001folks we'd like to call this board meeting to to order and we'll start this meeting by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance if you follow me everybody please stand I pledge allegiance to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all now folks this is a treat to have so many people here and we'd invite you after your kids perform to just stay this will be a short board meeting tonight so if you want to stay and see how many times I can mess up it'll be just awesome if you did that and so but if you leave that's just fine too so we're gonna we we have a lot of things to uh go through recognizing the fall events and and some of the the music things
002that are going on in the school right now so I'm going to turn on over the time to Dr Wright he's just going to lead us through this portion of the agenda thank you Mr Merrill we want to start with a couple of performances we'll start with the band Miss Olney if you would like to move forward as you as you wish thank you all right our Blue Ridge High School band has been working extremely hard this year and they are thrilled to play two pieces of music for you today so we're going to be playing a Celtic Christmas and good King swings and also if you are staying for the whole meeting we are having a gift wrapping fundraiser in this hallway right here if you don't like wrapping things the kids will wrap
003them for you and they wrap some of mine already and they're looking pretty snazzy so um they kind of know what they're doing so we'd love to have you come and join us for that it's by donation um there's a suggested donation but um yeah so we'd love to see you over there thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] whatever [Music] run run [Music] come on [Applause] nice job kids Miss only we have a small token of appreciation for all your hard work you know you kids are part of something special don't quit you're at the beginning of something that's really special I love it thank you very much thank you again Dr
004D the floor is now yours foreign [Music] foreign la la la la la la la la la la la la la la [Music] ten thousand dollars [Music] foreign [Music] no no I'm gonna follow me [Music] together [Music] la la la la la [Music] [Applause] that was wonderful Dr D we have a small token of our appreciation I hope you kids never really find out how good you are and stay humble because man you're good you're good it's all right let's give him one more let's get one more Applause for the workout [Music] they're awesome okay now if we get to have a coach Hathcock our athletic director we want to recognize all of our fall teams in whatever order you'd like to do that coach we appreciate that thank you [Music] is that Mike on
005we got it [Music] all right everybody got me now all right any volunteers no okay thanks for coming tonight guys it's pretty awesome to see some of our athletic teams and I don't know words being videoed but can we put our athletes up here somewhere all right if you came tonight because uh I'm basically going to reread what your coaches said about you as well but come on up here and be recognized come on up athlete boys soccer cross country come on up I know girls soccer came come on up right now coaches everybody come on up as they're coming up I like to say a special thanks to Lauren Webb and Dr Wright for your guys's support you know guys I've been a lot of places and and um your guys's support is second
006to none and by that these kids know that they've seen you at their soccer games they've seen you at the volleyball games seeing you at the football games and I will say that we do have a coach he's from the other side of town uh the the green and gold coach Maxwell and every Friday night he is always amazed with seeing uh Lauren Webb there and doctor right there at our games he said that kind of stuff I don't want to be too uh PR unfriendly here but he says that type of stuff that you don't see so thank you for that guys okay so anyway just kind of want to also thank our coaches as well for the hours they put in off season coach Kirby coach Hamblin all of our assistant coaches coach
007fergen coach Atkinson I don't know where you hid in here somewhere but coach Atkinson all the hours that you guys put in uh I know it's about the paycheck right it's about the paycheck mainly so but it is much appreciated by everybody up here and I know you guys have nothing but good good memories only from your coaches right they never got in your tails and got you going did they no okay so thank you guys for that so anyways I'm gonna put on my one dollar uh specs here and read this for you guys I'm glad we're on TV here but I want to talk about a little bit our soccer teams had a tremendous amount of success this year um obviously boys soccer going to the state semifinals girls and a heartbreaker as
008well with the boys and the quarterfinals but anyways our boys soccer team had over 10 All Region players with Luis Perez being named offensive player of the year where are you Luis give him a hand for that I still couldn't get him to come out and kick footballs from me but nonetheless so congratulations on that uh through injuries and adversity which we Face a lot of that in the middle of the Year we're able to endure through a tough stretch but once we got healthy our boys went on a crazy Run for the state championship just falling short when one of our kicks hit the goal post or and uh unfortunately losing to the eventual state champions but we're proud of how this team responded through adversity you guys gave us a memorable season I
009don't I don't know how many games we had over there at Mountain Metals I I know that I just kept watching our maintenance move the goal post we try to make it a big venue for you guys and you guys will not be forgotten so thank you guys for that okay soccer girls soccer um uh yeah go ahead you can there you go come on same thing as well I I think you guys went to uh 32 camps this summer right you guys went to every time I look up you guys were at a soccer camp so the these girls do nothing but grind they believe in the weight room uh they're only at the start of their development right now we're excited about the future of these girls and and just the history of
010soccer by the way I did mention his also boys were the region soccer Champions too so that's that's really cool that's notable as well I know Kirby I know you want that big one you don't want to mention that but that's actually a big deal but and our girls are just on the cusp of doing something special so our girls made it to State this year obviously we lost in a heartbreaker again but we're proud of how you girls responded through adversity and push through some amazing difficulties and injuries we had nine on nine all-conference uh players with Leilani Miley and Maya not Mia sorry uh on a second team is Caitlyn Sienna Danielle and three honorable minions are Mary Daisy and Morgan now I'm not the smartest guy in the world but I I
011think I asked for last names on it so obviously you'd all know who you are but thank you for that but congratulate these girls as they hit the weight room and they get after it on but more than anything on this amazing season in your six months of incredible hard work thank you girls for that [Applause] and cross country uh coach Atkinson with this team uh you know a lot of great athletes on this team they work hard they're obviously multiple sport athletes in track and they just get it done I know when our football players are out there they're like man I really wish we could do that sport you know it's something it takes a it takes a certain something to dig down inside and and run and not and and not just
012I mean running at this elevation come on guys to have that gumption and that strength to do it all summer long and to do it selflessly and for your team and I know you guys battle through a lot of injuries but coach Atkinson uh we appreciate all your hard work this team at BR continues to grow in both numbers and talent each year we lose a lot of seniors are graduation we lost a lot last year but we see just as much much growth with the leadership of you guys and the incoming Runners we had many athletes obtain personal records everybody know what a PR is you know that's the one thing they know that's how you judge if you're doing well by their personal records so um anyways so the following people Advanced to
013the state championship in November they did exceedingly well as they represented Blue Ridge High School in our division three uh State section so these are all in the three-point mile runs I I think I've walked 3.1 miles a couple times in my life so but uh anyways Kareem Fielding placed 48th with a personal record of 22 1-4 wow wow Gianna giardi plays 34th and state with the pr of 21 42. Rocky Brown placed 28th with the time of 17 30. amazing and I went to school at this uh kid's dad here Stephen Hawks placed fifth with the pr of 1616. wow so a huge congrats to you guys and everything that you have accomplished um through this year I know we have a number of returning people and and put a plug in for you
014guys make sure you guys are getting ready for track as coach archerbeck is ready to roll with you guys right now with the Baseline that you have so anyways I know I got volleyball just read a quick blurp about in football but um do you want me to read it right now Dr Wright just real quick about volleyball season I know fergen had some things to do but anyways volleyball was 31-9 overall um we had Anna Burgess was a 3A are you here anna by any chance okay she was a 3A East player of the year so we can give her a hand for that one right there thank you Anna first team was Sarah miles second team Emma heslip Isabelle Reed honorable mention Ashlyn Smith and Hannah Carlson um I don't know why our
015second team is out of place here um I think yeah actually that's it but he didn't want me to mention this but Ryan Frogman was our 3A East coach of the year so that's pretty cool in my hand so those girls Grind All Year and then I also want to just real quick about football we we started Four Freshmen six sophomores on Varsity had a ton of adversity on and off the field we pulled together finished third in our region also finished his season ranked 13th and made it to the state playoffs and we had seven All Region players one First Team Six honorable mention but one thing I do want to say is all of us made it to state and that's just uh obviously a tribute to the supports you have to your
016guys's Talent your abilities uh eligibility wise we're on top of everything which was completely awesome so all I can say is this seniors we love you we will miss you and you younger people make sure you're in the weight room okay because the only way to get better is through the weight room that's where it happens that's where the grind happens and your soccer camps obviously those tons that we do so anyways Dr Wright thank you very much I know you probably want pictures and anyways give these guys a big hand please thank you okay well before we leave we're all going to sing Jingle Bells no okay okay we're good okay thank you guys yourself thank you thank you very much I saw a map the other day of the top small schools Sports
017programs in the United States and it went state by state and they picked one school from every state and Blue Ridge was that school they picked from the state of Arizona congratulations guys [Applause] what's that newspaper today I saw it on Facebook foreign thank you all for coming we appreciate you and we would really appreciate it if you stayed too but we understand that you the roads are slick and you need to go home and supper time so I think Dr Wright will turn the rest of the time over to you for um these presentations of the be our star awards and and student of the month and teacher of the month and so forth yes sir thank you let's start with the elementary school in our first presentation Mr Grace we make your student
018of the month presentation please so real quick before we get to to our December student of the month um we had our November student of the month come to this meeting also because last month we had literacy night and so I'd like to take a minute I did forget her plaques sitting on my desk today was a little bit hectic but um she is here so Kinsley Tafoya if you would please come on thank you [Applause] is a sixth grader here at the elementary school she is said to be one of the most respectful Kids on Campus she's always there to help out her teachers absolutely love having her in class her teacher was planning on being here tonight but with the roads and the distance I asked her please stay home um however Kinsley
019is is exceedingly deserving of this award she represents every Blue Ridge value that we have and so thank you for coming congratulations thank you [Applause] our December student of the month Miss Jackson is going to say a few words real quick our December student of the month is Michael caught alessi foreign in front of third graders um he's very respectful and very well loved in our school and in our class and he's just got a great overall character and he has standards very high for himself and I feel that it makes other people feel held accountable he just does it in a way to direct everyone to make sure they're doing the right thing um Michael also has a great passion for Science and a love for Math and that comes through in his participation
020in class he always has something great to share some bit of new knowledge for all of us and he's also one of the first to give the solution to any math problem that others don't get but overall he's just a wonderful student he's a great example to his peers and I believe he's a great inspiration to others and to top it off he's got an awesome sense of humor we love you Michael [Applause] I'd say Michael's Blue Ridge roots go very very deep very very deep we love it three generations there you go Mrs Hoffmeyer principal Hoffman were you now present yours good evening I would like to present the the December Junior High student of the month to Aiden Van Dyke I'm wondering though if he is here looks like he is not with
021us this evening but I do want to say a few words about aim he was actually we we put out for the student of the month we put it out to teachers we're looking for nominations for students who are exhibiting uh you know different qualities and I had three nominations for Aiden he um he was not only nominated by the teachers for student of the month but he also was nominated by several other teachers for a kindness award that we give we give out an award each quarter this month was kindness or this quarter was kindness and he was recommended for that as well so Aiden is just a great example of uh he is a great role model for other students he's always positive he's always willing to help other students so we are
022super thankful to have him on campus thank you thank you [Applause] thank you and now for the High School Mr Webb Danielle come on come on up Danielle so we have Danielle Olson for the high school student of the month for December I want to reckon she's here as one of the soccer players she was an amazing goalie so she had a great season actual career here at Blue Ridge that she's one of the seniors that will be leaving us but she's done a fantastic job her that one of the teachers that nominated Danielle this is what they wrote about Danielle she's a multi-sport athlete and good student at BR she's from what I know a positive role model as an athlete works very hard at our studies and is overall an excellent person she's
023not as naturally gifted academically as some other high achieving seniors but she works extremely hard and grinds out good grades as we know that will serve her well for the rest of her life thank you Danielle for what you do for the school and all the many contributions that you bring to the school each day [Applause] thank you congratulations to all of our students of the month and thank you for showing up and presenting teachers and principals we appreciate that we now like to recognize some of our BR Stars I I think Mr fergen is is he out today okay um but if you want to say a couple things we'll start at the high school please Ryan pergan as you just heard he was the 3A East volleyball coach of the year so not
024an only is he a great coach he's brought a lot of great skills to the the kids on the team and they're the hard work paid off and that's under his leadership he's also a great teacher in the classroom he cares about his students he makes math enjoyable for them I was able to work with him at the junior high and now he's here at the high school as well so he he really cares about math he cares about kids and he tries to find fun creative ways to make math interesting for them so we get both sides of them a great coach on the on the court and then a great teacher in the classroom so the junior high or Junior High Junior High School recognizing or the one of our BR Stars so
025thanks Renford and we'll get this to them thank you Mr Webb [Applause] foreign to one of our top custodians and before I do that uh Steve Murphy could you come up and help make us that presentation to your one of our folks there Doris come on up with Steve if you would and I wanted to thank all of maintenance for Doris you're a be our star that's a surprise [Applause] we want to thank uh on behalf of everyone thank you Maintenance and Facilities for getting everything rolling and for uh you know being up at two in the morning for I don't know how many days straight you've been plowing and spreading salt and Cinders probably since Sunday so thank you for your time very welcome sir thank you nice work if you'd like to make
026that presentation Steve that'd be great with the hard work you do and you are if I might may you are a female Tommy Crane that if it's all there is to it that you are [Applause] that's High Praise [Applause] thank you very much thank you [Applause] Rebecca Fraze has three folks that she wants to introduce and uh we're gonna try to do it by phone here in the speaker if it doesn't work Mr Webb you can take it over let's try it first with Rebecca you're on Rebecca okay so I my YouTube feed um to watch the meeting um failed it dropped off because of the storm firstly my Preschool teachers Kristin Houma and Caroline Cox if you're there I can't see you but please they're here come on up ladies lion guard you can
027go ahead we're going to double team this Rebecca Lauren is handing out the awards and the ladies are up front here so continue please I can hear me and thank you for allowing me to be home um so Sherry Aguilera and I both had nominated these two unknowingly um the last admin meeting I went to I nominated these two and Dr Wright told me well here you already put something in it for him and I didn't realize that these two ladies and their team um sometimes go unrecognized because of where they are in proximity of campus and things like that but um I just need everybody to know that these two work hard and possibly harder than anybody I know they spread Flyers to doctors offices in the library and they attend elementary Reading night
028to reach out to individuals about child find and kids that may not be um meeting their developmental milestones I have watched them as they held crying babies that were dropped off from their mom and dad for the first time at the preschool and they may have just held them for 10 minutes and then the kids adjusted sometimes they held them for a week they've been hit they've been kicked they've been bit [Music] but understand that these students who might be kickers and criers and Fighters are usually non-verbal babies that can't speak of their needs and this is how they react I've seen them tell parents you know you know the baby bit me today but uh it's okay if they can't tell me what they need I remember Caroline a couple of occasions I think
029she got bit twice within 10 days and coming up and trying to say um no it didn't break the skin and I would say no show me your arm because you're gonna have to go to the doctor they um they never complained there are times that they at the end of the day look like a train ran over them and they come back the next day and they don't complain and it's a new day they treat the parents and their students with dignity and respect at all times and they never ask anything that they wouldn't do themselves diapers throw up and all there are also friends and family with their co-workers and would give their shirts off to help anybody that was in need and just to uh Echo something that Dr Wright said at
030the last school board meeting you can pretend to care but you can't pretend to show up they are there every day for these babies they are there every day to support the parents of these babies they have a line of people who want to be Role Models they want their children to be role models in the preschool because they know that their kid will be prepared for kindergarten and I know I don't publicly um put people out there but um Caroline and Kristen I love you and thank you for being part of my team [Music] Japanese nice work Rebecca and uh is Kimberly Rollins here tonight and is that she coordinator are you going to speak on her behalf Miss Rollins had a previous engagement tonight but she was I actually think she was she
031was recommended by Miss phrase but I I would recommend Kimberly Rollins every month she's just incredible she works tirelessly to make sure that she's providing for all of her students on a daily basis she has her room the atmosphere in her room is so calm she is there she's a special education teacher but she has students coming up to her that she doesn't serve us that say can I please be in your room can I come to your room because she just makes it such a welcoming atmosphere the students they they all respect her she has high expectations for her students as she holds them accountable and they rise to those expectations on a daily basis because she won't expect less from them she just knows what they're capable of and she lovingly supports them
032as their as they are growing academically so she's an incredible teacher we're lucky to have her thank you thank you foreign we have two more Awards and these are the teachers of the month and so the first teacher of the month Mr Webb would you make that presentation to miss Tasha hunt yes thank you can you come forward please so Mrs Hans fellow teachers and I'm made in her for the December teacher of the month so here's what the nomination said Tasha is the friendliest person in these campus Building she's willing to help anyone at any time she works with a very challenging group of students freshmen mostly freshmen and a few sophomores sprinkle in in large classes and does so without complaint plus you're very good at what she does she's a good department
033chair and a great colleague who routinely volunteers to help student groups and Athletics and I want to thank her for all the time that you do volunteer in the efforts that you put in for the kids it's appreciated and the kids thank you and love you for that so thank you thank you thank you congratulations Miss hunt Courtney Mr bloomstrom we know he's gone he's got a family obligation I think his wife is putting on a performance and he's supporting her if you'd say a few things about Brian well deserved absolutely yeah so Mr bloomstrand I'm not sure how many people were able to come to the junior high performance um last week but if you can just see the progress that the students make from the beginning of the year even through this part
034of the school year it's incredible and he takes some students who have never they've never had any kind of singing lessons before in their you know in their life and he creates with the students this beautiful music he not only is um he's dedicated to his students but he's also he also brings a very calming presence in his classrooms his students all appreciate him the teachers all appreciate him and again we are lucky to have him on our campus thank you thank you Prince thank you [Applause] thank you again I think and I'll say it over and over again I think we have the best of the best that worked for Blue Ridge and I appreciate you all and I think we only need to give you another round of applause [Applause] into the uh
035the heart of the agenda now uh first item on the agenda is the consent agenda did I miss something presentations oh one more sorry back up turn the time over to Dr Wright we have presentations uh if you could take three or four minutes and review that real quickly some of the remedial efforts will start ladies first Mrs Hoffmeyer principal Hoffman will start at the junior high then we'll go to elementary and then Mr Webb is this okay thank you [Music] sorry all right thank you for giving us the time tonight to talk about some of our remediation efforts at all of our campuses uh just a couple things that I wanted to start with um maybe let's take a look at sorry one second um there we go so just a couple things that
036I'm going to cover with you what our current progress looks like the analysis how teachers decide and how we kind of identify students that need some help the strategies that we have in place for our students and then how we communicate those efforts with our parents in the community [Music] so this will just show you what last year's aasa and AZ size score reflect so you can see from our across our so highly proficient proficient that's really where we like to be but we had quite a few kids in the partially proficient as well in fact an easy site our science scores I was really pleased we had a brand new test today we had a lot of kids that were on the cusp of getting to that proficient part we're about 40 percent in
037a lot of our areas and that's typically where we've been since 2016. the other we had a dip in 2021 after uh covid but we really I was happy with the growth that we saw it is a little bit of a different test but I saw that we saw some growth last year that was exciting to see and so this is one of the elements that we use to kind of take a look at where kids are we also have a new Assessment program called illuminate you'll hear uh you'll hear the term DNA that stands for data and assessment so when we say we're trying to get away from it when we say we're doing DNA testing on our campus we do not mean we mean that is just the um that is the company
038that we use um so if I slip and save DNA instead of data assessment you'll know what I'm referring to these are some of the things that we use to identify our students and the students that need some growth teachers will meet monthly um twice twice monthly in PLC teams and when they are meeting in those learning communities they talk about student student academic success and students that they're identifying as needing some additional help we also use the aasa assessment results the illuminate testing our illuminated assessment actually we have just started using it we just gave a pre-test at the beginning of the school year we don't really have enough data collected to to make determinations from that but we are we are continuing to use that as well we've got some benchmarks this week
039that we're giving for a mid-test or a mid benchmark test we also use classroom formative assessments at the end of each unit and throughout the units and then unit summative assessments as well as teacher observations in fact a lot of what we get from a lot of the information we get is from teacher observations it can tell a lot in the classroom based on what the students are struggling with and what they're able to to comprehend our remediation efforts we have some before school efforts before school of radiation but that's really based on the teachers and their availability before school most of our most of our remediation will be offered if we have students that are coming in during the school day that's going to be during lunch time we also have an after-school tutoring
040program that we've just started we are trying to get some other some of our students to really we're trying to build that program that's new for us every Tuesday and Thursday we have a reading and a math remediation program we also have our Title One Reading and math programs which is going to those focus on really our foundation building with students in in reading and then in math and really just trying to understand the skill focus that they're they're struggling with we also have flexible classroom scheduling so our teachers when they're meeting together they'll talk about students if they need some additional help they send that information to myself our counselor and we have a team of people that will work together for those students we also have a lot of differentiation within the classroom
041so our teachers will recognize if students are struggling with something and they will they'll meet the student where they're at and try to build from from where they are to get them to the expected growth our Student Assistance teams is uh that's something where we we're recognizing all the teachers are recognizing that there's an issue a student is having in the classroom we will contact the parent and we will build teams so that we can we can identify what the issue is with the student where they're really struggling and then formulate some strategies to help that student um we also again so that we had the before and after school lunchtime opportunities um and then we also have two programs read naturally which we use pretty consistently in our title reading program as well as
042our uh as well as our special education program and that's a really great a great program reading program for students to help build their fluency and some of their comprehension as well and then Alex is a math program that the teachers are using we have really just started getting back into that we used it a little bit over the uh while we were kind of shut down for covid we were using some of that Alex program it is part of our new curriculum and so with the new curriculum adoption we are recognizing too that the the curriculum we're using is it's a it's a rigorous program and and that is great but it's going to take some time to make sure that we're getting to the where we need to be with the student growth
043Alex is part of that reveal math program and so teachers right now are working on trying to implement that in their classrooms and that's still kind of a beginning process but we're working on that as well here are some of the ways that we communicate our information to parents students that are struggling we want to make sure parents will be contacted by teachers if we're putting together a Student Assistance team they'll be contacted by me we also will send out emails we'll invite students to to attend our after school remediation programs as well as lunchtime opportunities through newsletters and then conferences with parents as well any questions for me thank you thank you I honestly think it's great that you're doing it and there is progress that you could see especially with the letter grades
044that we got this last year thank you Mr Webb would take high school please and then well rounded out of the elementary all right similar to um Miss hoffmeyer's we we've had some things in place and bringing in the new curriculum is definitely helpful one of the things that will jump back here um so we did change from the acm2 Ames and now we're doing the ACT test one of the things that we're excited about with the ACT test is because it is something that our top performing students have have historically done well on and in the past they didn't do so well on the aims or easy Merit just because they they didn't see the value unit so we're hoping that we see the scores increase because of what we're doing in the classrooms
045for the the students that maybe are not as performing as well historically on that but we're also getting good numbers from our top performers so it with this chart we can see our comparison with the state and the the county so for the ELA percent passing that's a combination of the highly proficient and proficient we're at 33 percent with the state of 41 so we're ahead of the county but we're still behind the the state average with that area with the math it is better so we are only one point behind the state at 31 and ahead of the county with that that area what we see contributing to that are some of the remediation efforts that we have in place we have we've been on the targeted School Improvement because we've had a group
046of our students that didn't perform very well so we Two Three or two years ago we started the Avid training and with that the training that was brought in it was able to go to all of the the whole population of the schools so specifically was towards our special needs students our English language Learners and our Native American students so that it was training that was specific to them but it helps all students and So within that as you can see differentiation we hit on that they did note-taking there's a whole Bank of options that they that we were doing for our professional development and it was on the other campuses as well and so we had the average strategies in all classes and then we have a specific isolated training that was going towards
047those three subgroups we also have freshman foundations this year and it's where they're hitting those average strategies for all those freshmen coming into the into the schools they okay what does it take to become a successful high school student so all the freshmen get that training in their class as far as the remediation help teachers are available before school and during lunch as you walk through the Halls the teachers have their doors open you look in and they're they're actually in there helping so they're giving up their time at lunch too so they're helping kids and with their their work at lunch time and that's where I see the biggest numbers not so many before school but really there's a lot of kids going in for help during lunch time another thing that coach Hathcock
048is doing with all of the athletes not just the football players but if when they run the ineligibility report if a student is failing if they have a deer and F they need to be in with a remediation program at lunchtime so um some of those kids who may not have done well on the testing they're maybe struggling in the classroom too so we're bringing this in a way that helps them be able to perform make sure they're out there with their team but then also they're getting the academic help that they need and as Court dementia we have the Alex program this is our second year at the high school that we've been doing it and so I think you're seeing some of the growth in the math scores due to that we have
049the communication same thing that we're doing the parents can log in see the parent view student view how the the students are progressing teachers are sending out emails if the kids are struggling they have that communication hey if they need to come in make sure the words caught up we have our parent-teacher conferences but also parents are coming in and meeting with teachers when they need to be on that as a we see that the growth of the program and those remediation efforts and we just found out over the weekend that the high school no longer qualifies for the TSI program the targeted School Improvement so we made enough grow up on this past test to where we don't have to focus have these specific areas so we're still going to do that to make
050sure that those groups they'll get the the support that they need but to be able to to not have that qualification from the state is a pretty big deal so we're super happy with the hard work that our special ed teachers our ELD program all the work that goes on in the regular classrooms they've done a great job with those students and then we'll just hopefully we keep seeing them grow and grow and with some of the other things on our letter grade we're going to tackle some of those so our grades going to keep approving any questions thank you Mr wood thank you Lauren Mr Grace all right so at the elementary school um it's a lot of the a lot of the same you know words that the the junior high and the
051high school are using but uh so so we're looking to try to be more data focused we want data to drive our instruction what the kids need is what they get not just a blanket this is how we're going to teach these kids even if they're getting it or if they're not getting it we want to make sure that we're more individualized and we're teaching what the kids or how the kids need it to be taught to them for the duration that they need to be taught to them and we're not trying to leave anybody behind or we're not trying to slow anybody down we want to make sure that we're we're using that data to drive our instruction um so with our remediation programs in Title One in our reading programs we typically will
052be focusing on those kids that are minimally proficient um we run those through we do Benchmark testing called Dibbles or acadians testing throughout the year those groups change as students grow they can move out of Title One reading or reading stars and they can move back into their regular walk to learn classes with our after school programs we will have it open to all students I'll start in January we will have it open to all students but we really want to Target those that are in that partially proficient column there those students that when I was in the classroom we called them bubble students they're they're on the verge of of meeting the standard of being of being great of doing great things and so we want to be able to Target those students and
053say with a little push with a little extra push that uh you know those middle of the road kids sometimes need that we can get you up there into that proficient or maybe that highly proficient we're seeing some of that now our start of the Year dibble's testing on our lower end we have a lot of students that are in the red that they're not reading on level they're not identifying letters they're not identifying sounds just being in the program with the exposure we jumped tremendous amounts up and so that's that's our plan with our after school programs as well and uh so we have bi-weekly and weekly PLC meetings we're really focusing on getting our PLC meetings away from being team meetings over team business and and what's coming up on the calendar and
054actually being PLC meetings where we answer the four corollary questions of what do we want them to learn how do we want them to learn it what do we do when they learn it and what do we do if they don't learn it we want those questions to be answered from the data and from the meeting so that we can actually help students move on and it's not a simple we took a test now let's move on um we also use our AAA aasa assessment results which you saw on the previous screen um that's our starting point and we know how they grade us we don't teach to the test because we teach our state standards but the test is written to the state standards and so in a roundabout way it all works together
055our illuminate DNA assessments we run quite a few through the new program we also have the cut scores so that we can compare them back to the state assessment from last year it's not a perfect prediction but it gives us an idea of where kids will probably fall close to it on the state assessment and so we're able to Target some remediation during the day for those kids as well we use classroom formative assessments we're working on making those more common so that it doesn't matter which fourth grade math class you're in you're going to see the same assessment so we can come back as a team and we can say your kids did really well on this and my kids did not how did you teach it versus how I taught it so that
056we can make sure that our lessons are the best lessons out there for our students same thing with our unit of summative assessments and then we're in classrooms my my administrative staff on campus is in classrooms all the time sometimes to the point of it's difficult to find them when we really need them um and so those are some of the ways that we're analyzing our progress and trying to make sure that we're gearing towards pushing our students making sure that we're giving the best lessons that we can that we're teaching the curriculum to the depth that it's needed um and we're not just it's not just a blanket anymore it's not just covering everybody whether you're a High kid or a low kid if you're a student that's high we want to push you
057we don't want to to drag you down the example that I saw once was if you take a piece of yarn you put it on the on the table and you try to drag it from the top everybody drags if you push it from the bottom the height the high part doesn't move but you have to take it from both ends and you have to move the whole thing and everybody on the line gets to move at the same time um gets to see that progress so our remediation efforts like I said we have Title One Reading it's offered on the K3 side it's also offered more as a push in on the four to six side we'll begin our after school programs in January uh we'll have grades one through three reading four to
058six reading four to six math and then our k6 ELD will also be there so our English language that is an area that we are historically low on state data for is is our English language we work on differentiation in the classroom most of our professional development this year has been focused on the curriculum and how to differentiate it for students in your room uh and then we don't use Alex Alex is more of a of a secondary program but we do have Lexia and Freckle these are student ability paste programs um they're used in the classroom so there are two our tier two remediation as opposed to the pull out of tier three so all of our students are seeing that tier two as well during our built-in walk to learn time um same
059thing for communication we want to try to get out as much as we possibly can so uh we we do parent phone calls lots of emails newsletters our parent conferences we're also working to if a parent wants a conference come on in we're going to schedule your conference it doesn't have to be on parent conference today but we want to have that relationship with with parents um it's it takes both sides to to make sure kids are are successful and then we're also pushing for parents to use Parent Portal that's a kind of a divider on our campus Because we use standards based uh at the K2 level so parent portal doesn't work for that so once we get to to grade three when we get to a regular standards base or a regular report
060card that's when we really start pushing Parent Portal um more for for our students and parents any questions yes sir um well mine is more in general terms all levels that's why I waited until you finished but um first of all I'd like to I'm curious do you have some form of incentives for students to participate in this since it's before school and lunch and after school where they're not required to be there so we're working at that and one of our biggest incentives is that relationship with the parents at the elementary school of telling parents and talking to parents if your kid will benefit from this we don't have before school programs because we start so early but we do have teachers that you can walk by there in a lunch and they're pulling
061kids in and when you stop in and talk to them the parents know that that kid is coming in for lunch the teacher's reaching out and saying your kid needs to be here and and it's they're being pushed by both the teacher and the parent and our after-school programs we're still working on that incentive we've talked about uh the ability to provide snacks or some some kind of food or something like that because it makes the day a little bit longer that sort of thing do you know about what the participation rate is for the students that are performing very low so we haven't started ours will do after the very first month in January we'll do the the a run of it and see where students are at um but like I said we're
062gonna really try to Target those students in our our partially proficient but make sure that it's open to every student whether they're highly proficient or not we have seven teachers so it looked like we only had four groups but we have seven teachers that are going to be uh running those and so we should be able to keep our group numbers fairly small even if we have a high turnout one of the reasons why we were waiting was Courtney and I have struggled with the the transportation kids need transportation and so that is something we we've worked with and dried has been helpful with and and we're going to be able to get that moving forward okay but are we getting 50 percent of those that need to be there into this program or 70
063or 60 percent or I'm hoping that we'll be we'll be over 50 percent um as with a remediation program it's not mandatory you know 70 would be a number that I would dream of um but if we can get towards 50 we'll be doing a really good a really good service to our kids and then at the elementary school or the junior high I can speak to the the person the participation has been low so far uh we are so we're working on some different efforts to try to really draw the kids in um we we originally we we have two teachers and we wanted to make sure that we had our numbers you know we did not have too many in the class though originally we put it out to about 35 40 kids
064and we had three originally that came in so it was super low when we offered Transportation though so we are offering transportation to them afterwards at 4 30 so we were able to get a few more numbers um we do we're providing snacks for them so we're trying to build it it's going to take a little bit more time in January though to try to get those numbers up to get those kids in one recommendation was to change the stuff calling it remedies shouldn't call it basketball or gym so we're working on some things that will really get them excited about coming in for it but it is a good I mean it's a great way for them to really get some help in the areas in which they're struggling so we're trying to help
065them with that and communicating with the parents that benefit to the kids on it so we'll keep working on trying to grow those numbers in January okay that sounds good I'm I'm impressed with what I'm hearing about the preparation and the organization that you've done you've seems like you've gotten together and got a unified organized approach step-by-step approach to reaching the goal and I look forward to seeing some data a year from now on our progress from two years ago to last year to the end of this year and Beyond thank you [Music] does our system keep track of the parents that use the parent portal throughout the district is there any way of knowing that this is just me going off off I'm pretty sure guess but it does track when when parents are
066last logged in and I would imagine that we can run a report off of that to see had parents ever logged in because I do know that when I talked to our registrar about it on campus she can look and tell me they've never logged into Parent Portal or they log into Parent Portal every day so there is a there is a record keeping of it it would just be the matter of finding a report or is that correct I probably could have asked the technology rather than I could have too yeah I'm pretty sure yes but I'm sure they're parents that do it daily there are and and we we need the other parents too we also push at the elementary school every day during sixth grade walk to learn students have to log
067in to their Student Portal or their student view to check their upgrades we're trying to push that as an accountability excuse for students as a personal responsibility also thank you there's no further questions I see a lot of work there anxious like Chuck to see the results next year thank you so much okay now we're into the consent agenda board is there as you have reviewed the consent agenda are there any items in the two point zero to two points eight items that need to be brought out and voted on individually check yeah um I just have kind of a general comment but referring in this case specifically to 2.7 um it refers to t3s and that's kind of an acronym and for I know it's very easy to get into using those when you
068use them every day but since this is a public agenda I think for the public explanation they have no idea what a T3 is but I see here you did indicated on the agenda a little definition of it but anyway I think it's good if we can give some details so the person that's not an educator can understand uh what the T3 person is Dr Wright we have more acronyms in the military I think it's teacher technology trainers and that's the man where the the acronym was born in I.T where many of them are and so thank you but yes that's good comment thank you for that feedback Mr Waldo [Applause] maybe explain what that is what they do it is a position that helps you on here we go sure thank you yeah so
069teacher and Technology trainers and just like it sounds uh we uh Skype it uh teachers throughout the district three at the high school three at the elementary school and this year just won at the junior high campus where we started them to perform technology training whether it be software Hardware related items that other teachers may use and need some additional support on them yeah thank you sure it makes it a lot easier because we don't use most of those programs we do support them and make them work but we don't use them day to day so it's difficult for us to train on those and hence if you can have teachers training what they use every day it's all the better for the teachers that are asking for that help so and this this is
070just payment for their extra work correct yeah any other questions or comments if there's no further we have a motion to accept the consent agenda had as it was presented have a motion from Jennifer I have a second from Chuck all in favor that would be unanimous okay item uh items 3.0 are the business items of the meeting item three-point wrote or on the recommendation to approve the first revision of the fiscal year 2022-23 expenditure budget this is the renovation that we had in the hearing I mean I didn't mean renovation it comes from my work the uh the changes that we had in the budget so are there any questions about that if that's that that's about the hearing that we previously had so Kimberly anything anybody if nothing then we'll have a I
071need to uh a motion to approve Chuck you have a motion I have a second Diana all in favor okay that's passed thank you for your patience with my words you remember where I went to high school we won't mention that s word I guess there's two guys words aren't there [Music] the longer one anyway okay recommendation to item 3.2 recommendation to approve the board meeting date of the second Tuesday of each month beginning sent January 20 January 10th currently we meet on the third no we're going to switch to the currently meet on the third we're going to switch to the second because that's a better fit for Dr Wright and his schedule and it's a better fit for the public and is there are there going to be any problems with the board
072members meeting on the second Tuesday instead of the third Tuesday okay they all kind of run together for me after anyway so there's no comment and no opposition we have a motion to approve item 3.2 I have a motion from check and a second from Margaret all in favor that again was unanimous item 3.3 a recommendation to approve out-of-state travel request uh Dr Wright do you want to address that one for us sure this is an annual trip that this is for the football coaches and the staff has been going every year for I guess as long as I've been here it's a three or four day event paid through football funds and so it I think there will be a couple Subs needed and the dates are February 9th through the 12th any questions
073or comments about that Chuck well just one comment um in reading this in the agenda it says out of state travel request for coaches to attend a coach's Clinic it doesn't specify what sport their coach is in and I didn't know I kind of figured who it was but when I read the supplemental material I could figure out who it was I'm my comment is that the general public looking at the agenda doesn't know who those are so it'd be nice if we could say football soccer softball when we when we do this motion one we word it just a little bitly differently to to express it as football coaches well most of the time they're very explanatory but I noticed in this one so I thought I'd just mentioned that if we can kind
074of I noticed I noticed it didn't say football there but I didn't think twice about it because all participants were football coaches well yeah that's and all the mental material when we got that it was explanatory to us and all and all of the sessions were regarding what offensive training weight training speed training defensive schemes that kind of stuff and I'm going okay that's all football to a member of the public looking at the agenda though they may not know who that would be yes sir point will take it so when we make this motion Jennifer you have a question yeah um I think I presented it last year too that it would be nice if we could also look for other coaches to have a similar opportunity like the football programs because our coaches
075are young and new typically they all have an opportunity any sport can go to a clinic and ask to go to it it's just typically football's the one that does it and and so we make it available to all of them but that has been the sport that has chosen to do it um we we are open to any other types of dynamics that we bring people in or whatever but that that's uh thank you for the feedback I thought we did to approve a volleyball okay this is volleyball or basketball I remember I think we did approve one for volleyball yeah I think it's during the summer yeah anyway so this motion needs to have the verbiage in it that is football a football clinic in Las Vegas so we have a motion about
0763.3 to approve the motion 3.3 with the additional verbiage of this football coaches Clinic we have a motion from check have a second the Margaret all in favor at two again is unanimous Academy 3.4 a recommendation to approve the Arizona State mandated minimum wage increase Dr Wright or Kimberly would you like to address that sure so in Arizona there was a law passed that minimum wage will increase every January that's related to inflation unfortunately when we set our budget um in may we don't know what that number is going to be so we have to use a little crystal ball and kind of anticipate what we think minimum wage is going to be so we did do that this year and we set the minimum wage at Blue Ridge at 1380 while in September the
077government came back and said no it's going to be 13.85. so at this meeting we're just raising those people that were at 1380 to 1385 so that they meet the minimum wage requirement for the next um calendar year okay any questions regarding that pretty straightforward I have a motion then to accept item 3.4 I have a motion from Margaret a second from check all in favor again unanimous okay item 3.5 a recommendation to approve the school year this would be proposition 301 funds first portion of the payment and it looked pretty substantial I you expect to talk to them is it roughly two thousand dollars is the first payment and there there are three goals if the teacher met the first goal then they qualified for the two thousand dollar payment of the total of
078I believe it's 6400 this year yeah it uh looked like a lot of teachers did that so congratulations that's awesome so can we have a motion to accept item 3.5 of a motion from Diana second from Chuck all in favor that too is unanimous okay I'm at 3.6 recommendation to approve the early graduation of four high school students Dr Wright Lauren Webb maybe yeah Mr Webb has that there you go we have four students that are requesting their new graduation Administration recommends that request that they've they've completed their what they need to do to meet their standards for graduating early and so that's our request to you is to approve their request for any graduation do have a couple of them here we have Ashton all there and down Rigsby as well if you have
079specific questions for them they know they love to get up and talk if you don't have questions they've worked hard for what what they are doing and did here in high school and they have some plans to move forward with the next adventure tonight go ahead if you want to come up we'd be interested in hearing what you plan to do with your early graduation and also uh if you could sing Jingle Bells it'd be great too no I'm just kidding with the Christmas theme now I have mixed emotions when it comes to this because uh you know High School is such a great can be a great time and you know you enjoy that time we're there but you know I hate to see somebody get held back when they're ready to move on
080it's uh it's kind of six more and a half a dozen together with my emotions there [Music] and because I I really love helping people and I like I don't know how you miss her but I like seeing people happy and seeing the way that I can help them and I want to go and travel the world I want to see what there is all in the world and while doing that we can help people good deal you're gonna look old enough to graduate we graduate kids at 13 or 14 now that's supposed to be a compliment that means when you're 40 you'll still look 20. all right [Music] how's it going um my plans after high school um my brother he gave me a really good opportunity to go into Atlanta and work for
081a company called moxie it's a summer sales company where I'm going to be doing summer sales with them um so after I graduate I'm going to be working full-time at Lowe's making a lot of money so I can live like before you free there like I just have money for like rent and for basic necessities to live and then May 1st is the starting date for the summer sales so I probably have to be out there like a week before that so I'll have to go out before which is during school so I just thought it'd be a great opportunity to end school early work a lot make a lot of money and then they have a great training course that you have to do before and it's like 100 hours worth of training so
082I want to be able to finish all that and I have my sales pitch already perfect for when I go out so I can just do great and make a lot of money wish you the best with that any other questions from the board comments or anything we have an eye can we have a motion then to accept these um early graduation requests for these four students item 3.6 motion from Chuck I have a second I'll second the motion all in favor that's good that also is unanimous all right next item on the agenda is item 3.7 that's just a general District update from Dr Wright yes it should only take about an hour so we'll be fine yeah actually there are a couple of things the first one is that our Christmas break begins
083Friday after school and we do have another delay tomorrow to make sure the campus is ready and we get the ice off of the the walkways and we have time to spread the senders in that also gives the town I wanted to give a little bit of a shout out to the town of Pinetop Lakeside for since Sunday they've been out on the roads making that road as good as well prepared as they can they spent time at Porter Mountain Road right before school opened up today again to make it possible because Porter Mountain was in tough shape but Matt Patterson his team really did a great job for us we gave him a little bit of a shout out on the Marquee today but I wanted to thank them publicly as well and if
084there are no other questions that's my report do you have a question it was really cool so it's right before the school got out the trucks like left the school area and was dropping Cinders like on the way home so the way to school slippy disaster but the leg going home was great so they took additional time to make sure the kids were safe on the way home I thought thank you and that's the other purpose is we have our drivers already get here very early they have to get here super early when it's 12 degrees to start those diesel vehicles those are the late degrees tonight yeah eight it was warmed up then today then a colder tonight they have to get the buses started and running warmed up and it takes time to
085do that so transportation and our facilities folks are here early 30 getting us ready to go but we do have a two-hour delay and if there are no further questions that's my report okay next item on the agenda is call to the public if there's anybody that is here that would like to address the board now is your opportunity to do so we'd like you to limit your uh comments about three minutes and uh keep them as unpersonal to the members who Administration or staff or board members and uh anybody would like to do that we'd invite you to come do that right now doesn't look like anybody's rushing to the mic so next item we need is a is a motion to adjourn this meeting can I have a motion a motion from check
086and I'm sure a second from Margaret all in favor that is unanimous also okay thank you the next board meeting will be January 10th at 5 PM in this location