enrollment. I think it will continue to decline, but it won't be as steep as it has been. Um so, 7.9 is really not that much um from our our second revision. um you always go a little bit high on your adopted budget just so that you have
035your budget capacity. That's why that number's high like that. Um for your group B, that's um your K3 reading, all your special ed weights, your gifted weight, your free and reduced lunch rate, your gifted rate. You can see in the originally when we did the adopted budget, we used last year's numbers and then um when we did the group when we did the revised budget in December, AD did not have our K3 reading um budget approved. So our numbers were not um in our data. You can put the numbers in there if you choose to. I just choose not to. I just make it accurate. We know we'll get it approved eventually. Um, we submit the K3 reading stuff in um by October 1st. It takes the state board of education months and months and
036months and months and months to approve it. They eventually approve it, but as you can see in December, they still hadn't approved it. Um, they approved it, I think this year in like the end of January. It'll eventually get on there. So that's why the number um went up so much is because we added our K3 reading budget, we added our gifted weight and our free and reduced lunch weight. Um but just um overall in the state of Arizona, special needs um enrollment is going up everywhere in the state. So you will continue to see that number rise. And I'm sure you've heard the news or whatever, but we do not get enough funding to cover our needs for special ed, and neither does any school district in the state of Arizona. That will be
037an ongoing battle. All right. So, you can see here, I just put a little I just made like a little chart so that you can see um where our budget was at um at our adopted, our revision one, and our revision two. There's just a slight difference. We're up about $342,000 in M. Um that's for a couple reasons. one, we added our um extra group B students, so that increases our budget. We also, if you remember last month when I talked about our classroom spending report and you saw our transportation and it was a big red, very high, and I said we've submitted all the paperwork that needs to be submitted to fix that. Well, that got fixed and that gave us about an extra $100,000 in capacity. So, that's part of the $349,000. Um,
038so this is just kind of shoring shoring us up. Um and if just for your own knowledge, if there's an issue with our enrollment, um we can um capture budget capacity um retroactively for next year that it's it's almost everything's fixable. So if there was a mistake on our enrollment or something, we can fix it um with a 915 just like we fixed our um transportation. All right, classroom site fund. I just want to bring this out. This is the um fund that pays for Prop 301. This year we did a $9,200 in Prop 301 for every qualifying teacher. That's the highest Blue Rouge has ever done. Um and so that pot of money this year is about $252,000. Um we'll spend all of that um on our prop. So just um for a little
039bit of information, part of the prop money goes in base salary and then part part of the prop money is performance pay. Um this year the performance pay it'll be a little bit higher. Um we had a good sales year in the state of Arizona. So our Prop 301 money is just a little bit higher per student. Prop 301 or um classroom site fund is based on sales in Arizona. So when I first started um in school finance, I don't even remember what it was when I f when it first passed. I have no idea. But when I first started in school finance, it was about $425 a student. Now it's almost $800. So, it's that that just shows how good um Arizona is doing with sales tax and how good our economy is. But,
040it could drop I bring this up because it could drop back down. It's very variable. Um so, just an FYI, we'll pay out the um second part of the Prop 301 money um in the first payroll of June. End of May. All right. Are there any questions? questions. Michael, I I had one question. It's kind of in the consent agenda, but that that company that's going to do the auditing, that's the one that you kind of wanted. Oh, yeah. That's our hind beach and I don't know. Yeah. Other questions? All right. So, we need to approve the revisions as presented to us with this u presentation just now. So I have a motion to approve the revised budget for fiscal 2025. Motion from Siliana, a second. Michael, all in favor? That also looks to be
041unanimous. Okay. Item 3.2, recommendation to approve the JLA Junior Leadership Academy. The shims aren't here. Yeah, she Beth called and asked if we could do that next month in June. So So we'll table this. Yes, sir. Please. We'll table this to June. All right. Item 3.3, a recommendation to approve the junior high course content book for 202526. Yeah, there's uh we've got a couple of little adjustments that were noted and we'll be making changes right up until school starts, but just not substantive little things like you caught names that change, typos, things like that. But it won't change in terms of the won't change the content content or rules uh substantially. Is there any questions about that content book? Miss Hoffmire's here. She'll answer all those questions. She knows that book by heart. I I
042have a question, Courtney. Are we losing any um like specials or or anything like that for next year? Uh the only special that we're we are not going to have at the junior high next year that we had this year was theater tech. And the reason for that is that they're getting the same content in junior high that they're getting their freshman year. And so we just felt like that's, you know, we we are still though trying to fill uh we've got a Fab Lab first hour Fab Lab elective that we're still trying to we're still trying to shore that up, but that one's still listed in our but everything else is remaining. Awesome. Thank you. We have a motion to accept item 3.3, the the uh junior high course content book for 202526. I'll
043move. I have a motion from Michael. I have second from Bridget. All in favor? That also looks to be unanimous. Okay. Item 3.4, recommendation to approve the Prop 301 pay. Uh Kimberly, you explained that a little bit. You want to just explain it again for the uh uh yes. Item on the agenda. Yeah, this is just um the agenda item to for you all to approve for us to be able to pay out the second portion of the Prop 301 and that will go out the end of May. The end of May. Mhm. Okay. Any questions about that additional monies? If not, and we have a motion to accept item 3.4 as presented. I'll move motion from Michael, a second from Sylviana. All in favor? That also looks to be unanimous. Recommend uh item 3.5
044recommendation to approve the hire of the following employees. Are any of those employees here that we'd like to recognize? Any of those individuals? We have a motion then to approve the uh list as uh presented to us in this item 3.5. I I have a one question. Okay. Um is is this for next school year? I mean, some of this is for next school year. Some of this is immediate. I'm assuming the teacher is for next school year. Harry's saying it's immediate. Uh I know for sure um for my department's transportation facilities that's immediate. Those jobs like are constantly opening. I don't know. I don't think so. He's an electrician. That was pretty good. Do you want to answer that? Um, David Butler worked for us last year um when he returned from his mission.
045That is Kyla Butler's son. Okay. He was a sped aid with the sixth grade last year and then this year while he was filling some time between I think he's going to Mexico to teach in the fall. Um he he was on a Spanish speaking mission and so he learned Spanish and now he's going to go teach in Mexico in the fall. Um so this is just to finish out the school year. He was just filling a spot with Miss Dye um that we needed to go ahead and fill for this semester in her self-contained special needs class. And I believe he was also riding the bus for us which is great as a special needs aid. So correct that's very helpful. And and what's what role is Cynthia going to take over? Um, so
046we had a teacher transition from the elementary school to the junior high at Christmas and Tyler Wagenfir doubled over as a special education teacher and teaching sixth grade math and science. Um, and then Cynthia is going, we already hired her to come in, fill the finishing of the year and uh, kind of hit the ground running as the special education teacher for sixth grade next year. All right. So, I think we probably ought to read these names and what they're going into. Cynthia Rothosberger, a teacher in elementary. David Butler's fed aid in elementary. Theodore Harris mechanic transportation. Rosa Ramirez, custodial custodian and facilities. So, um, any questions about any of those others? Not. We have a motion to accept those individuals as presented in item 3.5. Have a motion from Michael, second from Bridget. All
047in favor? That also looks to be unanimous. Okay. Item 3.6 a recommendation to approve the inter the inter intergovernmental agent intergovernmental agreement IGA career and technical education course. Now this is between Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology in Blige. This is a housekeeping item that we have to do every year. Yes, it is. And it had the agreement hasn't changed substantially. We always have it reviewed annually and it's a good arrangement for us for our career and technology programs. Any questions about that? If not, can we have a motion to accept item 3.6? A motion from Michael. Uh second from Sylviana. All in favor? That also looks to be unanimous. Okay. Item 3.7. There's a list of things that uh Dr. Wright you'd like to update us on. Thank you. Absolutely. We had the balora
048last night. It was well attended and well organized and so we appreciate the effort that went into that. On the 9th, we had the teacher staff the annual barbecue. We're doing it a little different. We're doing a district-wide this Friday. The board will post a possible quorum if you want to come and help flip burgers or just join and have food with us. Come on over. I believe that's 1:30 to 3:30. It is. And so that's that's always a fun event. on the 10th, the 13th will be the senior trip for the kids that qualified and went and are going to Disneyland. And God bless those uh sponsors that are going with him. And Mr. Webb, if he's one of them, hope he makes it back. The senior walk at the elementary schools May 14th
049as his scholarship night. And on 15th of May, we have a barbecue from 11 at 11:00 a.m. That's a senior barbecue. That's kind of fun, too. for the boards just for your notification. We'll notice a possible quorum for all events so you can come and don't have to worry about it. As long as you're not talking about schoolboard business, you're good. The uh last day of school is the 15th of May. Graduation is the 17th, excuse me, 16th at 7 p.m. And then um lock in at grad night if anybody wants to help. They're always looking for help at that event and it's a great event. And so if you want to come, come on in. And that usually starts, I think, at 11:00 p.m. Uh, so I usually sleep a little bit, go back,
050wake up, and go come back. Mr. Web's there the whole time. Don't know how he does it. Are there any questions on any of those events, Mr. Merrill or board members? If not, that'll conclude my report. I don't just uh just by way of information, the board is not actually kind of expected to be there to hand out diplomas. I won't be there this this month, so you guys will have to carry the weight. It's cold. Dress warm. I was going to say dress appropriately. Yeah, dress warm. Bring a blanket to sit there. All right. So, the next item on the agenda is uh call to the public. If there's anyone here that would like to address the board, we'd invite you to do so. We'd like to keep you limited to u perhaps about
051three three to four minutes. And um just um just a caution not to not not to be personal to any board member or any member of the staff but uh and we can't comment on what is being asked or or asked or commented about but we can also refer that to staff to look into. But uh welcome uh looks like we have somebody that would like to be there. Valerie Borega, is there a microphone out there? We got one. Great. and I understand you can't um respond and that's fine. And my my last name is Bergo um 1980 Blige graduate. Um what I was wanting to address the board of is one of the elephants in the room and um I don't mean to rain on the parade after all the wonderfulness from your board
052meeting but it's um one of those pleasant denials that um has not been addressed for a while even before I came to Blige. I'm a special ed pair professional have been for about three decades. This this is the fifth school district I've worked for. Um what I was wanting to address is that when we have when staff has an issue with with um somebody in a certain position that has um exclusive rights then we don't have HR an HR person to go to um for when we want to deal with something and um I have been dealing with something that has been causing me a lot of mental emotional stress and even financial hardship because of the way this issue has been handled. And I have approached I I've had in the loop our superintendent
053and Mr. Webb and I've talked to Miss Penrod and Mr. Kluff about this issue and there's nobody that they can tell me who can help me and other staff that have issues. Um we don't have an advocate. So it just year after year doesn't get addressed or resolved. So, what I'm asking the b the board is to please consider it could be anonymous um with talking to your sta the staff at this school district if they have something that they need to possibly resolve because about a half dozen staff that I understand this is also going on with. Um there's nobody that we have no recourse or anybody to talk to because all those staff members have told me we don't know we don't have anybody you can talk to that can help you out.
054So when there is issues um who do the who does the staff go to because they're fearful of leaving their job. I will not be returning next fall mainly because of this issue. Um I love Blige always have. Um, my kids went to school here. My two oldest graduated from Blige, seven of my siblings. And it's just heartbreaking to see that we have staff that are too afraid to know where to take an issue without them being afraid of there being some recourse. And um so I'm just encouraging you or whoever to please look into talking to these teachers or the staff in a discrete way to see how you can help them and um resolve these things without them having to have a gag order per se. Um as I said, none of them
055can tell me what to do about the issue. And I had feel like because I don't have anybody in my corner to help me out that I'm going to need to go to the legal counsel um to be able to see if they can help me because this is an ongoing problem right now and it's still causing me stress because it's not been resolved. Um and that's pretty much all I have to say. And um I'm usually the one through the years that's the one that will say what most people are thinking and it it's probably just the way my brain works because I don't understand why other people don't speak up and for to preserve my own self-respect. I have to say something on behalf of myself and these other other staff members. Thank
056you for your time. Thank you. Um, I'm sure we'll have staff look into that and see if there's any type of resolution that can be taken by the district. Anyone else like to address the board at this time? If not, the only announcement we have is our next board meeting will be June 9th and uh it will be at 5:00 on this location. Um, so we need a motion to adjourn this uh meeting right now. I have a motion to adjurnn. Have a motion from Michael, second from Bridget. All in favor of adjournment. That also is unanimous. Thank you.