001all right we'll call this meeting to order and we'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance being led by Lauren Webb hi Alex all right we need to excuse Margaret Gaby today she's out of town and Diana Butler is participating on phone with us and excuse Dr Wright he is a convention won't be back until the 26th and so this is our regularly scheduled meeting for the month we normally would have had it tomorrow but due to time constraints we're going to have it today and uh the first item that we'll be discussing will be the budget for 2024 and turn time over to Ms dugdale good evening Governor president governor board members so we have the proposed budget for 2023. so uh the AG's office actually was able to get the um uh forums out
002to us in a timely manner this year because the um legislature actually voted on a budget semi early this year so I'm happy that we didn't have to have a second board meeting to get the um proposed budget done okay so just a couple of budget factors there is a two percent inflation increase um in the new budget so that went from for about 4 700 to 4 900 dollars per student for the new year and we're going to get about five hundred thousand dollars in estimated one-time money that was voted on by the legislature I just want to um stress that's one-time money so uh we won't be getting that money in the future unless they vote on something um moving forward so um our student count um for our former budget was 16
00324 3577 and that's ADM not actual headcount that's why there's decimals there and so our estimated um student account for 2023 is going to be 1680 8557 um and that's again just an estimate we estimate just a little bit High going into the new year and then we adjust on the December revision and right now our estimated carryover is zero dollars in mnl so the differences in our budget so our budget is going to go up about 869 000 for our m o budget with that inflation increase and the increase in our student count our capital budget is going to go down a little bit um by about 202 000 um that just fluctuates on our student account so that's on prior year student count so that was less than the year before and so
004that's why it's going down our federal grants are going to go up about 300 000 we're estimating our impact Aid is going to go down about a hundred thousand dollars if you remember we stopped running buses to McNary so we have less students that live on Indian lands so therefore we will get less impact Aid because that is directly related to our students who live on Indian land and other funds are just random funds that we get we estimate that those are going to be about the same okay so again uh we have a additional two percent increase to our m o budget we have about 500 000 in one-time money the capital decrease again it has to do with prior year funding for student enrollment and that's down um because of the running the
005buses to McNary we're down in our enrollment so that's just down a little bit and our estimated grants are about the same just a reminder Esser funds will be running out in uh 2024 um not this September but next September so again um our impact Aid decreases because of our declining enrollment of our students on Native American lands and our other funds um are increasing as inflation goes up our grants increase slightly uh so the next steps for our budget is that we will publish uh the the proposed budget that hopefully you'll approve tonight and a hearing notice and then we'll have that approved on the July 11th board meeting okay are there any questions Diana do you have any questions thank you all right thank you so then we'll vote on that later later
006in the in the agenda next item on the agenda is the voucher and reports looking over any of that is there anything that any board member would like to discuss and remove from the consent agenda kind of brief today summertime so um we have a motion to accept the consent agenda as you have a motion from chart a second from Jennifer all in favor okay thanks Diana that would be unanimous okay next item is the business and uh it's recommended that we approve the bus with the fiscal budget for this year 2023 is 23 and 24 right the but this just says 23 24. okay and this is an annual requirement for the board approval any questions or any discussion now that we've had it presented to us yeah pretty easy well I don't mean
007easy yeah it's not easy just put it that way right but it is very straightforward all right so can we have a motion to accept the budget as presented motion from Chuck second from Diana uh Mark Jennifer thank you all in favor all right thank you that looks unanimous also okay next item uh Kimmy I'm going to let you discuss this lease agreement if you wouldn't mind okay so we this lease agreement is for two classrooms over in our multi-purpose and this will house um two sped classrooms and we have Mr Shad Housley here to tell us more about the program that's going to be running in those two classrooms and um if the board is would like would you like yes Mr Housley to come up you don't mind thank you I made an
008assumption you might um I'm Chad Elsey I'm the CEO and founder of Legacy Learning Community with me tonight is Mary Klein our executive director who will be over seeing our day-to-day operations we are we have pushed Dr Wright a few weeks ago to discuss utilizing two of your vacant spaces for students who are neural Divergent students and students who um because of some changes in their in their brain structure they learn differently they learn in different ways and have any challenges and unique strengths we provide services for those students there is a need in the White Mountains for those students to receive services and we we look to partner with local school districts for instance Blue Ridge in this case we we feel like our vision and Mission lines up with your vision and Mission
009and and we're really here to support your educational goals um along with those educational goals of the students specifically who we serve and without any questions that you might have that's just a little bit of a background about Who We Are I just have one age group what age group of children will be affected by these two classroom leases that's a great question currently we're we're servicing students that are in the in the middle school Range kind of like the fifth grade through maybe ninth grade range is where most of the students who are demonstrating the needs and the desire to attend our school we could accept students that are a little bit younger but we we don't service students in the in the kind of the K2 area as a as a matter of
010consideration so I'm completely unprepared to make any real decisions today because I didn't um I'm having a problem with my Blue Ridge email so I'm going to ask you lots of questions that might have been addressed in that and then perfection perfect so the first thing is and that I'll have a question for us later is you you explain the type of services they're provided what does an average day look like how many students in the classroom um what type of education are your teachers and professionals that can provide services that type of thing and how long has your business your company been around and do you have like research backing to prove your success all that type of thing I'm Greg I'll speak to the company you for just uh just a moment as
011the founder of Legacy Learning Community I have 27 years of public education the last 13 as a superintendent of schools and so and I'm currently as a a sitting superintendent of schools schools and I will continue in in that direction Mary also is a retired from from public education and has a a wealth of background specifically servicing children who we we service in our in our area and so as far as the company is concerned we've been in the planning stages for several years the need exhibited itself this year so we will be in our first year of operation official operation [Music] a retired assistant superintendent who my primary primary responsibility was to oversee the special education department I also have served as principal in both the Paradise Valley Unified School District as well as
012the Sedona Old Creek Unified School District so in terms of our the day-to-day it looks much like a typical classroom if you will in the public school the intention is to follow the Blue Ridge calendar including the the days the times and so our parents will be transporting the students so myself and the staff will be there to greet the students get them into the classroom and then again our schedule looks very comparable to what if you were to walk into an Angry Birds fourth grade classroom the difference you will see is the highly structured Enviro government including the schedules in terms of Staffing we have four professions who would love to join us we have a special education teacher two general education teachers as well as what we would call a classified teacher who
013has specialization in American Sign Language I would love to jump our join our group perfect so what's your ratio of teacher to student absolutely right now we are looking at no more than 20 students without four staff excuse me I'm sorry 20 students 20 students so it's a one to five one to four or five ratio okay yes Chuck yeah I guess um can you well we have special education here at Blue Ridge and my understanding is these are special needs kids that you have can you explain to me what the difference is or uh is there a certain category certain physical or mental disabilities that you're dealing with it is it a narrow area or I guess I don't understand the relationship between what you're doing and what we do here the autism yeah
014okay and as far as food service or your kids is going to be using our food service or are they bringing a sack lunch or how do they handle that many have not most if not all of our students have sensory issues therefore the students do bring their lunch because we have students who they need to eat Top Ramen every day because textually that's what that is what they want to eat and so we at this point in time we do not plan to be using your cafeteria we plan to have the families okay provide their own and on Transportation you're providing the transportation for them also yes okay sorry what apparent Transport oh okay um now are they going to be dropping off at the same place that our buses drop off or uh
015that's kind of a question I had and and use of the like the playground break for breaks playground facilities like that how will that mix Dr Wright and I actually walked the the two rooms that are in question and we talked about how that looks Our intention is to operate kind of like an offensive lineman on a football team right they do all the blocking but you don't ever you don't ever get the recognition so we want to be operating in the background and you don't even really know that we're there so we will drop off and coordinate those drop off and pick up times and times when you're a student not at the same time that your students are are picking up or dropping off and will either be struggled before or shortly after
016those two times as far as going outside and utilizing some outdoor space that would be at a time where um you know I know that faces shared with egg hog and other places and so we wouldn't have our students in the same location at the same time frames as those other entities will be leveraging in this weeks so are they you're going to be dropping off and picking up where our buses pick up and drop off but at a different time is that correct in front of the junior high is where that building is and there's a space right down in front where Dr Friday mentioned okay that's good that might be where the parent drop off and pickup is no our Junior High picks up on the on the west side I believe don't
017they yeah they well it's actually they ride the same bus with the high school kids and pick up out in the back when I was there with Dr White the parents were picking up so I would assume that's kind of a parent rotation of where parents were um okay so that's in front of the church that is the old elementary school I think is correct um I saw in the lease agreement that the lease includes your access to the playground area on the west side of the building the grass area I assume and playground equipment that's out there okay um yeah I guess that's all I can think of I have a couple questions in regards to special services are you going to have physical therapy occupational therapy and speech therapy for these kids also
018so the way that this is funded is through the empowerment scholarship and so parents have the option to go into what is called the marketplace and or the vendor list and to tend to use their Esa funds to purchase those services and it is parent choice where they would where they would want those services to be provided most of these parents do have those Services provided in the hall hmm okay I have one more question um are these kids all residents of the Blue Ridge School District or do they come from outside the district or some of them or what no there would be some from who are residents of the Blue Ridge School District however there there are students that would come from the White River School District of Show Low School District or
019even this okay I principles do you have any questions administrators here any questions or comments that you'd like to inject the as far as the playground in the back we are looking at possibly removing the structure then it's a big area but there might be some changes in the structures that are up currently just based on age of the signatures that are out there aging out okay any further questions well can I have a comment pardon I'm just going to say some comments is that cool love the idea of a one to five ratio I think it's excellent and also the caliber of experience that you have is awesome but I just need to vet out more I need to understand it better that's my my big concern that I have so I think it's
020a great opportunity our kids desperately need it but I just have a lot of questions not meaning that I'm not totally on your side because our kids need something like this but I'm just concerned about um just like how is this going to mesh with our current students that are happening as a as a physical therapist that actually worked with kids with special needs I think especially having services in the classroom is really important because it teaches them adaptive skills that they can utilize outside the home and more of in a Workforce environment so I'm sure but I like the idea that there's an opt-in my other concern that I have is if this is and is if this is a service and it's a contract Service and we're doing this for one organization we
021normally have to go out for a competitive bid process correct Elise this is just a lease this is not services right yes that is correct this is a lease we're not Contracting Services with them all we're doing is renting them space just like we rent space to the church we rent space to nacog same same thing right but I'm just there's other organizations that are locally that are doing something similar probably not in the same scope and scale that you're doing which may have some negative [Music] impact for us if we enter into a lease agreement but I haven't even seen the lease agreement yet that's my biggest concern because I just don't know like how many years is it how many months is it what's the overall fees and costs and stuff like that
022so addresses questions Kimberly yeah so it's a one-year lease um it's a year-to-year lease uh and you what was the second part of the question like cost for a facility usage that type of stuff what's the lease agreement I don't have I don't have any of those details so be it go ahead I can speak to someone yeah that would be great um so the lease agreement is for one year and Our intention is year to year we want the partnership to work for both of us um your policy does allow for lease agreements with private entities like was stated including private schools and so the lease agreement is for 900 for the two rooms for 10 months over the course of beginning July 15 through the course of the school year to be reconsidered
023probably in the spring of next year should know the parties able to do that that includes the custodial regular custodial services if there is you know a child gets sick that does happening classrooms and and the vomit on the floor we would pay additional charges to have custodial stuff to come in and clean them as far as utilities and other things that's included in in the United States annually or monthly monthly okay because that's pretty much the gist of of the financial agreement and so the lease was prepared by Dave Pioli from the trust Dr Wright worked with him to prepare it and um Mr house is correct it's 900 a month and that includes um cleaning services as well right no go ahead I have a question really not for them so much but
024I I'm pretty familiar with that building and I know we have the church using part of it and head starts using part of it and aren't we leasing to U of A for extension classes or for the Fab Lab well yeah there's a Fab Lab but is aren't we leasing some classrooms or something to U of A as well yes okay I guess my concern is I'm where is are these two classrooms that we're leasing to them in relation to all the rest of this is the the right next to nacog oh okay in the hallway that originally was Kindergarten okay the church has the old multi-purpose room and the classrooms on the north side of the building so basically they'd be right next to nacog or um I think nacog wanted two additional classrooms
025this year didn't they and we could only offer them one because because of this I think I wanted to additional classrooms we could only offer one additional classroom because of the two classrooms that were going to be leased out this way okay so I think so they're all kind of clustered right there together okay also I had a thought again about the playground situation I've seen Junior High kids out there using that playground on the West Side the big grass area and the basketball court and so forth I assume that you have you guys have interacted as far as usage or are they all going to be out there at the same time and then I think the preschool uses some of that area also I guess I'm just wondering well one as far as
026playground times and so forth are we letting them out at the same time to intermixing them or and the same with the transportation I assume we're going to be working all that out a schedule for that we have not interacted at this point but I'm sure you know if it's important than we would be figuring out a schedule um I would imagine that we would probably have separate times to be used in the playground as well in the pickup is um he had said that they would be they would alternate the times our I mean we're right at 3 30 and so I will imagine it would be did it just before or just after that okay yeah I just want to see us coordinate those things also when your kids are in the in
027that building in the same building you've got high school and Junior High kids in the Fab Lab that are in close proximity there and I don't know what the arrangement is going to be about restrooms are they all going to use the same restrooms or to me I seems like those are things that need to be worked out are there areas where the high school kids are not going to be allowed to go and then we've also got the church um and so I just hope that we get all that worked out coordinated do you have any questions Diana true situation too okay president I believe to talk right said one of the rooms does have a restroom in it um so that is that's very helpful as far as I was concerned if it
028if it pleases the board um Mrs Klein could actually share with you kind of how our our students that we service interact with outdoor space and indoor space so that you can you can to get it in the field for for how they might use it in out the door space and and to to the point we would definitely arrange our schedule in court and so that we weren't interacting with the spaces at the same time yeah I guess I would suggest that you need to coordinate with nacog with the preschool with the Fab Lab as far as those things are concerned areas that each one can go and can't go in use of the playgrounds some kind of a schedule and the drop off and pick up locations and so forth and times either
029staggered times or different locations for that it just seems to be less of a congestion but and avoiding future issues but I think if all of you sat down and discussed it all and compared schedules and so forth head off future problems that could come up that ratio our students are supervised at all times okay one of the classrooms does have a full restroom with a sink in all the facilities okay good all right if there's no further questions we have the opportunity to vote on this at this time we have a motion Chuck you have a motion I'll second in Diana we're here to vote all in favor yes yes okay all those opposed Jennifer be opposed so I think it carries with three more information I think we have amazing comments that were
030discussed but I really think it hasn't been adequately vetted with all parties involved to ensure safety of kids especially if we're having a lot of autistic children that have a severe level sometimes they need one-on-one ratio and so what if you're dealing with a problem here we need to make sure that the children are safe in all environments even with four teachers what if you have 20 kids and that's not enough and then we need to determine how we're going to handle security issues if we have you know autistic children are very wonderful I work with them all the time and they need a lot of support and I don't know if our school vetted all of the significant assistance that we're going to have to give to ensure that the kids remain safe especially
031when if we're doing something on our campus it's also a reflection of us and if it doesn't our safety their safety and our safety need to be well vetted you know so I love that there's a bathroom in the classroom but it's almost have we talked to everyone else to ensure that these kids remain safe that's my biggest concern I just had two other thoughts that I think need to be considered one is calendars is our calendar going to mesh with tears as far as that's one of the comments they said they would mesh yeah and the other one is what if we go into a lockdown are you going to and lock down at the same time I are they going to be on our PA system so they know yeah go ahead yes
032so they will be following all our same safety protocols including our lockdowns snow days all of those kinds of things good okay all right noted I'm sure we'll get that taken care of I'm sure you'll take care of that this is just for one year and we'll need to reevaluate that the end of the year but looks like the motion carried thank you okay next item on the agenda would be call to the public so if we have anybody that would like to make a call to the public right now we invite you to do so we invite you to um limit your comments to about three minutes [Laughter] I'm a 12-year Village graduate I wasn't in I was in my senior year for 12 years we know you and and it was probably more
033like three right but I I love Blue Ridge I love my community I participate a lot in my community as many of you know I'm big time in pickleball I like to see the schools in the white balance start playing big ball the junior high and the high schools started having League Play travel teams and eventually started having that within the school system it has taken off all over the place in other towns other states is saving people's lives I have personal experiences with people that have saved their life by going out and playing pickleball it's crazy it's easy to play it's one of the few games where a 15 year old and a 70 year old can play a competitive game it's incredible and it's one of the few games where Cove where uh
034you have Co mixed teams male female can play together in school it's an addiction it's a good addiction there's a lot of people getting healthy from it a lot of great social interactions I teach a thing called Court strong it's kind of like the core values so I teach on how to be able to conduct yourself on the course so you can be able to conduct yourself in the public so I I'm very I'm bringing into the white uh wipe out Apache tribe they're having a big um uh coaching in July and we're going to try to do what not Jeremy Hathcock wants me to do one to raise money for the athletic department here in July when the gym is open for the 5th 6th 7th and 8th of July so it'll be open
035to youth 10 to 17 and adults to 99. so it made that we separated in times it would be a three day so I'm not trying to coordinate that it's taken off like crazy it's incredible I don't know how many of you ever played can you play you need to play all of you so you know what I'm talking about okay I can't sell this to people that don't know what it is you just can't I don't know how many of you guys played you played yeah so once you play it's kind of like drinking the Kool-Aid I mean you just got to go back and keep playing because it's an addiction it's easy it's probably the easiest game I ever played and it's a lot of strategy the community is incredible I play with
036multi-millionaires you don't even know what multi-millionaires and people live in the woods they all come together and play I have a guy that drives a Bugatti a 1913 the guy the oldest guy in the world to pickleball a three million dollar car and he drives the pickleball and he's just down to Earth but it's all kinds of people that is I want kids to rub shoulders with these people so they get to see that these are good down to earth people and they want uh everybody's an ambassador to pickleball one more stand but I try to teach those that get two out of hand that they want to win every game and kind of tell them to chill um you want the people to come back and play with you don't want to be that
037person that they don't want to play it with so that's what I'm going to teach so anyways I like to bring this to the athletic director Jeremy's with it all their math factors on the mountain so kids more kids will start playing an athletic stuff if they play Pickleball so appreciate that we do need a as we need you to give your name full name and and your address so that we can enter that into the public record okay so Ezra Borrego email no just your dress okay 43-46 and and their paper in the back you just write it down on you don't need to actually give it to us okay or if you don't have if there's no paper in the back okay just make sure Mary the pretty lady in pink okay she
038needs that so we can put it in public record great idea we'll have uh staff look into that I'm sure I think it'd be a great fundraiser too I you know if there's a guy that drives a three million dollar car and he gets to play in our gym I think that would be something that he might want to help contribute to so good idea good idea any other call to the public we welcome that at this time if nothing further uh needs need to make an announcement that our next meeting will be July 11th at 5 pm at this location and need a motion to adjourn you won't be pleasant for that I think I will if if there's a problem my phone to do to do this correctly we have to have three
039bodies and then when people on phone can be after we have three but we can't make a quorum with that third person on phone and we'll check I will be here as far as I know right now and tell unless I'm told I can't be here governing board President we have to have a um a hearing a public hearing over the budget public hearing so can we start that at 4 45 the same day same day yeah that would be great is that just a public hearing lose the board yeah okay okay so we will have a public hearing to review that budget uh that we approved today and uh that will be at 4 45 on the 11th just before the regularly scheduled board meeting so can we have a motion to adjourn the
040motion a second from Chuck all in favor you ready Ed all right thanks Diana appreciate you