001we are now reconvening in Open Session and we will pick up with the the agenda with item with recognition of a high school character counts wa yeah what character counts for Dr R I'm going to turn over to you and let you guide us through the Section thank you and we have uh students here that'll be recognized Mr Webb do you have the first one hang on second here Mr Archer bet if I can pull that up apologize you want to jump to the next one so I can pull up the can we do the student of the month and then I'll bring up the character winners if that's all right Mr is that okay with you okay so let's go ahead and do it in reverse order then student of the month let's start
002with uh Blu Elementary School Mr Grace you're too young to be lumping around and acting like your sore I tell you that okay I believe that's an excuse it was an I was holding a child it was I was it was a savior thing when you when you invoke a child everything's true it was my own child but it's still all the same it's all good it's all good so our student of the month um is not here tonight but our student of mon Elementary School is Laney Peters and we will recognize her next week at our award ceremony front of all of her peers um and the campus Laney is a third grader with us she is just a phenomenal student a phenomenal kid she's tough as nails and yet she's a friend to
003everybody she's sweet as can be she works incredibly hard um to be the best that she can and every day day in and day out she puts in 100% effort um regardless of what it is whether it's in class or it's you know helping others on campus or cleaning up in the lunchroom or anything like that Laney Peter's more than deserving for this award um we're very lucky to have her and uh the other Peters crew too I don't know all of them but I'm sure that they're all Cut From the Same Cloth so um but congratulations to Laney Peters is hoffm can I have Shandy and come up please we are so excited to recognize shanden shandin is our our student council president um and so she was nominated by several um with amazing
004things to say in fact Miss Heather was just saying oh she is a ray of sunshine she is just so we'd love to see her come into the office because she is her maners are amazing um and she's just so kind-hearted so we also have some other things from teacher that were said about shandin I want to share um as our student council president shandin is reliable friendly hardworking willing to work with anyone artistic and confident yet humble um she also had um her volleyball coach from last year said some things she does an excellent job balancing the requirements of sports and academics she does exemplary work in the classroom always giving her best effort and devoting herself to doing the highest quality work and one of the one of my favorite things that was
005said about her she also holds herself and others to a higher standard um which is an amazing thing to see at the junior high level so we're very proud of shanden um and we are excited that she is a student at [Applause] blid Mr web all right now we got it all together Josiah grisella come on up so blid high school we're recognizing Josiah gelic for student month for the month of Jan January congratulations let you hold this so I can hold my phone and read all the awesome stuff about you so we're recogniz we we're recognizing Josiah for the student of the month for the month of January he's one of our outstanding student scholar athletes he's played soccer all four years here at Blue Ridge this year he is one of the soccer
006captains and he is also named All Region defensive player he plays with grit and tenacity and will have a cool scar to remember from his junior year what a game Joe serves as his school by participating in student government and is currently student body vice president and he's also the historian for the High School National Honor Society chapter Joe also started a new chapter last year by taking advantage of our fine arts program he's involved in theater and he's currently preparing for the musical Sound of Music music and he has a role in that so come out and watch Joe in his performance and he also is a member of our mixed choir class beyond all of these Joe is just one of the nicest young men you will meet he's super friendly willing to
007help wherever help is needed and maintains a weighted 4.5 GPA taking honors in dual en enrollment courses so smart student he's he's awesome he's great to have here at the school he plans on attending na majoring in criminal justice so well deserving of this award [Applause] congratulations I just like to say we are lucky to have students like these and parents like these raise kids like this it's it's what makes us the cream of the crop thank you Mr web Mr web you're up there for Teacher of the month all right if we could call out Bridget Blake come forward please so while she's coming up we she started out as um an Nate for one of our classrooms and that didn't last very long we saw the value and what she could bring to
008the classroom and we asked her and she willingly graciously accepted to move into the classroom so um let me read a little bit about Miss Blake would like to recognize Bridget as a teacher of the month for January Bridget is one of the teachers who sees an area of need and comes up with a solution to the problem she willingly took over as our business teacher last year and has worked with the students to make be our student store so much better she provides opportunities for our business students to participate in state and National competitions and also seminars and trainings our students are learning real life business skills and making decisions that will help them if they choose to continue their entrepreneurial paths in addition to all she does in the classroom she has played
009a pivotal role in the end of the year celebration for our graduates without her organizational skills and and ability to get others to help and volunteer we wouldn't have had the success we've had over the past two years we hope she continues this Ro role for many years to come congratulations thank [Applause] you again we love it when roots go deep like that for the uh Mr web for the uh BR star for January that there we go he heads a little bit I I don't see Katherine here I she is not here um she had an appointment and so I said that's okay I'll say great things about you anyway so if I could just say a few things about her um Katherine she was at our she was our Spanish teacher at the
010high school for many years um and she came back to sub she is one of our Main Stays at the Junior High um and she is not scared at all of junior high students which is fantastic she is um she comes in with confidence um and kindness towards the students and this and so much patience um and she has filled in in so many places where we you know we've come up up on a you know a day we had short a short notice and she's been she's saved us several times um and she's also helped us with translating for students too which is amazing so she really does so many uh roles as a substitute teacher and we're just really lucky to have her I wanted to make sure we recognized her thank [Applause]
011you character character counsel all right and I did want to I I neglected to mention Bridget's a br um alumni here so we're it's awes and I think that was a reference it's great to have former BR students come back and lead in the classroom in an the school too um this the month of January the character trait that the high school focused on was Unity and I don't see any of our students here but I want to go ahead and read their name oh oh come on up yes Lexi how can we forget Lexi so we're gonna Lexi did prepare a speech so we're going to have her talk for a little bit so let me read the other names we have Dylan Brown Denzel Bonia Lexi ordinola Christian Armstrong Alexandra Vias Damen T
012and Gian gerardi and with the character trait of unity all of these students were nominated by teachers and all of the classes so pretty remarkable trait to unify these are the ones that are going to bring the school together and an example of this is this young lady right here the amazing stuff that she does with student council it's really attributed to to Lexi and what she and the skills that you have so congratulations we haven't forgotten anything no sir all right next item on the agenda is an annual thing we have to do is we have to elect board officers and I'm going to throw that out for open discussion right now to the board I just want to thank Dave because we've had a very smooth ride this year even with ups and
013downs in the district and everything that goes on I'm sure he spends a lot more time here than people realize it's a lot more than board members so thank you that's not what we're here to talk about well we're we're here to elect new board officers for the coming year it's the going out and the coming in and probably we're not letting you go out so I just want to say that before the fight begins are you willing to do it again sure I you know I like the big bucks yeah this is a yeah never mind so we need um a motion for the board president I guess the motion is myself to be board president David Merill I have a motion some a second Chuck Diana all in favor great we got it
014okay so we now we have to have a vice president and a secretary voted in in the past we've just had Mary Ford acting as the board secretary we probably need to um verify that with a vote this year if if that's up to the board so I would like to motion Chuck Waldo to be vice president and with that motion I need a second from Margaret all in favor of Chuck being vice president for the upcoming school year that's also unanimous I'd like to motion also that Mary Ford be the uh board secretary all in I mean have a a second on that second from Margaret all in favor thanks all right next item on the agenda is um I'm GNA turn this over to you um sure um Dr wght or would you
015like uh Kimberly to do this go ahead Kimberly Kimberly two item one point two point two agenda item so that we can have the board members approve our vouchers and salary and District expenses um so that we can pay our bills and I would say that the board has um been gracious enough in the past to provide this authorization to allow the business to keep moving forward and then it's always ratified but we appreciate that uh flexibility and trust any questions or comments about this this is pretty much a housekeeping item I'd like to move that we accept item 1.2 as written second from Chuck all in favor that also looks to be unanimous okay item 1.3 um this is to identify any uh current conflicts from any governing board members or staff Administration staff
016so I've declared that I have no conflicts of interest and I've filled that paperwork and handed it to Mary is it Chuck Margaret and then Diana well um my daughter is a teacher here at Blue Ridge at the elementary school um and I have two grandchildren here at the high school um Lauren Cox and Jared Cox and my sonin-law Eric Cox has a contract with the district um to have a physical therapy office on campus so the purpose of this is just to um state that you would recuse yourself in case of a vote involved personal interest like that Margaret do you have any um yes as always um if we decide any changes in the insurance carrier or anything for the district then I would recuse myself because my husband is doctor in the
017area and might or might not carry that insurance hold on a second okay Diana my daughter Amanda Butler works out of the district and I would recru myself from any thing that involved her personally all right thank you Jennifer Brimhall has just called in to make a declaration and be part part of this board meeting since she's here so she's called in and uh at this time Jennifer we are um stating any conflicts of interest would you like to State any conflicts of interest that you might have in the upcoming school [Music] year oh sorry start over again I muted you we um we had a technical difficulty it guys didn't get this right I pushed the mute button sorry Jennifer can you start over we're not hearing anything Jennifer she can submit can you
018hear me now I can we can hear you now perfect go ahead got to put it up by your head Dave come right through I missed what you guys were talking about my apologies because I was you muted me so I couldn't hear what you were saying sorry I think this border has just deteriorated because of me they told me I had to put this up by my ear to hear what you were saying oh okay conflict of interests this is the time to State any conflicts of interest you might have in the upcoming year perfect so um in bhole PLC any Orthopedic care and Camp Grace brim hole Family Foundation um high mountain half marathon and um White Mountain Youth Foundation thank you um there'll be a form that Mary will have you fill
019out okay perfect all right and Dr Wright yes sir I I have two potential conflicts one is my brother Matt Wright is the principal partner of Wright Welker and POI um I will say that he's been represented in the firm for 30 years but because of that relationship I would recuse myself um from many determinations there uh the way that our legal council works is the trust assigns us attorneys like Mr py was assigned to us for this last executive session the second one is I provide Consulting for the Arizona risk retention trust through my my LLC game plans and I serve as their director of the legal and Leadership Academy those are the two I want to note I filled out the firm form and submitted it to Mary Kimberly Mary I don't have
020any conflicts all right so we don't need to vote on that I'm sure but we've made those declarations and Jennifer if you'll get that form Mary will provide it for you to her so we can have that on file sounds great thank you next item is uh item 1.4 directive of annual investment reinvestment all monies within School District service fund um Dr Wright or Kimberly either one of you capable of explaining that to us this gives uh effectively Kimberly the right to invest the funds that are with the County Treasurer in the market so they're interest bearing and in order to do that we have to have the uh the board's approval this is an annual annual requirement do you need to add anything to that Kimberly no just that this is the money that's
021housed at the treasurer's office and it's through an investment fund through the um Navajo County Treasurer's Office all right uh we have a motion to accept or any discussion on that we have a motion to accept item um 1.4 as written in the agenda have a motion from Chuck second from Margaret all in favor Jennifer can you say I I here we go thank you next item 1.5 governing board to delegate the purchase Authority um this is just another housekeeping item would you explain it for everybody to us Dr Wright yes sir this allows Kimberly and myself to transact business on the district's behalf and we are bound by the policy limits set within the governing board policy but it en enables us to perform business day-to-day operations any questions on that from any member
022of the board if not can I have a motion for uh 1.5 as stated have a motion from Chuck second from Margaret all in favor I got that I from Jennifer all right the next item on the agenda is to establish the meeting dates time and location for our regular governing board meetings through 2004 and we've been provided a list I don't know if we need to go over that list since it's in the minutes but um any conflicts anybody sees there I was told by Kimberly dugdale that we might have to have two board meetings in June for a financial report which we'll cross that bridge when we get there if we get there any conflicts there not to my knowledge all right can we have a motion to accept the calendar as presented
023in item 1.6 have a motion from Chuck second from Diana all in favor I thank you Jennifer okay consent agenda is the next item on the agenda uh cons agenda um puts together several items on the agenda so we to vote on them independently is there anything the board would like to exclude from the consent agenda and vote on independently or we have a motion to accept the consent agenda as recommended I have a motion from um Diana a second from Chuck all in favor yeah I thank you Jennifer all right um item 2 point I mean 3.1 just we're down to the superintendent's report Dr Wright we'll turn time over to you thank you sir the district has initiated a strategic planning and succession plan uh for the district and for the time frame
024of 2004 through 2000 excuse me 2024 through 2027 for that 3we period excuse me three-year period and within this work students parents community members staff members and anybody that has an interest in participating we have a chance to weigh in on the plans for the district now what we're going to do we want to make these plans operational we're looking to develop three or four goals that are subsid of and easy to implement and that are going to move our work forward not a big glossy binder of information that takes a year and a half to develop and it sets on a shelf somewhere we're really going to work to develop those action plans to help keeping us move forward I I'm very pleased personally with the progress of each of our schools in the
025district but we need to take the next step now to plan for the future and so that will help direct our time and our resources that we have on the 16th we're going to engage with uh Dr Nick Clement who has offered his services at a at a very deep discount and it also comes he's going to scholarship part of the of the cost as well but for a very small fee he's going to help us for a 2 and a half day period working beginning on the 16th with students I'm going to meet with the superintendent Council the kids Council and our our facilitator and then on the 23rd we're inviting excuse me the night of the 16th we're inviting the community any stakeholder students parents community members anybody that wants to come and
026Dr Clement will take us through a feedback session of from 5 o' to 6:30 that night to get input from uh the community and then on the 23rd there'll be an all day planning with a steering committee that would be comprised of District Leadership School site leadership uh teachers students at the high school level and uh support staff members that'll be an all day process and what we want to come out of that work will be some action plans toward and and also a plan for the Board review that says you know these are the three or four steps that we'd like to report a report back to the board for its review and possible approval so that's what that looks like this is going to kick off also an effort with cognia which is
027a districtwide effort to have our accreditation brought under the same umbrella K through 12 and so it it's very extensive it's going to take a ton of work um Megan and Lauren and Ryan and Courtney already working to that end but these goals and the planning that we're doing for future is also going to be an integral part of the of the cognia review and evaluation so it's going to be we got a lot of work coming up but we're um excited to do it because we want to engage with our community we're going to make an effort to make sure we get that message out to the community on the 16th and invite everybody in these are open meetings and we'd love to have the participation we'll make individual efforts to invite folks as
028well and we we hope we have a lot of participation we also sent out uh from Mr Merl myself a succession plan I've been here I'm in my 10th year now I won't be here for another 10 years that's for sure here hopefully I'll be alive but not here doing this job for 10 more years maybe 10 years but in the event that I don't or I'm ran over by a bus tomorrow we need to have a succession plan and within that plan uh the board has identified Kimberly dugdale as a potential candidate and has asked me to continue to give Kimberly more responsibility currently in addition to serving as the CFO the Chief Financial Officer she also oversees transportation and Facilities so she's very busy right now uh she is a certified superintendent she
029has a lot of experience as both a classroom teacher and also inside the district office and is a terrific human being so the district has not made any Final determinations on that but in our succession plan that's our job to name the potential candidates and so the district the board will go through a process when uh my tenure is over to select a superintendent um but there's also a plan in place to help grow the folks that we have uh Mr Grace was promoted from Adena students to the principal of brez I think Mr Webb has been promoted three four or five times since she's been here and has about as many titles even now Courtney Miss hoffmire was a teacher Megan was also a teacher and also worked in our special education department before
030being promoted to the her office as did Mr archet so we grow our own our chief technology officer started out in that in working inside that department and now he runs that department so we have had within the last virtual decade a a a tendency to promote our own and grow our own people and we're the board is in favor of that that's what they've communicated to me we are very blessed to have developed a deep pool of talent here in our district and we're very proud then then any questions from Mr President from the board on either the strategic planning process or succession planning just perhaps that we make a notice of a quorum for Tuesday the 16th and the 23rd in case uh we get three board members shored up yes sir do
031you want us there you're um you're certainly welcome to attend I would say uh the we talked about this with the consultant and he said if the school board members come and and sort of watch and don't participate a lot people be more willing to participate at in some districts I told him we don't have that problem where in some districts Believe It or Not board members can be overbearing check and and intimidating to the other so we don't have that problem yall are welcome to come and we invite you to come but you won't it would be just anything else I would just attend as a a Community member and we won't ask anything special of it but we invite your participation okay on the 20 on the 16th I guess the other thing
032I'm curious about is um could you provide us with a list of the people that are serving on the committee we will on the steering committee we'll provide that list to you yes sir I can just sure we'll put that in my uh in an update upcoming update how about general information general information yes sir any any other um Mrs gobby or Miss Butler anybody okay okay did Jennifer have any questions when she's on the phone you have any questions Jennifer oh I thank you okay on on the next item I want to talk just a little bit about our itm model that's the instructional time model this is wildly popular with the community because you can bet on a calendar your calendar doesn't move the school year is not extended we don't have snow
033makeup days the itm or instructional time model allows us to move forward with academic progress when we have a snow day as it were and students engage in an activity and and they are given credit for that activity and for their participation and attendance and so we are able to essentially count those instructional hours that enables us to move forward and not have to extend the school year which has not been popular in the past we don't have to worry about that now and so the board adopted this at the beginning of this year and we've had one run in it we're prepared the teachers and students are prepared as our as as the administration and I it's really important for a rural community in an area with inclement weather and Fire season and all
034these other hazards that can happen that we have the ability to have this flexibility and so we are we're appreciative of the board's approval of that we'll continue to employ that our students and teachers are prepared the other things just road conditions and hazardous conditions generally um we could go ahead and launch this pretty quickly as a part of um her responsibilities Kimberly Works in conjunction with transportation and the principles to make the it M call congratulations Kimberly those calls come very very early in the morning uh the uh implementation of a student redirection center uh Mr archet and Miss Penrod and Mr Webb are working as is um Mrs hoffm on a process by which especially with this vaping issue that we've got going that we're not turning our back on and we're not
035turning a blind eye to we're we're going to start redirecting students into this into a center where irrespective of the offense they've committed most of them are vaping but if it's fighting they'll have something they have to complete but it's vaping we're going to launch an education and sort of a counseling campaign that these kids had to participate in if they repeat again a second time they're likely to find themselves coming to the redirection center on a Saturday we're also going to use the Nexus program the county to help for counseling and just help these kids understand what they're doing to their bodies some of these kids are addicted to this this device these vaping devices we're doing the best we can to get resources now where the grace sort of stops immediately is if
036you're trafficking any kind of a drug including vaping materials that's that's a different that rises right to long-term suspension or possible exposion we handle that trafficking drugs Alcohol Tobacco is not allowed the Bo has supported our Administration the last nine years and we don't have near the problem that we did nine years ago with that and so we still as Administration believe that that's important we also understand that a lot of the students that are offending and repeat offending are coming from lower economical um economic situations they're in tough situations we we're not we don't like just suspending kids and removing them we really want to send them back back in and and redirect their efforts provide additional support but they'll be skinning the game they really don't like to do extra stuff like that
037this is not going to be a Disneyland fun activity but it will be meaningful and helpful to them at the junior high level they'll send their kids over here or if they have the capacity they can do the same thing on site sixth graders will remain at brez if it's fifth or sixth we've had only a handful of those incidents and it's more of a junior high school issue and there's fighting and everything else it's the same thing we're not going to in-house suspend or out of school suspend unless there's a narrow uh narrow for much for fewer reasons a majority of the people and the students majority of the students are going to be redirected into um these areas any questions from the board on that okay I don't have anything else for the
038board unless there are questions on on the report generally if not I'll turn the time back over to you Mr Merill any questions from the board Jennifer you have any questions no questions at this time all right the next item on the agenda is uh call to the public and we'd invite anybody that's here would like to address the board you're welcome to do so we'd like to have your comments limited to about three minutes going going gone it doesn't look like anybody wants to talk to us tonight okay next item is the announcement of uh our next meeting which is February 13th at this location at 5:00 p.m. if there's nothing further we have a motion to adjourn this meeting have a motion from Chuck a second from Diana all in favor of adjourning
039hi all right well thank you very much thank you Jennifer thank you so much appreciate it bye bye bye