001with the Pledge of Allegiance everyone everyone please stand I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to Republic Nation indivisible withy and justice for all to welcome everybody here this evening uh Diana Butler is participating remotely her health issues won't let her leave her home right now so she is online with us on the phone and we'll be participating that way remotely so we'll Begin by turning some time over to Dr Wright for some special recognition Awards thank you we'll start out with the students of the month and let's go in reverse order Mr Grace if you'd like to announce your student of the month okay let's do it the other end yes sir Mr web let's start with you buy some time real slow all right thank you for
002coming out tonight having could we go ah and do a roll call pass the mic down actually if I could have Britney Eddie come forward she's going to be proxy for Morgan so this is Morgan Eddie's mom you have to give her a speech too no so so the high school we want to recognize Morgan and the so this is what we said about Morgan she's we recognize her for the student of the month for October she's an honor student taking a full load of Honor classes AP classes and dual enrollment classes for English Spanish and government and maintaining a 4.0 GPA in all of her classes over the years in addition to her academic load she stays busy with soccer and track being the soccer captain and she received honorable mention last year for
003soccer she's also been in student council all four years last year was the junior class secretary this year she's senior class vice president she's also super competitive and tremendous has tremendous determination she had a snowboarding accident her sophomore year right and that didn't slow her down while she was in the hospital she was still determined to C keep curtain with her grades and she did um she got back out on the mountain last year and and I happened to catch up with her group and she's competitive she wanted to race me down the mountain and I think she beat me too so super competitive um she's also got a heart and a lot of compassion and and love for the other kids and I saw that firsthand with one of the exchange students she really
004made this exchange student feel part of the school part of the community part of her friend group part of the teams everything that she was participating in she was one of the and that's what Morgan does she just reaches out to everyone around her and makes them makes them feel important so we want to recognize for Morgan for the amazing things that she does and she's not here tonight because she's she's at play practice getting ready to go and then she's got soccer this evening too so that's that's Morgan so we want to recognize Morgan thank you the junior high now miss hofm yes could I please have Riley Sherman come up to the front so Riley is an eighth grader at the Junior High um and she was nominated by a teacher um and
005then heartily um heartily selected by many others as well um Riley is an exceptional e8th grade student at bluid Junior High known for her dedication school spirit and involvement in both academics and extracurricular activities she's an active participant in various School sports showing commitment and teamwork on and off the field Riley also contributes to her community Through projects such as the Fall Festival Parade which we're still waiting on we're still rating on results from the float um but she was an instrumental part of that um and demonstrating leadership and a strong sense of responsibility her enthusiasm for school spirit events is contagious and she consistently puts her best effort into all her projects as a role model Riley inspires her peers with her positive attitude hard work and dedication to Excellence in everything she does
006so congratulations to Riley [Applause] Sherman Mr Grace or is chance here yet can have his uncle set in for him okay if it's okay with the board I'd like to do let's go to if it if it places the board then we'll go the next and come back to Chance is that okay Mr rero okay thank you it giving chances award means a lot to me and I know it means a lot to miss Dy and so I'd really like for him to be here so if if it's all right I would like to go ahead and move we're and uh acknowledge our teacher of the month is Miss Crystal reop Miss ROP is is one of the teachers that that we wish we could just clone and have whole campuses of she is an
007absolute Workhorse um every day day in and day out uh she does a phenomenal job with her class the kids love being there um my own daughter was in her class at one point my next daughter says she better be in her class or I'm going to hear about it um but Crystal embodies everything great that that we want in our teachers um she's there early she's she gets everything done that she needs to be done with with if I have bad news she says okay and then she gets back to work and if I have good news she says okay and then she gets back to work um we're absolutely blessed to have uh Mr resop on our campus so teacher of the month [Applause] CH Miss Doug Del for the uh BR Star
008Award [Music] great Karina come on up all right so our BR star this month is Karina so Karina is an invaluable member of the district office um staff um her dedication is truly inspiring she always has a positive attitude she's always willing to help she's constantly going to the schools and helping them with their Capital assets and their GFA items and disposing of things she has been instrumental in revamping our Capital asset program making sure that all of our assets are tracked which is important because we have public money and we need to safeguard our public money and she's just phenomenal at that she has done a fantastic job so I want to give Karina the BR Star Award for this month Miss dougill if you could hold on I'm going to come down there
009and meet you I'd like to uh recognize you yeah thank you so for the past about 18 months Kimberly has been working on um earning a certification it's a very rigorous program through the Arizona Association of school business officials International asbo and she has earned the designation of C excuse me SFO Chief Financial Officer and uh the credential is certified administrator of school finance and operations that's a mouthful and it was a lot of work corre and I would say that conservatively Kimberly is one of the top three in the entire state in terms of character number one thank you Kimberly let's take a picture all right chance come on down all right so our BR or our uh Elementary student of the month is Chance what cop um chance is is probably one of
010my most favorite kids around campus um and so his teacher says chance is a genuine BR Ambassador by exemplifying what it looks like to be an awesome friend and a kind human he is always willing to help his classmates and his teachers without being asked like opening and holding the door or letting others take the first turn when they're doing cooperative play Chance help students who may need extra help by getting them ready for the bus or holding their hands in the hallway so they don't get lost his Pure Love For Humanity and God shines from his heart and his laughter brightens our days we love chance and we are so proud of the young man he has become and we are truly blessed to be a part of his life way to go chance
011[Applause] yes sir you know these BR star awards for kids is a true reflection of their parents and we have their best parents in the best kids in the school district and it just warms my heart to see what they accomplish next item on the agenda would be uh a report from Matt Weber for our navit program Matt you have a mic there you go yes thank you well good evening everyone appreciate the opportunity to be with you tonight uh just want a quick review with you that blidge was one of the original five when we started back in 2000 and we are excited to continue our partnership and I'll be sharing with you the the estimated numbers based on attendance and uh just want to say thank you to superintendent Wright it's wonderful to
012work with Lauren with Chris uh just great great people and we love your students on our campuses um one thing I did want to Quick say just to sh quick shout out for uh Chuck Chuck and I go back to early 90s early 90s in current tech ed and I hear that he's kind of coming to an end here with his terms so on the board and so I just want to say thank you check for all your years of service on this board let alone the the district and pre appreciate what you've taught us over the years um just real quick uh we you are one of 11 total school districts in our current tech ed district and our primary focus is for your students your CTE students to have gainful employment once they
013to graduate from high school that's our number one number one purpose we also want to bring into your school as a funding stream and we'll go over those numbers here in a little bit and then for those who have the opportunity and have the time we do have the central programs that we offer through Northland pioner college and we'll show you a list of those and so just real quick uh as a reminder I I gave board members a paper copy of this um back back when you we first got started you were for 400,000 and and then of course in FY 12 you saw a big drop because that's when we lost our freshman funding and so now our you're just a little bit under 400,000 but grand total they're um I can't find
014the right glasses to wear at this distance 8.6 million so we appreciate the opportunity to bring that funding into your schools since uh fy1 so we're excited about that and so where does that go that goes into all the programs that you see up here on the screen and notice um for a 3A school this is a phenomenal offering we're excited to see that many programs being offered here at bluid high school and just know that's what generates that approximate $400,000 it's your students that are in your CTE programs right here at Blue Ridge and so we're excited about them we appreciate the hard work they do uh for just as a reminder for Cent teed teachers they're required to show proof that they're certifying their students not just going through the program but certifying
015students in their programs and so there's a lot that they that they work on and so this is the latest list of the central programs we offer the Community College the newer ones would be like Behavioral Health uh we're excited about that one we've got seven students in that uh overall uh administration of justice and Sports Med they were brand new last year and so administration of justice is for those who want to ultimately go into a police academy but what do you do until you turn 21 that's why we offer the administration of justice so they have the opportunity to be certified in either um security guard or dispatch and so we're excited about those offerings one of the biggest additions we had was the expansion of our Auto Tech program in sholo we
016have a lot of Blu-ray students there too and so we can take up to 40 students in the morning class in the afternoon class here in shlo so we're excited about those opportunities um with that I want to open up to any questions I learned many years ago if we can articulate this in about six minutes I lose everyone's attention I I recently heard HVAC is that one of the new programs okay I appreciate you bring that up that is nested in the industrial Tech in the it's it now in industrial technology trades and you blid have you supply all of our students in that program and so HVAC is about onethird of that so they will come out with an HVAC um certification they'll also have an eni uh an instrumentation certificate and then
017there's all also uh Alternative Energy but that's going to be in the curriculum next year for the most part and so that is one of the newer programs and we we appreciate Chris advertising that program here because you you're the only school that's represented in that in that classroom so you've got some great students in there they're excited to be there they love it any questions from the board just awesome job yeah thank you very much thank you Diana a question okay just confused no she said no okay all right be safe Diana thank you thank you uh miss hoffmire another presentation on AI uh and how it will affect the school district I understand we're not going to do anything about it till next year but this is information okay thank you good evening
018thank you for your time tonight I'm just going to take a few minutes uh just to talk about some of our efforts in research and practice in um the awareness of artificial intelligence as it's coming into education is becoming a bit more prominent um and so I'm just going to share a few things that we have discussed with our teachers um and then our what our efforts are going to be as far as sharing information with uh with community and uh our efforts moving forward um so one of the things that I just want to point out is what we're already doing um and so from we have a lot of uh vertical growth with digital literacy from some of the higher elementary schools and actually I mean our um even our younger Elementary School
019students now are getting pretty Savvy in using computers and learning some of that digital literacy um but as far as locating information communicating information um synthesizing creating and then human technal technical technological complexities we see that we are building upon that with each grade level really from grade 6 through 12 we are starting to build on that a lot more as students are doing more online work um and a lot of their projects are um are based with online activities so what we have to look at now is what's Bec a lot more prominent is AI in education um and so since chat GPT came out in 2022 that's really when it started to gain uh gain some momentum and really had uh schools just talking about how are we going to handle this new
020this new phenomenon in technology um and so what AI literacy does is teach the evaluation and effective participation in digital in the Digital World um so what we need to start looking at is teaching our students the the considerations of and costs and benefits of artificial intelligence understanding biases and then the ethics in AI because that's a big component of it as well oh sorry so the reason that this is really important for us to be focusing on it um is that we have um there is just there's a growing list of employers that are utilizing AI in the field and so preparing our students for the workforce we have to start considering how AI is going to look 75% of surveyed companies through the world economic Forum plan to implement AI by 2027 um
021and almost 20% of the workforce will be using Ai and so it's important for us to be thinking about how we are going to prepare our students for those complexities as we're moving forward um under the umbrella of artificial intelligence we have I mean from the the umbrella of artificial intelligence building machines to think connect like humans is kind of that big umbrella but then we look at what machine learning is deep learning and then what's really talked about right now is the um generative Ai and that's really what has a lot of uh teachers concerned and uh curious about how we're going to manage this moving forward with chat GPT um and so we're starting to have a lot of those discussions now in a study conducted in May of 2024 and so what's
022really fascinating is all of these it's changing so rapidly um and so all of these studies are coming out now on how employers are implementing it and who's using it and so in May of 2024 this study came out showing that almost 50% of each of these categories each of these groups of people are using AI so parents students teachers I mean that they everybody there are 50% of these groups are using artificial intelligence in some capacity and we need to be thinking about uh there's there's a lot of uh misinformation with AI there's a lot of bias with AI there's a lot that we have to think about with the ethics of using it um and so these are the conversations that we are having U and we're starting to move forward with this
023information was shared with teachers at the beginning of the school year um with so all of our teachers have had this initial conversation and so now we're working on moving into workshops and having people discuss how are we going to utilize this and how are we going to keep our students safe um and yet give them the opportunities to learn this new technology so what super exciting well I mean not not everybody thinks this is exciting I think this is really exciting Federal guidance was put out in May of 2023 um and the biggest emphasis here is that with any kind of artificial artificial intelligence it's important to keep humans in the loop right and so some of the concerns have been AI is going to take over all these jobs well it's not going
024to happen because we have to keep human values and human ethics involved in it um and the compassion and understanding for students so that's not as big of a concern um but there is a lot of guidance on just how how our schools should start looking at this and this came out from um the US Department of Education um and Arizona is the 12th state to put out guidance for teachers and school leaders on how we can start implementing artificial intelligence within schools in a safe manner um and and really start teaching students about the safe practices and providing resources to teachers so that they can start using it as well um so uh this is actually being uh presented in a lot of different places this um State guidance which was put out by
025the Arizona Institute for education and economy out of Na um and so this is a really this is a really important guidance for us because it starts with teaching about bias in Ai and that it is often um it's often Incorrect and we have to be the ones to start create critically examining whether it's useful or not so the uh the AE also put out a challenge for schools in Arizona and here's how here are some beginning steps that you can do and so we are just um we are just dipping our toes in the water right now um we're at the very kind of very beginning stages of looking at how this is going to how we're going to be using this in practice um but the three in three challenge is what schools
026should be doing within the first three months of their school year in preparing students teachers and parents um for for what is for AI and so the first one is determining and slow excuse me clearly communicating the tools the apps the dos and the don'ts for teachers and there are a number of strategies under this that we've already started talking about um we're still in the early stages and so we're encouraging teachers to research different applications and platforms and we're collectively having conversations about how we can use these resources what working as we're trying to use some of these resources and what's not um the next phase or the next step is oop sorry that's still part of the first one um we actually have so this part I want to just mention so we
027already have an acceptable user policy that every student and or every parent and student signs and every teacher signs every staff member signs this to say that we're going to be using our technology in an appropriate manner um but the trust has also put out information on acceptable use for AI um and so this is something to that we we are taking a look at their guidance as well on how we want to move forward with this um so we're also talking with the teachers about pitfalls to avoid a big piece of it and things that uh parts that people get concerned about are the privacy concerns with students um and so maintaining furpa um and HIPPA laws uh these are some important conversations that we're also having with teachers about if you're going to
028be using or or you know being curious about any of these applications we encourage you to try them but we also need to make sure that we're being very careful about any information we're inputting into that uh platform and then finally adopting a system to help teachers communicate the use with AI so what we're working on now is um is taking that guidance from the trust and putting out some information to parents on what we are seeing right now um so some of the concerns that teachers have is that they are seeing some students that are using it for homework help or for essay writing and so those are some of the immediate current concerns that have come up that we're starting to work on um we see it as a shift it's definitely going
029to shift some of the ways that we are instructing in classrooms because we need to find some different ways of communicating with students um that will maybe take them away from this you know let them use their technology to to research and to find all their information but then figure out some different ways to communicate it so that we can may we can really gauge their understanding um so a few different we do have the stoplight system that agaia school district is using and this is just something again we're not implementing anything this year we're just having conversations about these things but things that we teachers can say you are not allowed to use artificial intelligence for any reason for this or you can try it for this and typically it's going to be in
030the higher levels because students that are under 13 should not be on any of these platforms anyways right it's 13 and over on things like chat GPT these are some of the common AI platforms that we're seeing in education right now chat gbt one being one of the most common but magic schools is making a lot of Headway as well um with just some different resources that teachers can use on differentiation for for lesson plans and so there are a lot of great resources for teachers again we just are looking at how we're going to make sure that we are using them ethically and responsibly that's currently where we are with AI um as we move into the next school year we plan on starting the school year next year with some really um I
031say concrete but AI is changing so rapidly it's tough to say concrete steps but we definitely can put some uh we definitely want to make sure that we are putting information out to parents on how we how we expect it's going to be used and ways in which it should not be used in the school setting any questions for me on artificial intelligence she's an expert I better not say if I may Mr President this has been a a huge task and Courtney has done a great job of taking this on and we're not in a position to come to the board with a policy on this but we're developing practices but we've chosen to get in the middle of it and figure it out rather than ignore it because it's not going away and
032so rather than sticking our heads in the sand we're going to learn we we will make some mistakes but before the next school year we'll have policies and practices in place to address uh courtne has put in countless hours into this I wanted to thank her for that investment of time and for getting us this far along we're we're we are in a good spot comparatively and I think that has a lot has everything to do with Courtney willing to take this on thank you Miss hoffmire thank you I did notice that parents used it more than anybody thank you next item on the agenda is the um consent agenda and board are there any items in the consent agenda that you'd like to take out and vote on independently any speak into your mic
033so that can hear are one of the students here for early graduation yeah are the students here for early graduation no no if I may Mr President both students are requesting early graduation for personal reasons yeah questions all right we have a motion then to uh accept the consent agenda as presented a motion from Marg second from Jennifer all in favor Diana I thank you I I heard thank you um just a little bit awkward Diana uh uh item 3.1 recommendation to approve the new hires are any of these individuals here that we'd like to have introduced to us Dr right no nobody here do we need to read their names or just accept them as they are in the agenda accept them as they are in the agenda so can we have a a
034motion to accept the new hires in 3.1 a motion from Jennifer a second from Chuck all in favor I thank you that also is unanimous okay item 3.2 recommendation to approve the annual financial report School level and food service for physical year fiscal year not physical year fiscal year 2324 so do you want to present that Kimberly thank you let me turn my mic on all right it's that time of year annual financial report time of the year all of us Finance people love this time of year because we have to get this all done in a very short amount of time but I do want to give the auditor General's office props this year they released the forms very early it's the first time they've done that in a very long time so that
035was very nice of them we're on 3.2 service it's all together okay yeah um that's okay 3.2 and 3.3 will be present at the same time uh 3.3 is something different okay 3.2 is where we are yeah thanks um anyway so I just want to give them um Kudos because they did get it released very early which is very helpful to us because we have to start it's we need to start working on it it takes months to prepare so um I just want to give them Kudos that they got it out to us early um so the annual financial report is due on October 15th so right after the board meeting by law I have to upload it to Arizona Department of Education but I want to thank you for allowing us to have
036the board meeting so late in October because it just gives us more time to get everything um completed um so we don't have to rush to get it done so I appreciate that so thank you um board for letting us do it on the last possible day um so uh we're going to uh the AFR is the annual financial report and uh like President Merill said we're um we have food service AFR School level um AFR our K3 reading AFR which has already been um submitted to the state our classroom site fund AFR that will I'll submit that tonight as well even though it's not due till November 15th all of these are just documents reporting all of the money that we spent in fy2 24 um so um how do you prepare for the
037for the AFR we do all a lot a lot a lot of journal entries as Dryden in my office will attest to he was surprised about how many journal entries we do but um there's all these rules and um uh that the state has that we have to fund code things in a specific way um and then we those have to we have to make sure that everything lines up to the way that it needs to go into the report you cannot submit the AFR um if you have any errors so it has to be perfect um so it just takes a lot of time to make sure that all those errors are cleared um so when you're doing the AFR you're preparing it you are looking at your major funds like your you look
038at all your funds but you mostly focus on your m&o um your Grant funds our impact Aid and things like that so that's what we're going to see here so here was our total expenditures for 23 24 uh just under 20 million um including everything this is expenditures um uh not uh this is our our total expenditures for the year which was about the same as we had last year um our I just want to point out for our federal that's our um Grant funds that does include the last of our Esser so next year when you see that it will be considerably less because it includes um our Esser funds which was our covid money um our impact Aid is um it with our declining enrollment our impact Aid will get smaller and smaller
039as time goes on I just want to have that have have you have that in the back of your mind all right so here's a pie chart of um where the where most of our funds come from you can see that most of our funds come um are in maintenance and uh operations and federal funding again that Federal funding piece of the pie will get smaller um as time goes on because of um impact Aid um that's you the sorry the little yellow one will get smaller and then the purple one will get smaller as well because Sr money will be gone um and then this is basic this is what we spend our m&o budget on and as you can see the majority of the pie is benefits and salaries all almost all of
040our m is benefits and salaries um and purchase Services that's for like our op otpt um our speech pathologists things like that um our ESI um employees that's the purchase services and then you can see there's a small amount on supplies and then others like dues and fees for um groups that we have to be a part of all right and then here's our preliminary classroom spending report um the auditor General's office will go through the AFR um with a fine tooth comb then they will start calling districts they'll call us um and ask us questions about things that we submitted this may change I don't um anticipate it changing much um but just so you can kind of see um where we're spending our money most of it the majority of it is going
041to the classroom and supporting um classroom all right are there any questions yes I just have one when when does the State actually publish the results of your submission oh it'll be published as soon as I upload it as long as there's not any errors okay um sometimes uh with their system uh there can be errors but if there's no errors it'll be immediate just it takes 5 Seconds okay any other questions uh president Marl can I say one more thing and then um what will happen is um as soon as it gets posted to the um State website I'll post it on our um website that takes about 24 hours so anybody can look at it yeah all right thank you any questions or comments about that we about how easy it is for
042yeah how easy that is yeah yeah di knows so um you we have to vote on an approval of this submission so can I have a motion to accept item 3.1 3.2 as it's been submitted by Miss dugdale I have a motion from Jennifer second by Chuck all in favor Diana I thank you much I that isk you that is unanimous thank you so much kber will turn over uh for the U school facilities division this means the improvements at the state yeah have funded or is to fund right there's several funds yeah yes um the present there's two things that are happening in this agenda item just so we you understand one we have to approve something called the capital plan from the State Board of Education which you have in your or sorry
043the sfob from in your packet it's just a document that we have that you have to approve that says that you saw that the other part of it is we are um by law need to give a capital projects presentation every year um before um October 15th and honor before October 15th so we we're doing it at this meeting so we're just going to go through a quick presentation of the projects that we did last year some of the not an extensive list of the projects we did last year highlight some of the projects we did last year and then some of the upcoming projects that we're working on so one of the things that I wanted to point out is that the district office and maintenance work very closely together they're a great team
044this was a picture of both teams together we help this is not a capital project but it was a good picture of both our teams we helped sit Graves National Forest uh do a community service project last September of of 2023 this is just a picture of us all there doing that project we um worked on the hiking path next to the Nature Center um and one of the things that um part of the team did was repaint that sign on the very front which was a very tedious job because they had to painted it all brown and then they paint all individually every single um letter in there anyway so we have a fabulous team they're always willing to help um whatever we need to do they're always willing to do it all right
045so uh future adjacent ways projects so we do have some adjacent ways money left over um and so here are some ideas of things that we'd like to do um there's some improvements that we need to do at the elementary school parent um drop off adjacent ways again is our easements um where our bus where our buses go and our fire um trucks go um just like we paved um out here um we need to do some work um out and back where the high school um buses pick up it gets really muddy out there um and so we need to do some work there as well um and including the High School Bus Loop you can see here it needs some work so we're going to use some of our some of our adjacent
046ways money um to uh fix that we have about $300,000 um in adjacent ways it'll cover some of this it won't cover all of it I would recommend that next year we do Levy for some more adjacent ways so that we can get some of these things fixed especially the mud in the back of the high school it's really a problem so and hard to plow because it's all dirt um and then the the junior highest bed drop off we also need to um fix that so that it's more um accessible for our special needs students so sfob projects that's the old um sfb um they've they change their names like every other day or something so I never can keep up but now it's s soob b all right so one of the things
047that we did was one of the things that they paid for which is awesome was the auditorium lighting I think it's been a great blessing to our school district to have um such nice Auditorium lighting um this was just a picture that Roger sent me of the boards that they used to control the lighting don't ask me anything about them because I don't really know but it's just the I the lighting I've heard is just fabulous and it's been a great addition um we got the auditorium stage um through them as well and I think that that has also been a great great um asset one of the things that we got um not through um sfob but through the insurance company was new curtains there are a little bit of issues with the curtains
048we're trying to work through those issues um as well um to make it just the most fabulous Auditorium in the on the mountain um we do get new multi-purpose doors these doors are fabulous everybody that's seen these doors just loves these doors but they're high dollar um we need to buy some doors for the high school uh to make High School more secure so we're working on getting more funding to buy more of these doors um I see Lauren over there smiling and shaking his head these are really good doors um and I from my understanding it's very difficult to like Yank on them a lot and get them to open which is one of the problems we're having is with our old doors is the kids are able to like if You Yank on
049them enough they'll open so um yeah do these doors new doors have a center Mion no is my understanding correct but the reason they can't yank them open them cuz that thing just like yeah yeah they're really nice Stores um so we um between so I'm not going to say I'm going to say awarded not got not received because receiving money from the sfob is a project um but we have been awarded about $3.8 million in projects we'll eventually get that money um but as you can see we only have $33,000 in closed projects so it's a it's a process to get money from the sfob um Roger tuman is an expert at it um and he's on top of it I think our uh our SS sfob um account was in the negative only
050like $40,000 this year which is fabulous that just means that we've spent $440,000 that we haven't received from them yet we will get that we just haven't gotten it yet that's a really good number some school districts they can be in the tens of millions of dollars in the negative in that account just waiting for reimbursements from the sfob because the way that it works is you have to pay for it first and then they reimburse you so anyway so we're about $3.8 million in Awards which is awesome that's $3.8 million that the school district does not have to use to fund capital projects I have one question with that can those approved projects if they don't get funded within a certain amount of time do they have to be re yes resubmitted yes and
051Roger Roger just keeps working he has a um by he has a not bi-weekly he meets with the sfob lays on at least twice a week yeah and he has me sign things about once a week yes so Roger is very active in making sure that we have S so sfob projects constantly um being submitted to them one of the big projects that we need to work on um Roger is working on it is our Elementary School um is on a swamp so it's sinking and so we have floor problems um again Roger is working closely with Dave Ken and our sfob person to get this funded to get fixed these projects go slow sfob doesn't have a li unlimited amount of money so they have to prioritize um their projects there's a huge State
052lawsuit um which you're familiar with um about Capital funding that's going on it's the last meeting I was at about that they were anticipating that wasn't going to be settled for at least four years um so we'll just keep keep on keeping on um Roger does a fabulous job um keeping on top of them and submitting things all the time um here's just an example of the floor you can see this ruler um and how how much different is and of course this is a tripping Hazard so we need to get these things fixed um here's a roof that's that's you can see it's cracking so that needs to be um repaired so we have done repairs on the elementary school roof but because of the situation with the building constantly moving there's constantly leaks
053and new leaks and so we just keep patching them keep submitting to the sfob until we get a new roof and by the way that is in the design phase so we have been funded for it we're just going through the process and then here you can see more roof stuff um so just some current um project that we have with the sfob I'm I won't read the list but you can see there um I do want to point out the emergency notification and bell and paging system that um has been submitted it's in the design phase and um he Roger diligently working with the sfob to get that approved that is a $2 million project so it's a it's a big project to redo all of our paging systems and our Bell system and
054everything it needs to be done it's a um security issue um so he's working on it it's slow but I think it'll eventually get approved the district will need to um Supply some money towards it because they won't fund like the transportation building because there's not students in that building one other thing that I'd like to bring to your attention is the pump house the pump house will need to be completely redone again that's in the design phase Roger's working with us if we be on that that's probably going to be uh three we're estimating about a $300,000 project to redo the pump house they are a maintenance is doing a really really really good job keeping it running um but it's old and it needs to be replaced and so they're doing the best
055they can to to keep it going so that we have um Municipal Water as you know our Municipal Water is not pressurized um to the standard that we need it to be and that's why we have to have the pump house because Arizona Water Company water's not at the right pressure for a uh uh campus the size of this campus uh and of course Ryan doesn't have those this problem at the elementary school at all um all right so future sfob projects one of the things that needs to be done is all of the bathrooms need to be remodeled um and so Roger is working on that with the SF sfob as well um he's also working on as we talked about exterior doors lock and closures we do need to upgrade our lock system
056here to um mostly wre or W not wireless um keyless entry like this like the swipe cards um but that's a $750,000 project too just just Baseline to not even do every door um and uh we do need to have a complete HVAC replacement Roger working on that as well um but in the meantime he is every we have an HVAC compressor go out he submits that to the to the sfob so that's like a couple thousand dollars every time we have one go out he submits every single every single one of them but we will need to have our HVAC units replaced eventually uh sooner than later um and one other thing I want to um point out is Steve Murphy is going to retire um at the end of July in 20125 and
057I just wanted to recognize him and thank him for all he's done for the district he's diligently always working uh to make sure that things are running smoothly and he always has a smile on his face and he's always willing to help all right are there any questions yes uh what about the high school parking lot in front of the gym and the drainage for that oh yeah oh yes so there they're we're also working on the drainage with the sfob as well they'll pay for part of it and then the other part of it will pay for with adjacent ways I'm sorry I couldn't understand you sorry um so uh Roger working on that with the sfob part of it they'll pay for and part of it we'll have to pay for with adjacent
058ways okay once it's approved good this is something that I've been involved with for eight years yeah as you know chck we we have the river that runs through it when the monsoon comes and then there's an ice rink and so as part of the testimony that I gave at the state on this lawsuit was that our kids Des deserve the same type of safety as the kids that are in the valley we live in a climate where there are extreme elements it may not be a big deal to you that there's 6 Ines of ice in front of the high school that extends several hundred feet but it's a big deal to us and it might not be a big deal to you that there's 8 to 10 inches of water that's flowing and
059kids are trying to cross from one campus to another but it's a big deal for us the state is still said I essentially it's it's it's not part of Ingress egress it's you could walk around it's we're not going to fix it and so um we're going to continue to argue with it Kimberly and her team have made some Headway and we've kind of negotiated partially with that I think the reality of the situation is this the state would need to invest somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 billion just to satisfy all the approved projects that doesn't bring the state up to to park they'd have to they'd have to invest a couple of more two to three billion to bring all the facilities where they need to be well we know in the state
060of Arizona they're not going to do that so what we're having to do is fight for everything that we got since 2014 we've probably have received 3 million in sfb funds sfob and we're fighting now for an equivalent amount and so a lot of the districts have the budget capacity or size that they just ignore them they're not even working through it anymore we don't have the luxury so we're still fighting to get what we can get and we're still a pain in their neck and so uh Kimberly and her team have done a great job keeping pressure on that and we won't give up good glad to hear it how much did the state budget in her last budget for sfb I can tell you for the last several years um with the exception
061of the last two years they were they were committing about $20 million to fix 1,400 campuses 20 million wouldn't take care of the white White Mountain schools so it is uh it's the state's job to do that and that's why they're being sued and so it is uh and and by the way I don't think the matter will be solved anytime the next 5 to seven years and whatever direction that goes however the judge rules it'll be contested and there'll be an appeal and it'll take another four or five years so we're talking about probably seven or eight years if we do see any money there and so we're doing the best we can to be as careful as we can to take care of the facilities we have thank the lord we passed a
062$16 million bond in 2016 because that's why we have the buses and what we have now and we're trying to maintain that Advantage including a couple million dollars in our Auditorium so we're doing the best we can to maintain what we have but it's getting it's getting tighter questions or comments not we need to uh vote to approve the projects submitted and those that have been completed so can we have a motion to approve item 3 3.3 I have a motion from Chuck second from marget all in favor I thank you Diana thank you board Mr President you bet okay next item has to be a discussion with the community presentation regarding school facilities use and Becky Evans has asked to make a presentation and I hope it works you have the best of people
063to do this Sarah she's on my board and she's my moral support because I am used to being backstage and not in front of the audience so okay is that okay is that better okay okay so just as a quick um explanation of why we are here um my name is Becky Evans for those who do not know me I am currently the CTE stage craft teacher here at bluid high school um I am Al the theater director um but before that I created a nonprofit called White Mountain Performing Arts back in 201819 is when we got started the goal of that was to was to start giving um the younger generation an opportunity to learn theater and stagecraft so let me go forward because these are cute kids so we got started with Annie
064hence my Annie shirt um and we were getting ready to perform in 2019 Co shut us down and so had to recast and start over in 2021 um during that production I had the awesome opportunity to work with Dr Teresa dick and she and I became good friends and we found that we worked well together and she asked me to help with Beauty and the Beast and after that experience and it was a good success um the school asked me to stay on and teach stagecraft and theater so I just wanted to kind of give you a little bit of background about who I am and where I came from um so what is white man performing arts first thing I want to do is kind of show a little bit about how we align
065and and let me just rewind for one second we're here because um I know that we've got to do a lot of reevaluation with the faciliity use and so my goal at the end of this is hopefully to show you guys that the um Productions and the product that we bring is beneficial to Blue Ridge School District that you guys are benefiting greatly by us kind of doing this collaboration cooperation together um the Blue Ridge mission statement states that is the heart of our community and a family of diverse members committed to ensuring um a p i see I need I need different glasses too a purposeful Creative Learning environment within a caring collaborative culture for all we are rich in achievement tradition and Innovation which is such a great vision um our mission statement
066is that we strive to encourage youth To Shine On and On off the stage by enhancing self-esteem develop responsibility encourage Unity grow confidence social acceptance and youth that will endure in all aspects of their lives um I think a lot of what we do aligns beautifully with your mission statement um we are a volunteer nonprofit I just want to point that out here's our cute kids they are much cuter to look at than I am so look at them um so what do we do that benefits the students at blid um one thing is that we are trying hard to continue to develop this theater program that we have here um just like football we need to start kids in peeee level and kind of develop their confidence and strength on the field and it's
067very much the same with theater we want to get them young and get them really confident and learn all the terminology and all the things so that way when they get to high school they are already pros at that stage um so that's one of the big goals of wmpa is we're giving these kids A Elementary and Junior High School production that's not you guys remember the cute elementary school productions we did in the ' 80s 90s you know you got to hold the leaves and I got to be a rock once it was really fun so those are really fun adorable Productions and I love them that's not exactly what we do we provide a really high quality excellent Community Theater environment for them to be really proud of what they put on that
068stage um the mental health and self-esteem I could go on for hours on that so I'm not going to go too deep into that but I know the benefit to these kids is great when it comes to that so A couple of people I really want to touch on is um last year we had a student gra graduate her name is zaffre and um last year I got to send one kid to skills USA stagecraft competition at Eastern Arizona College they were only competing seniors because they were offering a full R scholarship attached to it zafree was my only one that was able to go she went she won that full ride scholarship and in August she sent me a text the day before school started telling me that she wouldn't be there if not
069for that scholarship so I believe passionately that these CTE programs and stagecraft can change kids lives um Z was our stage manager last year and she's going to come back this year she's not even in our stagecraft class but she was in the top four in the state of Arizona for stage management and she's coming back to do Into the Woods for us which is so incredibly exciting because she wants that on her resume that she wants to win that thing and then last I want to talk about Riley for two seconds um I've had Riley since the very beginning she's been uh backstage she's learned everything along the way and she's graduating this year so that hurts my heart I'm so excited for her but she wanted to say a couple things about um
070her experience working with white man performing arts it's like a family reunion it really is I'm all excited for hugs um so what White Mountain performer Arts has done for me they have given me a work-based learning experience backstage helping out can can you put the mic a little closer there you go okay and over my years working and learning with them and for them they have helped me choose what I want to do in college and for my job in the future career I want to be part of tech theater and my very top goal is to someday work for Broadway and I would not have that without Becky and white Performing Arts thank you okay so I'm so incredibly proud of her I'm so excited to see what she's going to do with
071her future um all the friendships teamwork things that they've learned if you were here because white man performing arts has had an impact in your life could you just kind of stand up for two seconds I know Sor I love you babies and you all know it any one of these kids could do this presentation so much better than I do I get it's funny I teach public speaking but I try to avoid it like the plague and now you know that all right guys thank you so much have a seat really quick okay so I'm going to move on and kind of plow through this because I just want to get to the gets of this when the things that I think white Mount Performing Arts gives to bluid school district in particular that
072is incredibly powerful is the collaboration that has started to happen between the CTE program so as I've learned about being a CTE teacher I've learned that I need to I'm required to offer 120 hours of work-based learning hours for students this is meant to be a safe transition for students to be in the classroom and then transfer into the industry at this point there is no other program on this mountain that I can send these kids to um however with white Mount Performing Arts these kids now have an opportunity to work on like their High School Musical but then they can also transition and start working for White Mountain Performing Arts in a myriad of different capacities um every hour they spend working with white mountain Performing Arts counts as a work-based learning hour for
073them that is something that they can track it's something they can put on their portfolio their resume everything they create for the show they get to take a picture of it and put it in a portfolio they can then show to PP perspective uh colleges or um employers so that's something that's really exciting that they can do they get to help design create and actually run some of these Productions that's something that um is kind of awesome so I've had um somebody like Sandy Ballard is going to be coming in to help run the spring musical for these kids Sandy Ballard is she's ran a theater program for 12 years candy Creek performing art she's currently the um theater DOR dor at NPC for their children's theater so they are developing these really cool networking
074opportunities by working with other industry professionals so she's already come into the classroom they've already worked through the script together they have been working on collaboration projects they've created scaled Box model designs for the set for Alice um they're working on makeup design a um pictures and they've been practicing on each other for different makeup technique options for the show and now they're working on costume plots so what I'm trying to get at is it's a really neat collaboration it's a very rare thing where you can work with a director that closely and have that director help take um uh relinquish almost some of the creative and work with these kids one-on-one on the creative process and that again is something that they get to put in their resumés um I'm just going to kind
075of skip through some of this but one thing I really want to point out is most schools only do one show a year um a lot of shows a lot of schools only do one show every other year cuz they are a lot of work they are a lot of work and um it's it's a lot to do so with our school we do one High School Musical a year um and then either spring or fall and then on the opposite that's when we squeezed in a junior production for with white mountain performing arts and then the kids have an opportunity to come in in the summer and do a summer program program with us as well so the kids have an opportunity to potentially work on three different shows in a year so someone
076like Riley who's going to be applying to college instead of putting on her resume that she's done two shows or maybe four she's going to be graduating with 11 shows under her belt because of the work that she's done with with us so yeah that's something that's going to look really good on that resume when she's applying to colleges and also the interest in the CTE program is growing I currently have 43 kids in my stagecraft classes that's a lot it's fun though and they are awesome and they're excited to be there so so our success is we've been teaching these kids to work really hard these kids created these shows that you're looking at the pictures of um last year I told you about zaffre but one thing that Blue Ridge has been doing
077lately is um the gamage high school musical theater Awards we got to apply for that we were accepted to that as a high school we were finalists in six categories um this is State of Arizona and this is not 3A versus 3A this is every High School in the state of Arizona that was competing and we were finalists in six categories four of them were Tech categories we were winner for best audio thank you Mr Bloom Strand and his audio team he teaches that um and then we were also finalists for best overall musical in the state of Arizona which I'm telling you I got to sit there with all those other directors and I had 25 directors look at me and they're like who are you and where did you guys come from so
078we getting a name for ourselves in the state and we want to keep that going and in order to keep a really strong high school program going I really feel strongly about teaching this younger generation and getting them that much more ready to be on stage um so so I want to take a second and point this out as well I did some research on how um theater in particular and the Arts have been beneficial to different schools so according to the American Alliance for theater and educ ation and I have to get close to this because it's so small students involved in drama performance coursework or experience outscored non-arts students on the uh 2005 Sat by an average of 65 points in the verbal component and 34 points in the math component drama activities
079improve reading comprehension in both verbal and non-verbal skills drama helps to improve School attendance and reduce high school dropouts um the 2005 Harris poll re revealed that 93% of public believes that Arts including theater are vital to a well-rounded education drama can improve skills and academic performance in Children and Youth with learning disabilities students considered to be at high risk for dropping out of high school they cite drama and other arts classes as their motivations for staying in school and students who participate in the Arts are three times more likely to win an award for School attendance than those that do not because they know they need to be play practice right so so they show up and they know that they've got to perform um like I we are currently the only school on
080the mountain the the only High School on the mountain that provides Junior productions for elementary and junior high schools um and also the majority of the community of our theater at this point um many in the community can't go down to gamage to go see the Arts they can't go down to the Phoenix to see a production so they're really enjoying coming to see multiple show shows at blidge and they don't always differentiate what's a blidge high school show and what's a wmpa show they just know blidge puts on really great shows on their stage and so they come so this is my final Slide the big picture is the cost so it's expensive to put on a musical um just for the rights to the show just to get scripts in your hand cost
081about $1,000 that's the cheapest one you can usually find all the way up to 6,000 those are the full ones like Beauty and the Beast um sets are expensive it depends on how elaborate you're going to go props costumes makeup lighting that lightboard that you saw picture of that's my favorite thing in this school so if you want to play with it I'll show you how to play with that um programming marketing printing costs everything adds up so the average cost of putting on a show is usually somewhere around 7,800 to $28,000 um I talked to Cynthia Whipple Phantom of the Opera cost them $30,000 she said I could tell you that um their average show costs over 20,000 bluid does not do that much but we do a lot with the money that we
082have um the average show that I put on for a junior production is usually somewhere between $7,000 and $8,000 so where do I get my money from the income um we try to have a annual talent show fundraiser which we just did we're hoping that we can keep that as part of this facilities use agreement hopefully we can make um we usually bring in the last year about $2,000 to $2,500 um student tuition we try to keep the cost really low I will never turn away a kid for money period um but it is helpful for them to pay a tuition of about $75 to help offset some of these costs we try to get sponsors in the community to try to help us out and then after that ticket sales so the way this
083works is you have to frontload the money and then whatever we make off of this show pays for the next show right so if you look at the numbers it's really tight and we often Break Even or we don't break even and when we don't break even the money magically appears just don't tell my husband so or or right so we have a lot of volunteers that help help us out so what is the cost to bluid school district to do a junior production like this right now it's 0 I've never used a penny of bluid money for any show that I have done through wmpa not ever um the benefit to bluid though has been that you guys have access to every piece of wmpa inventory um because I happen to know the director
084and we've got a good relationship and so we've used a lot of wmpa inventory to help with some of the bluid Productions I can give you a list if you want to see what was on that stage for sound of music that I provided um again the CTE benefit this has become so integrated in my curriculum almost that it's it's just just been a benefit I went to the Summer Conference over the summer and talked to a lot of other CTE teachers and I told them about what we were doing because they were trying to figure out where we going to have work based learning hours and I told them about this and they were drooling um so finally this gives um all the students in the district an opportunity to uh perform in theater
085and um I know that all of them would love to stand up and say something that they've benefited from this program um I know you guys don't have that much time I encourage you to talk to them a little bit afterwards because they are phenomenal kids look at they' set so well um and I hope that you will consider to wave the facilities use fee because with the numbers looking like this I'm barely breaking even and if I have to pay for my uh the auditorium on top of it I don't see a way where we can continue and I would like very much to continue these programs for these kids so sorry I'm an emotional person so if you would please consider uh waving the fee for wmp um we would appreciate that thank
086you if you have any questions I'm better answering questions don't run away okay don't run away you have an excellent program it has obvious benefits and exceptional people involved in it and uh you have a track record to prove it Dr R can you explain our policy and sure what what Avenues are open to us to keep this thing alive and why it is where it is right and if I've been looking distracted it's because I've been reading our policy I've been reading gift of public funds I've been reading ars1 15-105 the Constitution Arizona I'm trying to figure out where we land I think um our policy it it gives the superintendent a lot of latitude and flexibility so what I might propose is that the with each program and before every program the the
087person whether it's Becky or another person they come before the board they make their presentation and if they can demonstrate they can provide additionally insured coverage this would be for Blue Ridge students I think that's easy to say it's not a gift of public funds these are students enrolled in our district two and thirdly it does benefit kids in an environment where we're we're struggling to get kids out from video games and away from negative forces uh we have outstanding Fine Arts programs no doubt about it and I'm a supporter strong supporter I also have a role that I have to make sure I don't get the school district in trouble um but we would have to do have a couple of handshakes one is that the program would have to run just like it
088was a classroom so what's appropriate in a classroom would be presented on the stage now now there's some variation because you get tackled in football you don't tackle each other but there's still Rules of Engagement within Athletics there's still Rules of Engagement within theater Productions that means that it would have to look and feel like a classroom as well if there's a structure that's going to be constructed it better be reviewed by somebody that is an engineer and knows that kid's not going to fall and get hurt fourthly the kids would have to sign a waiver that if I'm injured their parents would wave and protect the district um we recently had we recently were sued when a student drowned that had nothing to do with our activity it was a camp that was run
089through an LLC it had nothing to do with us and that cost time and money and so we'd have to have the we'd have to have the district protected I am fine with moving forward with having seen your Productions um but I will be clear this is not done at zero cost to the district lights are expensive often we have overtime that we have to pay custodian there's an investment I think it's a worthwhile investment and I do believe I could argue if we were called on the carpet for a gift of public funds that there is significant value provided to our students of educational value and I don't disagree with and I've always known students and Fine Arts perform up and above uh so yes I I would say that um I would ask
090the board to continue to provide me the the flexibility to review it on on a case-by Case basis um you're working on a show right now keep going uh if if I would also say this it needs to go through a is it a 5013c a nonprofit and as long as those funds flow all there and they're going to benefit the your shows by extension benefits us we're fine um but there has to be supervision too I was it was a beautiful uh production that we had when the little lion got on that thing about had a heart attack I'm starting thinking oh he's the rested the I hope he doesn't fall what if he gets hurt um have we looked at that structure so there are all of those considerations that if we treat
091it like a classroom and you're a CTE person and you understand those parameters um so there's a number of ways you could do it you could do it through as an extension through the CTE and there's no charge you do an extension through a a qualified 5013c and there wouldn't be a charge but you would need to do what you're doing now present it to the board present your your plan and make sure assure the board and the superintendent that it's going to be properly supervised because I think what happens what causes us us being the district exposure if there's any harassment or sexual harassment that occurs when kids are getting dressed backstage and they're running around on sports bras and there's a there's a complaint we standing up here we're the ones that get
092sued not you we do and the district gets sued so it has to be supervised that wouldn't happen in in a classroom so as long as we're keeping it supervised and that the students understand their role and they I mean these are some all of our kids are great some are just a little more difficult to deal with these are easy to deal with kids they're they're they're kids that are engaged they're kids that do well in school we want to support the Fine Arts I think the the presentation and the point this is a feeder program just like we have for youth football just like we have for the other Sports so and along those lines I I I don't think there's a bright line here where after having read through the policy that
093there's a a gift of public funds I will say it's gray but I think it's probably there's probably enough provided it was supervised appropriately and we had U we were listed as an additionally insured the kids sign waivers and they're behaving as if they're at school I think we would be okay that's my perspective can you explain what the term gift of public funds refers to in a school district it it we have a duty to treat taxpayer funds as sacred All the Monies that are expended have to be tied back to tied tied back to an specific account that is approved for expenditure so this is it it's not it's not a school activity but it is a school it's it's a little muddled um this the policy and the statute does provide room
094to say to interpret well is it beneficial to the school and the students I would argue yeah of course it is we're keeping kids engaged in something that's constructive it's meaningful it's helpful there's in in some cases these are kids that this is how they express thems and we keep them safe great yeah so I'm sold on that I could back it up we just need to make sure it's organized and it's tight from a legal perspective too and that the kids are properly supervised you went through the training um that we had um miss you went through all that about eight parents backstage supervising we have about eight um parents usually backstage we have a lot of them here that are yeah we usually have a lot of people there perfect and that as
095long as it's appropriately supported and supervised all of the structures the kids stand on are built by actual construction workers they kind of overbuild because they build houses um but all of the platforms that you've seen and the various shows that you've seen they are built by construction workers and then my stagecraft kids come in and dress them and kind of do all the facade stuff anything that's like safety for kids is built by a professional I think the only one that I would have I I'm not sure I'll have to get some guidance with is the summer program that would be handed to me like a summer camp and we charge for those summer camps and so we can't not charge for one and in charge everybody else during school week summer camp is
096a is a little bit more maybe budgetable than you know a month or two of a junior program you know what I mean so that's something maybe we can talk about later I don't know talk about now well you could if you want to make that presentation Becky sometime in April or May in advance of that that would be great I'll get one of the kids to give it so I'm not sitting here like shaking gosh they're just chill you're a thespian you can just act that listen I'm a director there's a big different okay you tell somebody else how to act so I do the lighting I'll do that light board all day long the other thing that I the board should probably view this on a case-by casee basis otherwise if you just
097give a blanket I can tell you we cannot afford to have the lights on in on the fields all Fields Auditorium all through the school we we do not have the budget capacity for that um but we do have the capacity to support our established programs and so as long as they're organized and I heard Becky say there's a year we can do that we could absorb that uh we have uh Teresa has two main a year um if she had three we would allow three that's that's a fine arts program it's part of our our school music the the uh fundraisers also fundraisers too and that's something that we could probably assist with to help offset those costs um and we would like to partner with you and I think there we'll have to
098discuss the branding on it um and see how we would want to do that but uh I would say that I kind of I think we have more flexibility than I initially thought any other questions so I just had a s I thought of a suggestion I know that you have very capable parents I know some of them that are you use backstage but maybe um just to reassure us if we ever have to stand behind you you know for any reason you could run a little seminar for the parents as to what is appropriate what is not what can be allowed what can't be allowed how much responsibility they actually have with other people's kids you know just covering the basis not that there's not that going on but if you could put it
099into your program then it would be there and be visible to anybody that wanted to check on us yeah that's a good idea we can do that a lot of them already teachers and their fature print cleared cleared yeah along with every counselor ever gone to Camp with us they're all the fingerprint clear yeah so yeah we we do have those conversations but we can make it more formal I I would just D that we have limitations if you had let me just my wife's a music teacher very proud of her I know a little bit not a lot we're not going to have Peter Pan flying through on a wire I can tell you that fly system but if you have the extra money that would be amazing no but we're that's what I'm
100saying it has to be think of it as a classroom setting you anything we do do that's dangerous we will not be able to back that up a court will eat us up and then uh so it has to be and when we're dealing with props you can't have an eight or 10 foot prop where fall off six foot's the limmit there you go and so U as as long as we can meet those parameters and we deal with it a case-by casee basis I I don't see so basically what you're saying is that we don't have to vote on anything particular you have enough leeway with the parameters were're already set to to approve what or disapprove whatever yes sir it looks like we're going forward where we are right now and uh thanks
101for everybody for coming so I have a quick question do I need to declare any conflict of interest or since we're not voting if we're not voting I I think it would just be okay for the discussion you've been silent okay um I I mean you declare that that conflict UPF front in January so it's recorded okay perfect I I think that um to be clear I I don't like this part of my job and it drives my wife nuts I look for the everything all the stuff that could go bad that's where I live that's why I don't sleep at night all the stuff that goes bad I got to think about that because my number one job used to be academics now it's safety that's the number one job student and staff safety
102so we're not trying to do it to be a party pooper we're just trying to keep everyone safe and so if you can give me lead time I'm Becky like once this show wraps up let's get going with the next one and start talking about what that looks like and what those parameters are so you're not caught in a crunch and you're not waiting to get an approval for something that's going to happen in in a few weeks if you could give us lead time that'd be a great handshake okay so should I just set up a meeting with with you directly to have a me you can meet with Kimberly with facilities she can meet with us first that' be with us first okay us me and me and you or me with cimberly
103first US Sophia you would go there first and conversation because we're already going to get started pretty soon Becky you would go there first and if they felt like it needed to come to the board then it would go to the board but she'd always go there first to the superintendent or Kimberly Finance director district office all right I know you don't get paid enough paid to do this but I appreciate your dedication and your love Yeah it maybe works out to what 10 15 cents an hour if that much I actually mathed it out once do you want to know what it came down to yeah I'm sure it's nothing 23 cents an hour yeah well honestly appreciate you so much and what you've done for this community you brought a great deal of
104Pride to our fine arts program in the White Mountains and in the state of Arizona and if I might add Dr right I would add too that uh Mr bloomstrand and Dr D in the back there have been at this for a long long time and I've seen the program grow exponentially including our little Mighty band um our music program we're we're proud of what youall are doing and we're very supportive of that and so I wanted to make sure those two folks are represented and as well as all these lovely kids too absolutely thank you so much appreciate all you all three do I mean I've lived here long enough to be embarrassed from what we did in the past and I'm not embarrassed anymore so thank you very much Dr Wright we'll turn
105some time over to you for a uh superintendent report if it pleases the board um given the we have a number call the Public's I'll foro the general update I think where there's nothing pressing I will add and like to discuss uh the administration's determination on Esa and participation within that program there really two or three options one option is give the esa money back and come and roll and participate in all of our program programs a second option is give the esa money back and participate as a homeschooled student uh the district does have an option where we can charge for participation but why would we give up that secret sauce that we just talked about we have 200 students in our district that are on esas I think it would be very unwise
106to make it to treat this like a smorgus board come go ahead and have Fine Arts come go ahead and play in athletics I just don't think that would be wise I I have a question how much money have we lost as a district to to Esa funds at a at a ballpark figure we have around 200 students that's roughly a million bucks how many how many teachers could we employ at our average uh salary with salary and benefits we could probably hire 15 more teachers with a million dollars so it's a big deal so my my view is this um we love everybody we want you to come participate um but if you have an Esa you're not qualified to participate and we're not going to do it on a on a fee basis
107either and so um while I understand if I'm a parent and I'm in that situation I want what's best for my kids and I feel for you there I also sincerely worry how many other kids would we lose if we just allow it to become a smorgas Spore and I don't think it's about people paying money to participate I think it's providing access I also have a problem with people that aren't enrolled in our schools taking the role from another student that is enrolled doesn't seem fair but if they're homeschool student they have right to that access and we welcome them in we've done that regularly and if they want to enroll come on home turn the money back in and come home so that that's my determination on on Esa and the board have
108any questions or comments I do I do I have one question um if we had that billion dollar back or how however much it was would that have enabled us to stay with our schedule that we had before we lost the bond yes if we would have passed um the most recent bond that would have provided us the financial capacity to what we'd effectively done is move money from District additional assistance into M and what not have had to laid off 10 12 teachers so and the bond that we had we we were two things 2016 saved us Co oddly provided $5.4 million and that's been keeping us alive uh so without those funds um we made Cuts early so we'll have bad budget capacity for next year 25 26 school year um the following
109school year will get very tight so I think this has to be done on a case-by Case basis and we need to look at where we are and making sure we could still payer bills so if we hadn't lost as many uh students as you just said would we be in a better place schedule wise absolutely we would be a better place we'd have the teachers we just let go any other questions about that topic okay thank you okay the next item on the agenda would be um call to the public and we invite the public to make comments or a request of the governing board regarding items that are not listed on the time this time Elsewhere on the agenda those wishing to address the board or ask to submit a request to the
110to address the governing board form available from the secretary which we have members of the board may not discuss items that are not on the agenda therefore action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter or scheduling the matter for further consideration and discussion at a later date the operating rules of the public are as follows individual time is limited to 3 minutes per person and cannot be seated to another individual so I have a list here and remember we can't comment yep we can refer this to be looked at by staff but I have a list of individuals here that would like to address the board and on the top is uh uh arm media Santana I see your husband's right be Santiago is right
111behind so oh s Santiago's your son that's right I know I remember uh remember well I just was handed a bunch of papers I have no idea what they they they uh this says uh I'll just mark them off as you go yeah so you were first on the list and it says Esa funding and wmpa White Mountain Performing Arts okay would it would it be okay if sure if Scott went first sure okay I don't care thank you so much I appreciate it okay you let me get this name down here so we can have right oh you have your form right there can you give that to Mary Ford please no I don't think he has a form his is turned in it's Scott Jensen I'm looking Scott Jensen there we go I
112got it thank you um I'm I'm Scott Jensen uh my I have uh a two two daughters that um participate in in choir and then in also in the stage Productions and um I'm grateful for the opportunity to to share a few thoughts I I I was grateful to have um Dr Wright share some of the board's um thoughts on the esa uh participation but that's the that's the position that we're in as parents right now um we we just received the letter um about a few weeks ago and in the mail we weren't aware of the board meeting so we didn't know that this was up for discussion and so we missed that um so it just came as a surprise when we heard about that that we uh were in the position of
113we we have the esa funds and our daughters are in have been in a choir have participated in the plays um during that time and we we just we received this notice just before the play um into the woods was going to have its auditions and we were told we had to make a decision as Dr Wright as you said that we had to relinquish our ESA funds um and then fill out a homeschool affidavit or that we weren't going to be able to participate in anything in the school um it just was it was a surprise because I was unaware you know of this and um it our our children for the year we had we've you know made educational plans with those dollars uh a plans plan in place with each child some
114of our children have um diverse needs and so we we've allocated some of those funds for classes that they have upcoming and we realize like I didn't understand your position um as a school board and many of the boards in in Arizona are doing the same thing that you're doing and so I I I don't really understand the Financial um things that are at play in your in your position or what you hope to accomplish by this decision but we I wish I had known about this um ahead of time so we could have we could have prepared for it instead of having to make this sudden decision as a family where we've already allocated the money and um we we would have liked more time to discuss and strategize as a family and consider
115our options um because we still would really it it sort of threw this into this uh this decision between two things that we love is participating in these in in the choirs in the in the plays and then having the opportunity to have these choices um I realize that you've got to protect your District I totally understand your I I don't totally understand what it's like to be your position but um diverting our funds at this time and in our classes would be would just seriously impact our children's well-being and as rehearsals are just are just about to start um so I my hope would be that we um would would be able to have some time to consider this in between the school year just so we it wasn't mid semester um but our
116children have loved participating in the district we've we've donated our time we've donated our our tax donations to the district U my wife's donated time and we'd like to continue to have a bridge be open um I understand that I don't know all the reasoning behind you know these complicated issues but I I just wanted you to hear from us as we're one of the few families that this this impacted but I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and address you today Mr President given the item was on the agenda I believe I could respond to this gentleman first of all your daughters sing like angels I know who they are um if and here's my problem and we had this talk with Mr web at length if we allow your unbelievable children to
117participate then the next time somebody comes in I say no you can't I've got a discrimination problem um it is not there there there's some very tough choices and some of those consequences are tough too what public schools are up against Mr Jensen is that were operating on life support you hear that we get $133,000 per student that's not true we get just about five now there are sped funds that are available and they're never enough so uh My worry is that number of 200 will grow and I I want to be fair if it were arbitrary and I I tried to think of 100 ways I could say yes your your daughters are exceptional performers the teachers lobbied for these young women they're exceptional young women this is not that they're not worthy of
118our programs they're exceptional kids I just have to be fair and so it is a tough decision I will say if you want to take a week and talk about it and continue to have them prepare and then after the week you decide no we're not turning back the money then they would have to withdraw if after that time they decide you know what we're just going to figure it out then they're welcome to stay but I have to be fair and that's uh that's just part of our it's a tough tough role thank you though sir for and they're wonderful kids by the way I mean that sincerely thank you sir I'm Stephanie white the next one on the list and my daughter is ISA Staley do we have you filled out a paper
119yes and it's Stephanie I got to keep this organized just a little bit messed it all up Stephanie except for a couple of these people we're all old and we can hardly hear except for Jennifer and Margaret but the rest of the guys these years are really big but they don't work near like they used to don't want to hear anyway Stephanie white right I'm just thinking about dinner and got this that's better just speak up and we Pro we' got an air conditioner thing running back here too okay did you find me are you ready okay so I wanted to touch a little bit you you would spoke Mr Right on um uh discrimination and by allowing some of the students in and not allowing them in that would be considered discrimination um but
120we argue that isolating the esa students not just the homeschool students but the esa students is a form of discrimination especially in our rural community where we don't have many opportunities If This Were a big city it would be a different story but we do rely on the extracurricular activities for our students to get that needed socialization um the Arizona Revis statute 15- 80201 States the following not withstanding any other law a child who resides within the attendance area of the public school and who is homeschooled shall be allowed to try out for intercol actic activities on behalf of the public school in the same manner as a pupil who is enrolled in the public school it does not dictate whether they are receiving Esa funding or not we as parents choose to educate our
121kids at home and have the autonomy over their curriculum and teaching methods based on the Arizona home school laws which provide us the freedom to craft personalized educational experiences for our children I'm an entrepreneur by heart I'm tailoring my children's education based on that so that perhaps we don't have to go into the College Years and they can skip some of these things like participating in the CTE programs that you have I didn't know existed they seem amazing that there's more options for our kids than just going into debt and going to college and so we've tailored our beginning years for that um the Arts are so so important for the growth of their brains um and not just the Arts but the social ization as well we don't want to isolate our kids we
122want them to be a part of a community and take pride in something we don't want to keep them sheltered at home we want them to know what the world is but we also want to be able to tailor their education in a way that we as parents see is the best for them individually um isolation impairs brain development that are vital on social skills um the Arts help by bringing everyone together and fostering sense of acceptance and feeling supported in a group um there are many I did a deep dive on the effects of participating in the Arts and the brain and I'm not going to go into the detail on that because Becky kind of touched on that a little bit as well um but there's some statistics that Isa my daughter is
123going to read to you um that we came up with social exclusion and isolation contribute to anxiety PTSD depression panic attack and behavioral changes after the social isolation lock down to 2020 the suicide rate went to a record high in 2022 22% of high school students admitted to considering suicide and 10% attempted It 2 million teams attempted suicide each year it is the leading cause of death in children ages 14 to 15 and the second leading cause of death from ages 15 to 19 it is the second leading cause of death in college age student and cause me and cause more deaths a year than any single illness the increase in our use mental health issues includes discrimination and bullying teen teen teenage suicide attempts are associated with stress self-doubt pressure to succeed Financial uncertainty
124disappointment and loss many of the mental health issues can be combed with participating in the Arts social skills improve mental health language community communication a sense of belonging higher performance in schools improved ability to adapt and handle conflict increased kindness and empathy increased Reliance and lowers risk of depression the Arts have saved lives by boosting confidence and empowering while cultivating individual identities cause causing you to fully assert themselves now and later in life the long-term benefits are measurable at the beginning of the year I joined theater for the first time and performed on stage in White Mountain Performing Arts Lion King Jr is Nala I've had many hobbies from gymnastics to karate to soccer and dance but I have never been more passionate about anything than I am about theater it has given me amazing
125beautiful friendships a sense of community something that challenges me and helps me grow theater is a way I can express myself but the best thing theater has given me a purpose it gives me something to look forward to every day I urge you to think about how many kids you will be affecting if you cut the homeschool students thank you if I may Mr President uh there is a distinction a legal distinction between Esa those that receive esas the state has come up with statutes that said this is how esas are to be regulated um it is the district's right to deny access it is not discriminatory it would be however discriminatory to tell Mr Jensen's daughters they can participate and to tell that very bright very good reader that she can't participate now the
126the room that might exist for negotiation may be in the summer we're not in session um if Becky works that that doesn't put us at threat we're not going to be in session um I would be open to perhaps allowing Esa students in the summer program only um but not in any other fashion even if they were to pay a fee the statute allows the district to set a fee and for the esa students to pay the fee but again for all the reasons that bright young lady enumerated that's what makes us special we do not want to create a cafeteria plan you have a little of this but I'm not coming to school and so I'm sorry um I I I just I I feel that it would be der for me within my
127role to take a different position so I'm new to the esa um we've we homeschooled since 2021 um I'm new to Esa this year um for me I'm recently divorced and I'm a single parent of two and that funding has been vital for me to open opportunities for my kids and now I'm presented with a choice to be in the arts or accept the funding and my understanding of the esa is that it is not applicable for extracurricular activities it's applicable for during school hours from 8:00 a to 3 P.M but after school hours in our guidelines we are allowed to participate if it's not part of school hours if you're if you're um the distinction between homeschooled students and Esa are sharp and they're different the rights that homeschooled students have are the same
128as any in District attending students it's just not that way for Esa they don't have access to the programs unless the school grants it and I as I'd said before for the reasons I we have to agree to disagree I'm sorry I take no pleasure in it but I'm I'm glad I made the decision to tell the other two they couldn't because now I'd be having to tell this young lady well they could but you couldn't so we've been consistent but my I am sorry but that's an amazing young lady right there she is come on back to school we'd love to have her we'll take you tomorrow you'll be the BR star next month thank thank you okay so my name is Arma santen and um so I have a question um my question
129would be you say Esa I understand that Esa funding is different than homeschool and you say come on back to school but what makes a homeschool student different than the esa student because the homeschool student is not going to come to school they're just going to participate in the extracurricular activities I I may answer that in effect an Esa student has a tax rebate hom school students still pay school taxes um on a $500,000 home the property owner is going to pay about $200 in school taxes the average Esa is $7,600 that's a very different thing The Homeschool students are still paying taxes therefore they still have access to their guidance now these all these rules were worked out at the state legislature now next year and in the year in the coming years if
130the state says hey we're changing the rule and you must accept Esa students then we would but right now when they're giving us the flexibility to make the choice best for our district um I don't need to belabor our decision but that's why we're taking our position well I would just like to say too that as an Esa parent we actually still do pay taxes uh those taxes are not those property taxes we we pay um to to Blue Ridge taxes we still pay those taxes every year those taxes are not taken away because we're an Esa student right but you get a check for $7,600 the homeschool students don't get a check for $7,600 they pay their taxes and don't get a check you pay your taxes and effectively get a rebate but that
131money is used for their educational purposes understood understood but it's not it it doesn't come under the same uh Services as homeschooled students so the options are if you wanted to return Thea money and just operate as a homeschool absolutely welcome welcome him with open arms or come and Roll come tomorrow we love to have you well I feel like what I had prepared is not going to change your mind so I will just keep it to myself then well thank you and thank you for your say it okay thank you hold on I think she wants one more thing I'm going to say one more think we can still be friends right yes we're still friends we're still neighbors we'll still be neighbors um just let me I closed it up by accident so
132just just a second okay so my topic was on the contribution um the mission statement and vision of Blue Ridge is a family for achievement tradition and innovation Thrive and um you all know that these core values CU they're posted right behind you the core values are courage respect commitment Integrity um and within all of these it says take action and persevere through fear change in the unknown demonstrate understanding thoughtfulness and compassion towards all work willingly with persistence and determination and support of a common or shared Vision practice ethical principles while taking ownership for personal performance and results are a handful of um homeschool Esa students and parents reflect blue ridges mission and vision the children that this impacts the most our major contributors for your programs and to our local Performing Arts community and
133that intrinsic value should not be automatically tied to funding they hold leadership positions in the Blue Ridge choirs and theater departments um these students are committed to Excellence and are spending extra personal time volunteering by co-directing accompanying coaching and encouraging other students stagecraft lighting set building makeup countless volunteer hours taking on leadership roles The Faculty trusts our kids and as students leaders to the other students in the program these children have worked diligently to follow all of the district guidelines for years and have contributed positively to blidge these children have flourished in the areas of leadership knowledge confidence collaboration creativity teamwork and many other skills through the classes and programs at blid and these are the kinds of Role Models any school would want to represent their school when we truly value the ideas of
134Courage respect commitment and integrity we place the students our children as a community that represent family above and beyond a financial burden thank you ma'am anybody anyone else like Lorenzo good evening Schoolboard me Members my name is Lorenzo Santana and um thank you for allowing us to speak this evening um I'm going to speak on the topic of compensation and um at this point I wish I had the skills of a car salesman so I could persuade you but I don't but I'm going to still try to persuade you a little bit based on what we had prepared here um we'd like to propose kind of like the allar uh payt playay option for Esa students here I know that's the lowest option on the tier that Mr Dr Wright just um had mentioned um
135according to the current Esa parent handbook uh July 2023 version page 22 Services provided by a public school says Esa funds may be used to pay for individual classes and or extracurricular programs provided by a public school such as drama club band cheerleading Sports arts classes music classes speech and debate and so um you know there are many other schools here in Arizona that are allowing this alart or this payto playay option um such as a few that we found so far were the American Leadership Academy in Gilbert uh public schools in queen Queen Creek uh Messa public schools which is one of the largest public schools uh districts here in Arizona it allows Esa students to participate in their programs by charging each Esa student a participation fee for the programs and closer to
136us is the pacin public school districts which allow Esa students to also pay to play in sports or in um School classes or in extracurricular activities and there's probably many other schools and districts that we just um haven't found yet in our research but this would provide at least some funding to your school programs to offset you know the minor costs uh these classes and activities um that our ESA students incur um and um you know the you the Blue Ridge Unified School District wouldn't necessarily need to be an official vendor through the esa class wallet um families could just pay the school directly and then submit to Esa their reimbursements um and that that would require less administrative work for Blue Ridge um the pricing could be e easily determined by comparing to other
137school districts that are also doing this which we could reach out to and find out you know follow their method uh do some obtain some comparative pricing for what they're charging for sports or the Arts or any extracurricular activities um you know and determine a fair and reasonable price for these uh classes and you know as was previously mentioned several of our students here have continuously given numerous hours from volunteer time to mentoring um some of the students that are in theater um or coaching them or co-directing or doing set stage construction lighting makeup you know and you know um even just acknowledging their volunteer time how much time that they've put in um just as even inine service you know for these programs to help them be successful um you know U just recognizing
138their volunteer hours but um even at that you know we'd still be willing to pay for each class or activity that they're involved in and I we feel like this could be a win-win solution for both sides because right now we don't see the esa program going away right now the esa program is there and um instead of the school losing a lot of students and not getting anything out of it you know for those students that do want to come back and do want to participate and do want to be involved and do want to give back to the school and the community you know they could pay for those classes and so instead of it being a um all or nothing you know we think um you know the the program the school
139would end up getting some of that additional funding back and that would be better than just barring or Banning the students from all es from all programs here at school so I think sometimes you know the something getting something back is better than the All or Nothing option and we think that would be a win-win solution and um you know we would ask the district to consider consider that because another thing that is is really detrimental to all of us here that um are receiving Esa funds is the fact that this was just dropped on us about two or three weeks ago in the middle of the school semester and we had already asked in the summertime about enrolling our student in a couple of classes and we asked about the payer code options and
140they said it was approved so because of that that's how we planned our funding for the year but then all of a sudden out of nowhere where just one day boom all of a sudden this this policy change was dropped on us and we feel like that's not fair it should have been done in the off seon and it should have been done um you know it should have also allowed us to um have these discussions and allow the public to present their concerns and um and come to a good resolution together as opposed to that that's what we don't understand why all of a sudden in the middle of a semester that policy change happened this should have been a policy change that happened either in the summer this past summer or this next
141summer and that's why we asked Blue Ridge to consider allowing our kids to stay in the program through this 2024 2025 year and then give us all time to reconsider this discuss it open forum and um and then make a decision in the offseason so to speak in the summer so we think that would be a winwin solution for both of us I appreciate your civility um you've always we've worked together now on different things and you're always extremely civil I will tell you this we had no way of tracking how many Esa students there were out of our district until a few couple of months ago and it was shocking that we had 200 and so the financial impact of that coupled with not passing a bond put us in a very different position
142the that the way I look at it and it may be flawed I'm not perfect but I'll tell you this as a homeschooled student you pay your taxes you don't get a rebate as an Esa student you get a rebate and that's a very difference and the state has has had to work hard to create a list to hold people accountable to make sure that the the funds are being used appropriately I believe paying for participation would be an appropriate use but I also believe it gives away a recruiting Advantage for us and I don't think that's wise but I appreciate you approach Mr Santana have great respect for you and your family thank you sir thank the time to speak tonight I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak to you I realize that it's
143late um so thank you for taking your time my name is Deborah Jensen Deborah yeah I am Scott Jensen's wife um and I do have a hard copy of the letter that was emailed to each of you on your emails that are listed online um if you would like a hard copy it's here for you today um we would like to again I I realize that this has been asked but we would like to sincerely request the leadership to postpone this decision this policy change until next year so that we might have adequate time to prepare our financials and our plans for our families that have already been allocated for the rest of the school year um we need this mandate to be lifted for this year um and we need an opportunity to discuss
144its potential imp implications for next year um in the limited time that we've had to research this complex issue we have found that we have more questions than answers and we've named several we've asked several you've asked some of us but we have more questions than what I think we have time to discuss tonight and you speak about fairness and we agree we believe that freedom um promotes fairness and we believe that it's unfair to punish the few that are here today and not allow them to participate in extracurricular activities this year for the fear that there will be many to follow that we see as unfair Fair every family that receives Esa funding we do not have verification that they were all notified we a few families were notified two to three weeks ago
145right before an audition mid semester we see that as unfair was there a public announcement made prior to this decision an email that was just sent to us the day before auditions was there any opportunity for us to come and have an open Forum like we are attempting to do today certain students require not a cafeteria plan but a customized plan that's what Freedom of Choice allows we are willing to offer you our rebates we are willing to offer you excessive funding that we are being given stewardship over to customize our children's education I have special needs students others of us have very specific mental health needs that allow us to accommodate when we have funding for that student applied that we can decide how to use it's very critical because every student learns differently
146as you well know we are told either to enroll full-time or to take a homeschool affidavit but our question is why would brusd not allow our children to participate in electives and extra extracurriculars along with those who have a homeschool affidavit if they only receive fundings for full-time enrollment student students why is brusd not willing to discuss this allart option more fully wouldn't that be a win-win situation and an Apples to Apples compensation for you does Br USD know that the esa program does give back neither nearly $1,000 for every Public School school student in the state through the taxpayer funded educational add-on funds and that Esa kids are forfeiting that when they enroll in Esa how exactly are these Esa students causing a financial burden to be USD that cannot be recuperated per student
147through an allart payment these students don't receive laptops they don't receive your textbooks they don't receive your school supplies they don't receive paper handouts they still pay their activity fees they still pay for theater for sports for costumes for uniforms we are more than willing to pay to participate in summary we have all spoken Scott has spoken about the major disruption that this has caused our families Stephanie has spoken about potential discrimination that we feel has been shown to us as a minority here in your community and and um Arma has spoken and Lauren Lorenzo has spoken about contribution and compensation now we are asking for a more thorough examination of the issue thank you very much thank you anyone else would like to was he want to speak he was a new employee yeah
148we didn't see I still have a list those would like to speak there's no one else would like to speak we need a mo announcement we will have our next meeting a special board meeting to conduct superintendent interviews November 7th that time will be determined that could possibly go into executive session but our regularly scheduled board meeting will be November 19th at 5: pm at this at this location if uh if there's nothing further Dr Wright no sir I have nothing Kimberly nothing we'll ask for a motion to adjourn have a motion from Chuck second from Jennifer all in favor thank you