001folks we'd like to call this meeting to order um and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and Chuck Waldo would you lead us in that I pledge allegiance to the flag flag United States of America to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you for all all you who are here to um be a part of this meeting this evening we'd like to excuse uh Jennifer Brimhall who's had knee surgery and can't be out this evening we have Diana Butler on phone with us tonight we have Chuck Waldo and U Margaret gobby so we have a Corum in present today so we'll begin um with recognition of the students of the month and we'll just turn this over to the principes if you don't
002mind we'll uh why don't we start with the elementary and go up to the high school this time so our student of the month at the elementary school is not here he told me today I've got baseball practice I said well we're giving you an award he said well I've I've got a team and I've got to be a baseball practice priorities so um anyways our student of the month is Nash Terrell he is a third grader um I've got Miss Butler here she knows him probably better than anybody else on campus she's going to come up and say a couple couple good things about him I'm sad he's not here that he can hear me talk good things about him but I have the privilege of working every day with Nash and he every
003day he's such a hard worker he what can I do more give me more give me more give me more so he he just wants to learn he wants to do his best he is has drive and ambition and I'm so proud of him he's kind to everyone he always has a smile on his face he is very deserving of this award so Nash [Applause] Terell can I have Gabriel as Gabriel okay do you want to take high school and then we'll okay thank you all right Troy liser come on up please so the high school we'd like to recognize Troy lisst as a student of the month for this month there's your plaque and free cookie as well so Troy he is he's really come out of his shell the last two years he's
004involved in so many different activities at the at the high school um he's done the last couple years he's applied himself he's taken dual enrollment classes college classes he's got on a track to head to the next level and he's also put himself out there with student counsil and also with the yearbook he's the Editor in Chief of the yearbook this year we're we're excited for this one they this is the first the soonest that they've completed the yearbook as long as I've been here and I'm not sure how long before that but they've worked hard on it and that's a lot of goes to Troy and and his crew for putting that together and he's also our senior class vice president correct and he has really come out of his he was a freshman
005sophorn yor is a little more shy but he is willing to get out in front of people now and and grab the microphone and just bear it all to everybody and so he does a great job get the the kids pumped up um he's one of our super fans at all the games and he's he's done a great job at the high school we want to recognize him for the month of April so congratulations [Applause] Troy if we could wait just one moment Gabriel is coming from track why don't we right here why don't we jumble things up just a little bit and do our teacher of the month uh Mr Grace so our teacher of the month um she didn't want to be be teacher of the month I told her it wasn't an
006option is shamain right so if I was to list everything that shamaine does on a daily basis around campus um that keeps us moving forward we'd be here all day um from the announcements and the joke of the day to absorbing classes um when we're short on coverage uh to running the variety show and making sure that our kids are are seeing music that takes them to our high school program um she's there before I get there every morning um she's typically in her car still but she's there uh but every everything she does is is something that is vitally important to how we operate on a day-to-day at the elementary school and we are absolutely blessed to have her we're going to miss her next year um she's built a tremendous program that turns
007out kids that that love the Fine Arts that love music um I've sat through three years of recorder lessons for observations 30 kids with recorders is not something that I will miss sitting through but um it is it has been pleasure and honor to have her on campus so sheain right thank you so thank [Applause] you I think you just came in all right I think we can do that now could I have Gabriel Garcia come to the front [Applause] please we are recognizing Gabriel this month he is um he was nominated nominated by of his teachers um and so I just want to read some information from her and then give a little bit more information that I have as well Gabriel has grown so much while at BL Junior High he's a smart
008friendly helpful young man he stands up for what is right and has become a positive role model and leader among his peers he makes the classroom a fun place to be another teacher said he is respectful he submits his work on time that's a big deal and he is friendly and kind in class we've seen so much growth in Gabriel over the last two years when he first started started we thought wow he's got a lot of energy and he has and it's such great energy he is a leader um and what I've told him before is For Better or Worse you are a leader people follow what you do and he has taken that and really become a leader um for good and I'm excited to see what he is going to do when
009he gets to high [Applause] school all right next item is uh Mr web would you like to do yes there you go if I could have M armo come forward please all right hand this off to you so each month the District we recognized one outstanding employee within the district and um we chose to recognize Mrs armo this month and she's for the time that I've been at the high school I'm just amazed at the level of commitment and integrity um just those core values that we have that we want to recognize for and her willingness to to help out wherever she can I she's at I'm at most of the events and it's kind of a requirement that I'm there but then Gerald 's there too and she's always helping out she's volunteering with
010any of the counseling events that we have um she's there to help recognize the kids and she's she has bought into the kids and loves and supports the kids what her Beyond those things what her real job is is she helps the the students that are taking the Talon classes with NPC um and so she helps monitor all of the different subjects that go through that building over there and then also help with she she we also s and some kids who struggle with some Spanish they need some extra help with the the Spanish class that they she's always willing to help out those kids um and and also get provide feedback from between the the kids and the professors at NPC the class classroom instructors but it continues on after the class closes she's
011able to help those kids and help guide them be successful in that program so just anywhere you look geraldine's going to be giving her all to to bluid and that's why we want to recognize her she definitely is a bluid supporter and everything she does and says is we're just super grateful to have her on board thank [Applause] you thank you that's awesome we did did um did Benjamin Nash Terrell just walked in there we go Mr Grace he got here all right come on Nash Miss Butler we understand he was at Little League practice and we understand that that's a legitimate excuse so we think it's special that he's here [Music] today so yeah so Nash like like Miss Butler said is one of our our best at the elementary school he embodies everything
012um all of the values that we have here Blue Ridge he is those uh he's got a smile on his face and he's always looking for more to do he's a friend to everybody uh I see him every single day at lunch um he asks me the same question every day uh and typically that starts with you know something along the lines of how is your day going um Nash works hard and and has shown tremendous growth uh he is just an outstanding student and well-deserving of this award Nash we understand that your teacher really loves you she got a little emotional talking about you yeah Nash with the teacher let's see um next item on the agenda we asked uh we've asked Matt Peterson to come and do a presentation Matt turn the time
013over do you have a mic there you go good evening president Merill um thankful to be with you tonight I think they're going to get my presentation started but just a little background here I think two years ago I stood in front of you guys and explain the project that I was trying to get accomplished after we had several near misses with young children on Porter Mountain Road and I felt like it was our duty as the town to really try to find an Avenue to fix this problem um over the last two years the partnership with the town and the school has been incredible three years that we've worked together Dr Wright um everybody at the school has been willing to help participate put their opinions in and we've worked really hard at trying
014to bring this to you guys so tonight I'm going to go through pretty quickly of what the plan is um construction is supposed to start May 17th 18th I always get it wrong 18th school gets out on the 18th and or 17th and then we're getting started on the 18th so um anyways so here we go um the study was was completed by kimley horn in 2021 and the bluid school district was part of that in Navajo County was also part of that we worked in conjunction with everybody to get this done the project purpose was the Blue Ridge Elementary School and Middle School served approximately 1,200 students with a total capacity of 1,600 we identified and evaluated potential improvements to Porter Mountain Road to recognize congestion during pickup and drop off and I'm going
015to go through some of these as we go but most importantly was to improve student safety that was the most important factor of our study um recommendations for the road roadway and onsite improvements for the school district the first here is is what we were seeing out there as you can see this kid was passing right in front of a car um this was during our drone study as we were running a drone out there videoing the the queuing times um we caught this image uh this kid actually if if you've been out there and walking you know that there's no sidewalk after you leave this Edge so he had to run off the little Hill there to get down to the school a little bit of the C crash data I know it's hard
016to see on here um but from 2014 to 2018 there was 42 recorded crashes um most of them were not severe uh but they're all scattered through that whole portion of Porter Mountain Road and there were five crashes within the roundabout and I thought that was very interesting with two of them during drop off time uh typical queuing at the roundabout you can see here it's it's backing up all the way from inside the school out to the roundabout which is which is causing a little bit of backup um throughout this process we've learned that the roundabout is actually doing what we wanted it to do it's slowing traffic down it is causing about a 15 or 20 minute backup however if we speed that up we take the chance of getting somebody hurt or
017a young child hurt so through the study we recognize that we want to keep that feature there because it's doing exactly what it's supposed to it's slowing the parents down and making it easy for the kids to get through there okay this is going to start all the way out at um 260 and we're just going to work through this project real quick and then um I'll go through it but starting at 260 you'll see on the lower side of that that drawing is the sidewalk and curb and gutter and that'll go to Adeline Lane um and on the opposite side of the road it's kind of hard to see there but there's a new path a 10- foot path that is detached from the road we'll slowly move forward through this so at Adeline
018Lane to NEC Lane this is what or NC's yard this is the first of two pedestrian crossings that you're going to be able to see out there so what will happen is we're going to separate the road in the center and we'll put the two traffic Lanes on the outside and we're going to make a pedestrian island in the center and it'll also have the flashing beacons there and this is closest to right there by Adeline Lane it's quite farther down on um the Porter Mountain closest to 260 so that'll be the first crossing right there um there'll be sidewalk on the east side of the road and on the west side of the road there'll be a path as you go down toward the bottom image is getting closer to the NEC um yard
019there and we'll go ahead and move forward um this is from the NEC yard to about the roundabout here's your second um Crossing it's right there by flag Hollow and this will will actually add a turn lane into flag harow one of the things that we were that we found during our study was if there was somebody trying to turn into flag Hollow after they go through the roundabout they weren't able they were stopping all the traffic inside the roundabout which was also causing congestion so now there'll be a turn lane into flag Hollow there'll be in a a pedestrian Island here that connects to the path and we've also found that there's significant amount of kids coming down flag Hollow to the school district um continue forward the path goes all the way into
020the school district and then crosses over and follows on the other side of the road the west side of the road here we're looking at where the bus stop or the bus is turned into the school it's the second entran is for the school the path will follow the west side of the road it's also detached but also what we put here was a turn lanane for the buses this will allow your buses to get off of the road and make the turn lanane without backing up any cars into the 260 or into Porter Mountain Road this will help with the congestion at the roundabout as as well so all of these factors were're trying to clean up the congestion in the roundabout this continues all the way down um and the path continues on
021the west side all the way to um Porter Creek or yeah Porter Creek subdivision um and we're excited to be able to connect that subdivision to the school as well a couple last things that are important we add added some Landscaping out back in front of the school um we felt like that that area needed to be landscaped uh with trees and brushes to make it look nice and we also added um a secondary access to the school this is one of the things that we came through on our study was is that heaven forbid there was something going on at the school I wouldn't be able to get you First Responders um they would get jammed up in the roundabout there's not a good way for them to get around the roundabout so this
022road connects to the parking lot that you guys expanded already and goes out to the church the where the church has their parking lot currently it'll actually tie into their parking lot and then tie into the main road on Commerce Drive this will allow First Responders to come down this back access if there was something going on in the school and get to the school without having to go through the roundabout so we're excited about that addition um lastly we've added lighting to the whole project so there'll be lights all the way down the path every 60 ft to light the path for obviously in the winter months it gets it stays darker earlier in the morning and the kids need to leave earlier in the morning so we've added lighting for that and we've
023also lit the roundabout so that the roundabout will be lit in the in the future as well lastly I think it's important to talk about the cost and where we're at currently the total um project is 2.8 million um the town was awarded 2.24 three million um through legislative money that we worked hard at getting and we need we were asked asking the school to um do 611 of adjacent ways and that will come back to you guys at a later date uh your Administration will bring back an IG for that um there's another ask of the of the school district is if you want me to take over the rideway here in this area what that means for you guys is if I take over the rideway in this area currently it's under your
024your your maintenance and you take care of it so what I'm planning on doing is bringing or administration's bringing you back a two ride of ways and what this would do was Encompass the whole Road that's your second access will allow that to be under her funding which means that I will maintain it and I will snowplow it also up front I incorporate I included the whole area where the Landscaping was so that the town would maintain that and all the way into that first crosswalk on your land um that'll allow me to use her funding to m maintain that that area and currently we already have a great relationship with you guys we we help plow we do a lot of different things for you so I I think that this would would make
025sense so that I'm able to spend funding in this area but those are the two asks that your Administration will bring back to you um after that Dr R I don't have anything else unless we have some questions I just have a couple of comments for the board so there'll be two more steps the board will need to approve an IGA once that's completed between the town and our legal review and then once everything's completed the board will be asked to deed over those those areas to the town and then that would enable us to release adjacent way funds and adjacent way funds these These funds have a very narrow use this is not something that can be used for raises or increases or salaries or anything other than Ingress and egress to campuses or
026other school facilities this has a safety element it also provides access during emergencies so it is it's something that the town has worked really hard on for more like seven years and the last three years have been really important if you recall we started discussion about six years ago when a kid one of our students after school ran in front of a full truck a big old truck and came so close to be becoming hit and injured or killed the driver had a heart attack and so that again the ne the talks about what can we do and the towns to be committed for getting this funding I mean 2.2 million uh through County state and federal funds to get to make this happen for our portion 61 is a relatively small portion compared to
027the safety increase the walks and the lighted areas that will be there will enhance the safety of this area immeasurably so thank you Matt for your effort and and for the town for the partnership in this so there'll be two more steps that we'll we'll still have to go through but uh I just wanted to add that before the board had any questions for anybody that's here can you mention some things that have been covered with adjacent ways some of this uh the in the Ingress egress at at Yellow Jacket Lane when that had flooding we we did some of that uh that was a project that we used with adjacent ways uh um over at the junior high during that construction project with some of the curbing there and the and the the uh
028parking that was there in front of that not parking but drop off area those are two that come to mind it has to be something that enhances the safety has something to do with emergency vehicles having access which they will have much greater access the other thing it does it's it's just the reality of 2024 is if we ever had the need to evacuate because of forest fire or any kind of other emergency we have the ability to get emergency vehicles First Responders in there a lot quicker and without delay if we had something bad happen during a release time now it'd be very hard to get folks in and out of their First Responders especially so it really does enhance the safety of this area it also will make a lot of our community
029members happier because we it'll flow a lot quicker than it does now and in the end it'll be a lot safer for for everyone concerned does that answer your questions mark thank you um I don't have a question I'm spent quite a bit of time with Matt going over the plans I just want to say thank you to the town to Matt especially for all his efforts and thoughts that went into it and uh we really appreciate it second what Chuck said thank you so much for what you did and I know there's a lot of work went into that and uh a lot of thought and and money appreciate that so much um whenever we do anything like that it makes the town look prosperous prosperous and that Prosperity helps us grow and we
030appreciate that that makes everybody look good you and us so thanks any other comments or you'd like to say to us or anything no I thank you for your time and it's been a great partnership so I appreciate you guys as well just to let you know we were going to vote on that IG today but didn't quite get worked out so we'll put that on the May agenda we'll drop it from this agenda okay thank you sir you bet all right the next item on the agenda we'll turn the time over to uh you Mrs dugdale for um oh I'm sorry um Jennifer and Diana did you one of you have a question or comment you'd like to make all right Kimberly all right good evening governing board president and governing board members I
031have two presentations tonight so we're going to load up the first one and that is our annual audit there we go all right so our annual audit is complete um and so this is just a uh presentation on that audit so as you know we get audited each year uh we have three um sort of kind of audits a financial audit which um audits all our financial statements um a single audit and that's on our federal programs um and that's for any school district that gets over $750,000 in federal Awards which we do um and then that's and the uniform system of um Financial records audit and that's a basically a checklist from the auditor General's office that we get audited on as well and these are annual um great news we have an un
032unmodified opinion that means we did a good job um and that um we have uh a good running school district and we are functioning well uh so the two Federal programs that the Auditors looked at this year were our health and nutrition so that's our food service department and our Esser funds uh we uh did really well on both of those audits um we did have a finding for reconciliations with the county we have worked that out and we believe that all of those issues are resolved at this point O um so in our usfr finding that's that checklist that I mentioned we did have some audit findings with our Capital assets that's like our school buses our technology stuff anything that's over $5,000 uh we had um student attendance um audit findings as well
033we always all school districts have student attendance audit findings that's because it is a very technical process that requires a lot of people to be involved in that process and it's either yes or no no matter what the sample is if you get one no then you get a finding for it so if they if they sample 100 student attendance records and you have one out of those 100 records that are incorrect then you get a no on that um on that on those findings um and then I spoke earlier about the reconciliations that's reconciliations with the county and um us and the county treasurer's office and again we have worked out the capital assets issue we've worked very hard in my office to get that um rectified and to where it needs to be
034and as student attendance we're working very hard on that as well and our reconciliations we have rectified that as well are there any questions I Jennifer Diana any question no so the financial audits a couple years ago um the legislation changed on them and they require a roll call vote um for you for the board to accept the audit so at this time we will I will ask if you would be willing to accept our audit but via a roll call vote all right we need a roll call vote which means verbally Chuck yay or nay y yay Margaret yay myself David ml yay Jennifer Diana I need a yay or a nay in regard to that audit yay yay it appears it's all unanimous thank you so much all right that next I'm sorry
035next item on the agenda we'll let you go through with that all right they're going to pull my presentation up so another thing that happens with the auditor General's office is that when you submit all of your information to them for your um Financial audit and your um annual financial report they um put that data together and they come up with something called a district spending report and you may have seen an article in the paper um before I did this presentation in March about our district spending report and um it was a great article and I just we just appreciate the White Mountain Independent so much for publishing that for us um so this is a report that is released by the auditor General's office every year um it's on every Public School District
036in the state of Arizona and they've been monitoring school districts since 2001 they do make changes to the audit to the to the district spending report report periodically um there was no significant changes this year on what they report on you all have been here so you've seen this before um it'll look very familiar um so the Statewide District school spending was 12.6 billion for um 2023 and that was a spending change of 98922 million in the green so they spent more last year than they had the year before all right so we're going to go through um the results that we have so here is the state results I just wanted to show you kind of for reference where the state was in the things that they're looking at um so they look at
037classroom spending and then they look at non-classroom spending and you can kind of get an idea here of where the state averages are and you can see there that the state average for those three items for classroom spending was 69.1% and then their non-classroom spending was the rest of the pi which is .9% um when the auditor General's office um talks about our peer groups they're not talking about districts that are around the mountain they're talking about this list of schools that's who they're comparing Blue Ridge to whenever you see that report that those are the schools they're comparing us to and you can see on that list there's a wide range of schools on there kenta's on there um Benson's on there wiberg's on there tuba City's on there some of these schools were
038somewhat similar to maybe Round Valley but the rest of them were not really that similar to um how they come up with this has to do with student attendance and some other metrics but I just wanted you to be aware when they talk about our peer groups this is what they're talking about all right so our district results so you can see our classroom spending was 65.7% and our non-instructional or non classroom spending was 34.3 so close to the state average um there and I think we're doing pretty [Music] good so we have increased 1.6% in our classroom spending and we've decreased 1.6% in our non-classroom spending report so that just means that classroom spending that just means that we're increasing our classroom spending and um decreasing our non-classroom spending uh so here is the
039demographics for Blu Ro Unified School District you can see that we're a medium-sized District um you can see our graduation rate is there um it's really small sorry about that but I just want to give you an idea this is at the top of the classroom spending report all right and so what they do the auditor General's office is they give us a little bit of a grade on how we're doing um pertaining to our peer averages and remember those peer averages are that list that we just looked at that had Tuba City on it and had cayenta on it and so there're those numbers are comparing us to them and you can see that our Administration is low our plant operations which is our maintenance department is very low and our food service is
040High um I doesn't necessarily mean it's bad that just means that we we spend a little bit more on our food service um feeding our students um in transportation is very low um you can see here um we're just comparing um again us to our peer districts which is that list um that you saw at the beginning and you can see that we're above um in our classroom spending see how they're all in the green and we're pretty much Below on our non-classroom spending um which is means just means that for our peer districts we're spending more in the classroom than they are on average all right so here you can see a little graph of our non-classroom spending and this is where I went in and compared us to sholo and snowflake just so
041you could kind of see uh where we are at with our non-class rooms spending compared to them um and then here is our non our non-operational spending and that's our land buildings equipment and then here is our average teaching experience you can see that we have a considerably higher retention rate than our surrounding districts which is a good thing for us that means that we have low turnover um and we're keeping our staff here longer um here you can see this is a comparison of our average teacher salary um throughout the years and we are progressively going up um as the White Mountain Independent stated we are one of the highest paying rural school districts in the state of Arizona for average teacher salary and here you can see um just what what categories our
042teachers are in so the auditor general office looks at um teachers that are less than 3 years and then teachers that are more than 3 years and this table just shows you um where we're at each year and this can fluctuate due to retirement and things like that um so as time goes on it'll fluctuate up and down um and then here is a graph that shows our student per teacher and you can see that we're we're low compared to the state average and we're low compared to sololo and um snowflake for how many um students we have per teacher in our district real fast yes can't see the would you will you show the inform sure can you give me one second Jennifer I have to pull it up on my computer because my
043it's not large enough on the screen for me to read it is that okay Mr I don't know if I'll be able to read it sorry my old eyes I can see it 16.9 State seven I can tell Jennifer Jennifer the state is 17.7 we're at 16.9 if you go to the right I can see it even in the small one you got big offet and then uh sholo it looks like it's 19.2 and then snowflake is 23.6 right so it shows that we're our classroom size is significantly smaller ma' yes ma'am um I'm sorry to go back a little bit because I also wanted to know about um the graduation rate did she go over the graduation rate I did not hear that 86.6 I think it was it was like 86 86.8 86.6
044yeah okay was our percentage graduation rate yes cool what's the state average um for graduation rate um I don't know I'll have to get back to you on that Jennifer I didn't put that I didn't put the state average in my in my presentation I just put our demographics okay no problem thank you all right okay so oh oh what happened to it there we go so this is just a graph of where we're at with our state testing and um what in our passing rates so the district is the orange our peer group that's that list that I showed you is the dark blue and our Statewide is the light blue so we have math English language arts and science on here and we're we're doing okay I would say so here is our
045um here is our comparison to our peers on the mountain so Snowflake and um sholo and all of this data of course is on the classroom spending report all right are there any questions so you said you thought it looked it looked pretty good where's our biggest Improvement needed for looking at next year testing what should we be aiming at as a district I mean some years we aim at math some years we aim at more money for classrooms what do you think our biggest aim is for the coming year I mean we don't want to just hold steady I mean that'd be great if we don't go down you mean for academics or for financial I all of it um well I don't really feel qualified to give an answer on the academics only
046because I haven't done a bunch of studying on the academics I would say that we're doing best in our English and language arts programs we've we've struggled in math and science as has most of the state since Co um but we did make a little bit of gains in math we can always do better and our science is probably the one that's lagging the most where that needs the most attention but if we looked as a district what would be what do you think our Focus would be for next year the very top like some people would say we're not spending enough in the classroom but we are compared to other districts are they going to compare our math scores or English I me if we had to Target one specific thing to tell the
047the administrators this has to improve well I think we'll have those discussions before the next school year generally we have that meeting in June it looks stable yeah right I would think that the biggest push has been on reading especially at the elementary levels and part of that is is increasing the volunteers to try to make up some of the learning loss and also just to improve reading I think that's and in the primary grades too so I think it's a discussion that depends on the grade level and the campus in our primary grades we're noticing there's more and more kindergartens that don't know their colors their numbers their letters and then we have a handful of emerging readers we have some like Mr Archer Beck's kid that can read in kindergarten so first grade
048that's what they good they right so but I mean the average we're noticing that in the primary grades the kids aren't coming with the same skill set they did even five years ago I would say that our focus is continues to be on improved reading at the at the lower levels we're trying to keep our class sizes small in uh Kinder through second grade or through third grade those classes were average 24 in uh in grades fourth and excuse me Kinder first and second grades will average 24 students in per class next year in grades third and three and four we'll have 26 kids as an average and then grades fifth and sixth we'll have about 30 kids so our class averages will go up we have 18 fewer teachers this year than last year
049and we'll feel some of that it won't be 16.9 next year students per class it's not going to be 25 or 30 but it will be higher than it was this last year if you recall we used Co funds to keep class sizes artificially small to try to make up some of that learning loss so one area I would think would be will continue to be reading but there's always room to be made Improvement at in the grade levels especially at our our junior high high schools at math and science and I think too we're testing right now we're in the middle of testing so we'll have a better idea of what we'll focus on for academics once we get our testing results um we have a we we'll meet during the summer and go
050over that to see what the what that testing those testing results have said so that we can compare it to what we've done in the past to see where we're growing and where we're not well it's good to see that it's good to see that we aren't clear down noticeably down in something I mean if we're holding our own with the state um I know other teachers you know it's been a hard Road since Co digging kids out so I think we spend our funds wisely yeah the kindergarten kids coming in question Jen FR has a question let me let's make this statement first kindergarten kids coming in with less knowledge is a demographics issue that's not an educational issue that doesn't reflect on the school that's a demographics issue and I think what Elementry
051has done with those kids taking them to third grade where they can proficiently read most of them I think I hope by third grade they're reading well is is a uh big chore and one that needs to be uh acknowledged so thank you for that Jennifer have a question I just had two questions one I what something that Mike was saying in regards to um the aage class size do we know what percentage or you know our average class will be across the board because if we're at 16.9 now what's going to be our um class size districtwide I I don't know off the top of my head Jennifer if I had to if I had to give a a guess looking at kindergarten and grades K through 2 being 23 the next two grades
052being 26 near the 30 it's going to land somewhere around 24 25 all right that that is a little concerning compared to um our class sizes for other school district in our area so I don't know if we need to revisit that and then the other question that I had is um do we have information on and this could be a different meeting percentage of children that are doing dual enrollment it's not classes AP honors and whatnot for our high school because I know in the future we've had in the past we've given that information have we recorded that to see if our kids are on track on the first on the first question question Jennifer the number won't go down will only go up because we have 18 fewer teachers um that number that's
053a static that's that's baked into our our headcount after the consolidation the second item we can put if Mr Merl you'd like me to look for that we can get that information for you at the next meeting but we probably can't address it it's not on the agenda for this one yeah okay so we will put we will make sure that that information is on the agenda next month thank you right just just be clear a class size to double to have 10 more children average per class size is definitely a concern and that's that's a function of budgeting when you lose 18 teachers that's a natural function it's simple math and so on that one uh we're we're still at about where our our peers are we we were keeping our classes artificially slow
054with those Esser funds but with the run out of Esser and the failure to pass the bond that's where we're at I'm just being honest it's not going to get smaller than that um if we get more students I think in Snowflake that the average was 23 almost 24 per student right there yeah 21 you override correct not Bond because yeah I mean I I mean both override and bond because we were going to pass a bond and use about 900,000 a year over the next 5 years and transfer money from District additional assistance and M we can't no longer do that okay all right any further Chuck yeah I guess just in my own mind to sum up what you showed on that bar graph and um on the uh testing results uh basically
055we're below the state average in all three categories and we're ahead of our peers in two of the categories but science were lower than our peers it's what it boils down to and um I I guess it concerns me that we're below the state average in all three of them but I think some of that goes to demographics and so forth but um anyway we'll see what this year's thank you m d all right next item go go ahead you're welcome okay next item on the agenda is a consent agenda board after looking over the agenda is there any one item on the consent agenda that you'd like to to take out and vote on independently or shall we just move forward with the consent agenda as it is we're good I'm good we're good
056okay so can I have a a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented in the agenda so moved I have a motion from Chuck I need a second second from Mark all in favor say I I I all right thank you next item on the agenda is 3.1 recommendation to approve out of state travel um I don't see Bridget here Lauren would you like Mr Webb would you like to just tell us what's going on with that SOA is requesting to depending on how they do in the state competition oh so this is contingent upon the state okay correct let me and I've got a statement here from Jackson Woods I was important I should read from him so I don't want to disappoint Jackson and so let me pull his letter up and
057when read it says thank you for your consideration of our out of state travel request the trip requested would include travel to Orlando Florida via Phoenix Sky Sky Harbor airport for the national FBLA competition dates on or around June 29th through July 3rd we're expecting anywhere from 5 to seven students and one to two shrs not only is this trip a competition but also a conference with business and life skills workshops from real professionals it also will provide students with a chance to plan their college Futures and to connect with universities around the country I apologize for our absence at tonight's meeting all of the fbl is currently down at Tucson for state competition with hopefully all of us becoming eligible to represent blur and Arizona at this national competition thank you to the board
058and district for your pre previous unwavering support of fpla program at blidge we greatly appreciate it as it provides so many valuable experiences for our students the conferences we have traveled to in the past have provided amazing learning opportunities for us we hope for the board's support for this trip and as always we appreciate your consideration sincerely Jackson Woods at brhs F president well said yeah that was uh well put any questions about that M check the only comment I can think of is that I'm amazed that they can make that kind of funding through the student store to pay for the trip the student store is doing really well yeah and it's great that they're it they're doing amazing job the the kids are wonderful well we wishing the best of luck in Tucson
059right now so we have a motion to accept item 3.1 as presented I have a motion from Chuck second from Margaret all in favor say I I all right that looks unanimous also item 3.2 recommendation to approve out of state travel for a trip to Anaheim this would be the senior trip and I don't see any representatives for that so Mr web you are our main man tonight I should have been Megan up here so the senior trip they have decided to senior classes decided to do a trip to Anaheim this year students were aware at the beginning how much they would have to raise and they're coming up with that they they limited the trip to 50 students um due to the charter bus and so they're basing the cost on that the cost
060of thisp has gone up from the the last time that they went to Anaheim due to the cost of fuel that's the the biggest expense that they're having to cover in the increase in the trip so other than that the trip cost her they trying to keep it as low as they can um whatever areas that they'll do and they'll they have different nights or planning the the big event that is planned for them is the grat night at um Disneyland where it's California Adventure park closes at I believe 9:00 and then it's just seniors and the chaperon until 2: a.m. and the kids will come back get on the bus at 2:00 a.m. and come back to Lakeside it's an amazing trip and Dr W volunteered to chaperon it's amazing they say how do
061I sign up to be a chaperon here question um I assume since they're going to Anaheim this is Disneyland or nots Berry Farm Disneyland they're actually going to do Disneyland and not are on two different days and then one day they're they'll on the first day that we're traveling we'll leave here Sunday morning and then arrive at the beach we'll have uh dinner there probably Pizza just to give kids a chance to hang out on on the beach and then go to the hotel room and then the next day they'll get up and I believe next day is nutberry and then this the third day will be Anheim the California Adventure okay how many graduates are do we have this year uh 156 somewhere around there so approximately a third are going on the trip
062and we opened it up at the beginning of the year to you know it took us a while to fill those spots too um I guess the concern that comes to mind is that because you're going to Anaheim and going to Disneyland which I believe the entrance is like $135 a person something like that I'm concerned that it it's expensive and if we're going to not Berry Farm or someplace else another day it's an expensive trip and I guess I'm wondering if we went someplace that was closer less expensive that more of the seniors could participate I have a feeling a lot of them can't because they can't afford it and we talked about that and we would have to even it would be looking at another expense of another bus that you're going to
063bring in and then I mean it's it would it would increase the amount but I think we agree we would have more kids that would sign up for it if it wasn't as expensive yeah well I guess it's just too bad that more of the kids can't do it because they can't afford it um but anyway it's just my thought on it wa the so the senior class actually voted on all of the senior class voted and then gave their input on if they would want to go um the winning Choice even whether or not they would go or not go was to go to California so anything in state it I don't even remember the results of it but it was pretty low down there so whether or not the kids were planning on
064going or not the choice they see in their minds yeah let's go to California for a senior trip and I think in their mind that's what they would want to do whether or not they plan on participating due to the cost or their work schedule there's a lot of different variables there yeah and they're going to miss two days of school is that right so the seniors they do their finals that week before and then all of their grades were their their classwork basically is finished on the 10th and so we have to have that for our side so we can start finalizing graduation preparations so yeah they'll they're missing two school days but they're but they're after the curriculum curriculum's basically done at that point okay any other questions anybody when when I graduated
065from the snow Fleet we went to Big Surf I'm really dating myself there anyway so we have a motion to accept this out of state travel for the senior class trip a motion from Margaret second by Chuck all in favor say I I I I thank you that looks unanimous also okay item a 3 point uh three we've decided to hold until next month that would be the IGA with the city government item 3.4 recommendation approve the intergovernmental agreement which is an IGA with for dual enrollment uh Dr Wright you want to talk about that with NPC yes sir these next three items are annual requirements uh the the dual enrollment provides additional coursework for or opportunities for our our high school students and to get college credit and High School Credit the next one
066would be the cad or navit agreement that we assign annually and then we have a a Talon agreement uh with NPC which provides additional cours work for students that are interested in some upper division courses and so 3.4 is an IG that we do annually and it is something that uh we're asking the board to approve to provide these dual enrollment opportunities for our students the high school students um on well I guess taking them one at a time on 3.4 are there any significant changes to the agreement than what there was last year like cost to the students or I don't I think the only difference I think the only difference is positive that our teachers that are teaching those would actually get a stien where they weren't year before but now are oh
067so there are no negative impact on the student but only positive I thinking both ways advantages or disadvantages but just Advantage is not a disadvantage we're not losing any courses that the students are getting dual enrollment because teachers left or because of certification issues I think we may be Lauren yeah so we as far as our own dual enrollment teachers on staff we're we had two teachers that were doing English 101 and 10 two and one is retiring and one chose to go somewhere else and so those two options for the English 101 and 102 on campus are gone they still have on the next section with the 3.6 the Talon option so we're going to be relying on MPC resources for that okay well that's unfortunate but and and also with um David Peterson
068resigning um a retiring excuse me he we had a um there was a lot of students they had option to do dual enrollment with his graphic design classes as well and David's not returning right not at this point we're still trying to talk them into it thank you Lauren is there any other questions no now can we have a motion to accept item 3.4 the IGA with u Northland Pioneer College I have a motion I'll second that all in FA any other discussion on that and all in favor say I I that sounds unanimous also okay item 3.5 which has been explained to us but we have to vote on that independently this is the uh cted inter inter governmental agreement IG that's why that's why they use the initials are there any new programs
069they're adding or any that they're deleting or this is a program with navit well yeah but I mean it's their courses that our kids are going to and are they adding any new programs or deleting any Mr web that I guess Megan's probably the keeper of that information or Mr web last year they started up the um I can't remember the title is law enforcement the one that was taught in in Snowflake that would prep um students to go into the the police forcey or even into dispatching so that one we're with that one and I believe there might be another computer class that they're going to offer that's new oh so and all the others are continuing with those prog programs too for the Nava classes so the uh police option was successful and
070going to continue and yes made it hard for those that aren't located in you know in the snowflake area so but I do believe most of the students that were participating in that one were were from there is no FL workk into those oh okay MH all right thank you um we have a motion for to accept item 3.5 then I have a motion from Chuck second from margar all in favor say I I I I I that sounds unanimous okay item 3.6 six a recommendation to approve the IGA with for Talon which has been been explained already this is basically upper division classes so um any questions or comments in regarding to that Chuck just same question or any changes any changes changes in courses offered either adding or deleting the only change of
071which I'm aware Mr wer we still have to work out before each district was given an allocation of the number of seats per course and the we had a recent communication that suggested it was kind of come first come first serve so we're going we're asking the board to approve the IG and then we're going to go back and that's not a system that we want to participate in nor do I believe the surrounding schools want to participate in we need to be able to count on so many seats to organize that that's the only change of which I'm aware Mr web are there others it's actually the IGA that's that we're looking at is the same IG as before what they're asking us to do as far as come for serve for those courses
072that's just being pushed out there by the dean of the different departments and so it's not included within the IG so that's why it's a conflict and it hasn't been done that way previously and like Dr is saying it's going to hurt some districts and you know especially this year where we're relying on some of those courses and it's just a gamble with the student and on all the other campuses across the mount they're going to be ready there as soon as it goes live they're going to try and click submit and they can get in they can't get in depend on so I would I would Mr Waldo if it's permissible Mr Merl what I would suggest the board sign it the same agreement we had last year if you would approve it then
073we would wait to sign it until we work that element out that would be my request well and the other change is that our students are not going to be taking the English well that they were taking English through NPC but now they're going to be doing it through the Talon program correct well that dual enroll I think is the they were our teachers they still have access to it we just won't be teaching it they still have access to on the dual enrollment this is on the talent side a whole different program that's what I'm saying it's yes sir you're right [Music] okay cles taking because this is the online program correct no this is a program that's broadcast to surrounding school districts and we would have somewhere between eight or 10 students per
074class there the topics Mr Webb can you let us know so before we were teaching 101 and 102 on campus last two years we would probably have 15 to 20 we we had the most students I think out of the area taking the Talon classes that's it's the MPC instructor that broadcast to our Talon room we had probably 15 to 20 students doing um their broadcast and so which course it's English 101 and English 102 and and a lot of those students that take those classes are the navit students because it doesn't the we want those kids to train and work towards their associates degree and they're not able to take the classes that are there weren't scheduled times to be able to take them on on campus even just some of the 12th grade
075classes was a conflict between doing the navit program and the Talon or correct the regular English yes correct did I answer your question Jennifer it did so is any of these are strict online that we're doing today these are just the other ones that are kind of the dual enrollment right correct okay all right so we need a motion to accept item 3.6 a motion from Chuck I'll second that motion myself uh any further com question on that if not we'll um vote by a saying a all in favor say I I I sounds unanimous no need for an a sorry a i it's all the same right okay item 3.7 is a general District upate update Dr right will turn time to you we are U I feel like I'm in some kind of
076a podcast I got two phones in my hands on microphone in my face so we're in the middle of State Testing uh at all grades well 3 through 11 and uh we're also preparing for our the class of 2024 we are going through the preparations and the and have that we'll have that ironed out we've uh completed all the consolidation efforts and I just want to reinforce that despite having a uh a number of teaching positions eliminated our classroom sizes are still very manageable and the greatest number of folks that uh we did not we didn't refill the position were folks that had retired I think that number was 12 that are retiring you can see our average experience on that report was 16.9 that's a high number I think we're anticipating somewhere between five
077and seven retirees next year um and then we would hope that natural attrition will track with our average daily enrollment going forward so I don't anticipating being I do not anticipate being in the same situation next year that we are this year our hope is to make to bring our spending in alignment with our funding which I'm confident we have and then we've created as you recall for this upcoming budget part of the carryover will be used as a contingency fund so I'm confident we're not going to suffer uh ongoing layoffs every year I think we're going to be in a much better position I know we are uh going forward and so while it's painful this year we'll be in a much better position next year year um and and even with I said
078even with the adjustments I'm confident that our numbers are not anywhere near that approach is um something that's not doable I mean we've had surrounding schools have as many as as U 40 kids in a kindergarten class we're talking about 24 so it is um we're in a pretty good position now would we rather have 20 kinderg garters in a class absolutely and would we rather have our primary grades at 20 sure we do not have the budget capacity to add more teachers than we have right now we're just being open and honest as where we're at and so the only thing would change that is if we had an influx of students which we do not anticipate on the other hand we do not anticipate an outflow significantly less than we have now we
079think we're going to land on an average daily membership next year at around 1,600 students somewhere in that neighborhood 1590 to, 1600 and I think we'll budget accordingly our graduation is May 17th last day of school is the 16th and our back is the 12th that Monday the 6th May 6th Awards awards assembly and backl same night Mr Webb's going to provide some clarification so the balette is on the six and the award ceremony where we do the scholarships and all the presentations with Awards is on the 8th okay thank you in the Auditorium thank you Mr web and uh if if there are no questions from the board that would conclude my report any questions from anyone all right next item is a call to the public this is a time when anybody in
080the audience can address the board we open that time up now um you've been there enough tonight just kidding so if there's somebody here to call to the public um we need to announce that our next board meeting will be May 14th um in this location at 5:00 pm we are going to ask at this time for an exe a vote to go into executive session executive session to to uh review and a performance evaluation for Dr Wright so can I have a motion to go into executive session so motion have a second from Margaret in favor of uh going to Executive assession please say I I I thank you that it be unanimous and we'll we'll dismiss ourselves to this room right back here when executive session is through we will adjourn and come
081back out here to adjourn the meeting what did you say next