001i'd like to call this board meeting to uh order and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance and dang i forgot jennifer would you offer president i mean would you uh lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all just by way of information the board is here completely diana butler is on a conference call with us she'll be participating by phone the first item on the on the uh the outline today the agenda is a curriculum presentation by mr ryan mr ryan grace take the floor please all right so this year we're looking for a district-wide curriculum adoption to try to streamline our core content
002and so that is presented to the board in two different meetings one outlines everything we've done the committee that we've got and the process that we've taken as well as goes over the curriculum that we've put on public review and then the second one will be [Music] a request of funding and purchase so we found clicker if if there's at any point a question just stop me and we'll go through that question uh when i was kind of going through creating all of this it's easier for me to go through and give the information everybody needs rather than the information you know everybody really needs to hear and i've missed the mark on it so essentially this is just a graphic it's kind of small but it goes through the different steps uh starting with
003identifying a need so in order to continue that vertical and lateral alignment for content for our students we wanted to find a proper resource curriculum that gives our teachers the best chance at that to teach their content as well as we've recently found out as everybody has that we need to be able to in the event of any kind of emergency closure whether it's you know an illness or inclement weather or something like that we're a one-to-one district we want to make sure that we're using the funds that were set aside for that we're using that properly we're giving our kids the best that we can give them on on that front as well then it goes through the first steps and we'll outline this in more detail as we go through the presentation the
004window to open for public review and then the presentation as well as the implementation so that's quick so it starts off with an identification of need this is something that uh we've been talking about since i got here is that we were going to have sr3 funds and those s3 funds are used to address student learning loss and so the best way that we can address student learning loss is to ensure that we're not creating self-inflicted gaps in content knowledge and that we're aligned from top to bottom meaning that i can guarantee third grade teachers teaching this baseline of content and when they go to fourth grade that kid knows this material it's not a did we get it does every teacher get it or anything like that we know that we're creating that baseline
005for for students so with the sr3 funds we're able to uh to spend and get what we need to ensure that we're not creating those types of gaps overall quality education should not be left to chance but should be guaranteed by design and by aligning our instruction we're able to see that our students are not inflicting those gaps due to misconceptions or concept breaks and for example when i was in the classroom i used to teach science and i taught sixth grade science and i taught a concept and we taught a built-in misconception because students were unable to handle that abstract concept at that age when i moved up a grade i actually looked up two grades i taught the same kids and when i continued on with that concept they said well our sixth
006grade teacher told us that's not how it is and at that exact moment i realized that i taught them a misconception now it was time to break that and i was like well your teachers know what he was talking about because i know that guy and so when we're alive we know where those misconceptions are at where they're built in so that students can actually grasp content and we can make sure that we're meeting those and we know what kids are coming to us knowing it's also on our needs a lot of our curriculum resources are out of date they are no longer maintained we don't get new copies of them they're not consumable some of them are 10 years old and the state standards evolve as you all know they evolve every few years
007they go through some sort of refinement and they they change them up they move stuff up and down they take things in and out and if we don't have a up-to-date curriculum we are unable to teach everything that we're supposed to teach in the same alignment that we need also our district is now focusing on a literacy-based goal every test is a reading test if you can't read the question on a math test you can't answer a question on math test and so we wanted to make sure that we have a resource that's available for teachers that focuses on literacy regardless of the subject so that students have the best chance when they get to a standardized test or when they get to something like the essay or the act that we know that they're
008prepared for that level of content that rigor those length of questions um that sort of stuff once we identify our need i spoke with with dr ryan mr picco and we kind of kicked around what is the true definition of a curriculum that has changed over the last few years they've opened it up so that it is now what and how students are taught information as well it's not just the state standards so this is the the definition that we presented to the committee and the committee went with a curriculum is what is taught in a given course or subject which is going to be the state standards and we follow those that curriculum refers to an interactive system of instruction and learning with specific goals content strategies measurements and resources that the desired outcome
009of a curriculum is a successful transfer and or development of knowledge and skills and attitude so really it's a lot more than just a textbook it's a lot more than just the standards we wanted something that would help teachers be able to differentiate down to students that were at a lower level as well as differentiate up to students because our classrooms are diverse and they're full of students on both ends of the spectrum we have very high achieving kids in the same class as students that are below grade level and the goal is to be able to meet all of them in the time that we have and so we wanted something that would be able to be a resource to teachers that can do that that has that literacy focus to it that has
010a portion for our eld students as well it gives our teachers a fighting chance to get everything in in the time period that they have we went ahead and selected a committee the committee is supposed to be representative of all three campuses that we had or any campus that would be involved in receiving new curriculum administrative members so we had dr wright mr pico miss meyer mr webb myself and megan penrod from the administrative side the high school we had two members dr megan dorsett and janet rex the junior high we had heidi grace and david butterfield and then the elementary school we had demeta temper kyle butler and crystal reeson so we had a wide range across the board from first grade all the way up and we reviewed dozens of different options at
011every grade level um that that we could get sent to us so after we selected our committee we met and we determined we would need a rubric in order to properly evaluate the resources that were sent to us and so we took that and we built a rubric that has six sections with over 40 data points making sure that we were thorough they ranged from organization of text student work the digital side a lot of a lot of the new resources they pushed a lot digital we also wanted to make sure that we had that hard copy for students that that need it we have the ability to use digital we have the ability to use hard copy as well we wanted student reflection and analysis it is very important that our students take ownership
012of their learning and we wanted something that would have goal setting built into it that provides that as well the teacher work we needed something that we would be able to ensure is being taught even by a first-year teacher you know we can we can go with them we can say we're going to coach you through this one and and you know your content we're working with you on teaching and at the end of the year you've taught everything the way you're supposed to as well as and then assessments so assessments would be a big piece we wanted both formative assessments and summative assessments so we needed something that had built-in assessments that could be done on a daily basis so that we can use data to drive our student instruction if we don't know
013where our students are at with their content retention we don't know where to push them next if they need to be spiraled back if they're ready to move on to the next thing it helps with our pacing so having those built-in formatives as well as summatives was a crucial part of it and then for our special populations having assessments that were easily modified or came modified so that we would have the ability to to use those more readily for students that need you know shorter tests or different different answer choices shortened lengths anything that would fall under a modified test so the big question is who and what did we evaluate so we evaluated for three subjects the core subjects were the main focus we did not focus on social studies because it is an
014untested subject in this state and right now finding that alignment for those core subjects that give us the state assessments as well is is vital to us getting better results and so we did not focus on social studies we have programs for that that we already use and we've been using in the past that are recently updated that follow what they're supposed to follow as far as the state standards so that was not an area of focus for the committee we i just started left arrival science so with science we started with savas which was pearson in a previous life savas was pearson um mcgraw-hill and then hope mifflin these are three very reputable companies that produce a very good product that is within our budget that is within the requirements that we needed we
015looked at several others they were not as complete of a resource and so we did not bring them in because we wanted something that would be a complete resource for our teachers to be able to use so for science we looked at the k5 currently we do not have an updated resource or curriculum for the k5 outside of the state standards we looked at six to eight which is courses one through three so really the way that those courses work now in science of grades six through eight is that they teach those sciences within the same vein so earth science is a sixth grade science you would learn all the standards six through eight that associate with earth science um it makes it when we we look through it it makes it very easy to
016follow because you're not jumping from earth science to life science to physical science you're staying within earth and space science for one entire year that next course seventh grade is going to be life science and then eighth grade would be the physical side of science uh the chemistry physics that sort of thing is the content is a little bit more of a steep learning curve the math levels are needed for it a little bit higher and it preps you for those physics and chemistry classes that you would get in high school we also looked at the three required courses at the high school for science so we looked at biology chemistry and earth science um these curriculums for science actually follow what are called the ngss standards which do cover all of the arizona state
017standards but they're the next generation science standards and they are based on scientific research hands-on activities inquiry-based practices and so they're a very solid set of standards that do cover everything in the same order that we would want to cover our all of our state standards as well except for they push heavily into critical thinking and problem solving which is something that that our students need in those areas that's a lot so far is there any any questions yes sir um ryan you mentioned the social studies curriculum is now part of the scope of this project are we taking steps to make sure that the social studies curriculum is aligned and not there are no gaps or overlaps from grade to grade yes across the district this year we uh this coming year we will
018be working uh to ensure that alignment is done even in our non-core classes i'm sorry outside of math science and language arts we're still working to ensure vertical alignment is there so when you talk about those additional math classes that are available that we have the documentation showing this is what is taught here this is how it aligns with these other where they would come from where they would go next um even though it's a student selected class so yes we are still going to be working on aligning to make sure that social studies is aligned that the state standards are taught good yes sir all right so uh moving on to math we wanted we reviewed the same things except for we also reviewed springboard which is by college board which is one of
019the high school readiness tests i think they do the sa team lauren is that right i say they write that okay yeah they write the ap exams um and so we looked at savas mcgraw-hill pokemon and then springboard we looked at these for the k5 side where once again we are using outdated materials for the the k5 curriculum at the moment we looked at the six through eight we also addressed an accelerated option for for the junior high campus that takes the 7th grade and the traditional 8th grade math standards and puts them all together so that you can be algebra 1 ready so you could take accelerated math in 7th grade that covers the vital parts of 8th grade math as well that way when you get to algebra there is no need to
020try to spiral back really heavily we can continue to push forward we looked at algebra 1 geometry and algebra 2 as well one of the things for this that we really wanted is we wanted something that was going to be more than just basic math problems that's not what students are asked to do in the real world it's not what students are asked to do on state assessments or college prep assessments we needed something that promotes multi-step operations at a really young age we needed something that promotes critical thinking skills and number fluency that is one of the things that i've seen a lot as an area of lacking since i've been here on my campus i can't speak to the others but my campus number fluency is just one of those students don't at
021a young age don't necessarily know what a number means um and so i went with a teacher we did circle counting the other day students can count the line put them put the same amount of stuff in a circle they don't know where to stop because their number fluency of understanding what's a rational number for what's in front of them is low at that younger age so we wanted something that really promoted number fluency um so that we have that foundation that baseline is built and our students can build upon upon that and be ready for college ctes anything like that that they've been moving into um and then for the english language arts we did not review that for the k5 we currently use a program from mcgraw hill called open court reading which
022is a research-backed curriculum that we've been using i think this is the third year that we've had it um so we did look at savas mcgraw hill hope mifflin and springboard again we used seven through eight and then english one two and three which would be freshman sophomore in junior english so where i came from their english one two and three so forgive me on that one what we needed was we needed something that would prep us for students moving off to college it would make them college and career ready that exposed them to different kinds of texts that brought the critical thinking the information needed that we needed there um and was focused on being compatible with the baseline that we're setting those students through open court so we went ahead and and reviewed
023the mcgraw hill going up as well because that's what we used for k5 we also looked at different assessment options we looked at consumables versus hardbacks we looked at what is provided as far as professional development that was something i talked to all the different reps about is when we purchase something we don't need a sales pitch as far as a professional development we already purchased it we need somebody that's going to come in and show our teachers how to effectively use it um so that then we as administrators know what teachers are using where they're at and it makes it a little bit easier for us to follow um can be instructional or instructional leaders on campus so the data it came out really small it looked great on my computer as i was
024sitting you know eight inches from it so just real quick this is this is what we did as far as data goes this is the science data so the top row going across would be the elementary the next row going across would be the junior high and then on the next slide will be the high school we took the curriculum we did not have any curriculum that was only reviewed by one person in order to get an average we had more than one person review every curriculum that we had most of our curriculum resources were reviewed by three to four people in order to give us the best average from there i went ahead and took the data and built this before going over it with the committee we looked at the threes and fours
025that's going to be the high range on the rubric we the decision was if it's a one and a two it's not something that we want it's not effective piece of curriculum and it's not effective use of money so we looked at the threes and fours and i went through and tallied them and then averaged everything out so we had a clear view of as far as the committee goes what is the outright winner for their mind of being the most complete curriculum that we review um and so for science there's the high schools for science mcgraw-hill was our clear winner um with the committee and it falls under all of the other requirements that we were we were tasked to go under as far as budget and completeness so mcgraw-hill is where we're are
026appointing with our science curriculum it's a very hands-on curriculum as far as science is very lab heavy or hands-on activity heavy these are consumable books so this is a six-year adoption that we're seeking meaning that we will get the same we'll have the same curriculum for six years the books themselves are consumable which means that students will be able to take them use them right in them and they're replenished the following year at no cost so the initial purchase is the purchase for six years it includes everything from the textbooks to the shipping it's all in one purchase at the beginning so the consumable books is something that we did look at quite heavily they are updated if they were to update their book the next year we get their updated book if we went
027with a hardback book and they update two years after we purchase we don't get their updated book it's our book for the next six years we looked at it from the standpoint of cost effectiveness a typical hardback textbook runs about 80 to 90 book a typical consumable book runs somewhere between 16 and 20 dollars a book for the same book it just doesn't have a hard copy or it doesn't have a hard back on it from the standpoint of students carrying we looked at it that way because if we buy books for three subjects and we have students carrying those in a laptop three hardback books would be very heavy these books are considerably lighter than a hardback book they're cheaper than a hardback book and they come replace every year um so those are
028some of the reasons why we lean towards consumables as well so the mcgraw-hill is what we put forth there for the math data once again the top column and i apologize it's so small uh the top row across is going to be the elementary we reviewed every single grade level at the elementary school they sent us a sample for every single grade level for three out of the four or two of the three that we did and the other one sent us every other grade level as well so we had a really good idea of it they did give us each curriculum resource gave us online access so we were able to see what students would see what teachers would see how it integrates with our current student information system we looked at all of
029those different parts to make sure that what we're getting is going to be the best option for voltage and then the mass data um once again we we had one with savas that went the other direction it was a very close decision between savas and mcgraw hill and ultimately what came out as far as that goes is that if we go with mcgraw-hill for science and we only had one area that was the other one and it was like i said a very close decision not available [Music] and then last like i said we didn't do ela at the k5 region or the k5 level we also have our sixth grade resource that's already been purchased as part of mk5 and it's called studysync it is by mcgraw-hill also their current platform that they're using
030for seven and up is also called study sync so it put us in line with what k6 is actually using instead of just k5 um and what ended up happening on that one was going to be that it was a very close decision hmh had a little bit better of a novel library that comes with it when you get up to the higher levels these also come with essential or incredible digital libraries so students have access to books as well online that they would be able to use for class they would be able to use for different you know research projects or anything that they would need there and so when i was talking to the high school teachers that reviewed these they said that whether it was hmh or mcgraw-hill both of them they
031thought prepped students with good mentor texts with good access to reading materials and so to keep everything in mind we're going to put forth mcgraw hill as well for for english that would essentially make us k-6 or sorry k-12 in mcgraw-hill students will have one login they'd be able to log in and see their class they'd be able to pick whichever subject they need to be in the [Music] costs come down as we buy more from them and stuff that they throw in the free things that they throw in also goes up as they do that so mcgraw hill on average was the best and most complete curriculum that we reviewed staying with a single curriculum allows us to extend our purchase dollars a six-year purchase comes out to roughly 120 to 150 students per
032subject but that's going to be 120 say that's math that student 120 for six years one time six year purchase and so it includes the consumable the online access the professional development the teacher resources at the lower levels it includes math manipulatives and science manipulatives it is a true complete resource that we can ensure our students are getting the baseline knowledge that they need to be successful we can guarantee that will be happening so we're also able to with the purchase of one curriculum we're able to consolidate several other programs that we're using which saves the district off annual costs for the next six years as well any questions you have a question diana yes sir just no no i was asking diane if she had questions sorry thanks yeah no i'm fine that sounds
033good i have a question um so this was just the general subjects that you chose however will these mcgraw-hill also support our honors kids and the ap programs when you get into that high school level or is there something else that we're going to need to do for those classes so so we looked just at the graduation requirements at the high school level so that english one through three or the freshmen through junior english the additional courses like in english for um with the purchase of one we would be able to if we need to incorporate them as well these do go all the way up they do have honors abilities and ap courses as well that we could purchase we did that was not the initial task but it is something that we could
034look at as well right i think that's important since it seems like um our our higher achieving kids have been kind of left out of this rubric just a little bit just because i know it's important that we you know maintain the best for the larger group and then you'll be presenting later in the future the financials correct so that's the other question they have in regards to sustainability i love books that they can write in and to get new ones every year but in the past with severe limited budgets that's the reason why we opted for maybe some not ideal curriculum development because we just didn't have 125 dollars per kid every six years but i love the concept i just need to make sure that we touch on every aspect and i um
035for the curriculum development and i i will add i don't think in the ap and honors is where we're struggling it is in the gen ed i mean we're actually doing really well with that and the teachers have created and continue to use high quality content it's that baseline middle and lower middle that i think is where we're struggling the most the other thing was we have had a lot of different programs we'll consolidate the software programs the instructional materials that are in use now and there won't be a it looks like a huge spin of let's call it 475 thousand five hundred thousand dollars if you consolidate and taking out backbone for the elementary grades you take out some of the other problems like programs like alex that are embedded within this over the
036course of six years it's nearly a wash and so i can't tell you where we're going to be six years from now i mean i can't tell you six days from now in arizona but i can tell you that this is what sr3 funds were used for and uh i i don't if lauren would you like to weigh in on the ap and the honors in terms of the curriculum alignment yeah you described it well i think they have the board curriculum continue to receive the professional development and summer to add additional ideas curriculum to their reading system program so we're doing okay in the ap now if there is something that is available through mcgraw hill and the teachers would like to look at that and it's better than what we are currently using
037then yeah we definitely want to look at it because it may be cheaper so for clarification our ap and honors teachers have a summer program resource where they go in and get the updated information anyway um they have an ap institute in the summer where they can do some professional development that's where they get some of that extra training where new [Music] right because i think it's important um years just during you know our covered years they were kind of crazy and one of our extremely exceptional ap english teachers was surprised because she prepared the kids for one ap exam and then it was it was like an about face completely disastrous component and so i just want to make sure that we you know the kids had an exceptional education but you have to
038teach a little bit towards the test and she was completely blown out of the water when she has a huge success rate and then it was like nobody really passed it the the fours and fives that she normally does but that was because probably lack of communication but if they have those other opportunities to be able to take those summer school classes that would be great i just want to make sure okay and just to circle back to the funding portion like dr wright said we have a program called alex right now which is a remedial math we don't purchase it for everybody six and up at the moment we only purchase x amount per year alex is included in this subscription for a student for six years within the number that we have as
039far as quotes go it looks like alex's within the subscription is about 18 000 and that's going to be for every single student 6 and up would have access to this remedial math program if they need to um and our current purchase order on alex is i believe somewhere around 29 000 a year and we're getting a fraction of what we will be getting in the future so there are different ways we can consolidate some of that costs back you know and potentially push it towards a future purchase when our six years is up um ryan i just like to say from your presentation i think you and your team have done an excellent job of researching and preparing and organizing and it sounds very comprehensive and i think it's a big step forward for
040us it was absolutely a team effort i mean everybody kind of came through i just get to stand up here because i put it on a spreadsheet so i will let everybody know thank you you're welcome brian i do have one question which way is the wind blowing with the teachers are they ready for this are they excited for this are they looking forward to it or is it something that they think man am i gonna have to do one more thing on my campus i've talked to teachers extensively and they're excited good they're excited to be able to have that resource that they know is going to be aligned with the state standards that is going to be within the expectations that they're teaching and it's going to give them that path forward when
041we met with the committee the the answer was the same people are excited about it they were a little hesitant because in the past like most school districts um you know something came in and then it was moved off this six year purchase and i think that gets people excited that they know it'll be be here for them to learn how to use and use well thank you any other questions diana jennifer one more thing no thank you you bet diana has one i mean jennifer has another question i had a chance to review just perused through the books and i think they're excellent actually so the materials great so how what's our next step in the process the financials and then give the community an opportunity to review and then yes ma'am i apologize
042um it's currently open in the foyer here for public review um and then we'll start putting some stuff up on the website as well so that people have access to see it we'll have one more presentation to the board for for purchase and we'll go over the financials at that point as soon as we make a purchase it would be access for teachers so we'd be able to schedule professional development um before school starts next year so that implementation could happen and i was assured by our reps on several different occasions that as long as our purchase happens before mid-may that will get materials i mean they're backed up like everybody else right now does anything that we'd be able to get our our materials early june be able to have them out for teachers
043and be able to start the year great so if we make our decision a little bit quicker then we could potentially have them before the school year ends or that would that would be the most optimistic absolutely okay i think we'll if mr president i think we'll be at her at the may excuse me march 22nd board meeting will be beyond this 60-day required review so we'd be ready to make a recommendation to the board by then thank you ryan i appreciate your uh i don't want to say this derogatory your youthful enthusiasm appreciate that and your expertise in what you've done thank you very much sometimes we get old like me and it's like i don't want to do that again so thank you very much appreciate what you've done it sounds awesome okay
044next item on the agenda dr wright we'll turn some right time over to you to speak to our br star award recipient absolutely neither of these recipients could be here tonight but we want to recognize both eric fogle who has been with us for 22 years and continues to do an exceptional job as one of our br stars and then tommy crane who will also be retiring at the end of this year after about 17 18 years i think he was our first yes he was and he was also our first br superstar so he's won a lot of awards and we're we're hoping to get everybody here at the march meeting to celebrate every retiree even the retiree retirees some have done it two or three times and so we'll have a nice uh
045we'll have a nice big group to celebrate in them in the march meeting thank you sir thank you uh okay board the next item is the consent agenda after reviewing the agenda is there any item on the consent agenda that you want to take out and vote on separately or shall we move to vote on it completely 3.3 that's under the business section yeah it's the one on the yeah at least for the church church that would be in the business section not in the consensus consent agenda is items 2.1 through 2.11 so is there anything in 2.1 through 2.11 that would need to come out to vote on individually in the past we've mentioned um the names of the retirees so if we want to pull out 2.5 okay and also if anybody's here
046that's doing the traveling for the coach's team that's a good idea so so two point let me write this down two point uh five and two point eight [Music] so what about um student here 2.9 no that's a that would be that that's a well that's a stupid matter so it's a perfect yeah so we wouldn't mention a name or anything so shall we leave to a point a in or bring it out just to do it past him i just noticed a date too so all right so um we have a motion to accept the consent agenda as stated with the exception of 2.5 which we'll vote on individually i have that motion for margaret a second from jennifer all in favor how about you diana we raised our hands you're okay yeah all
047right all right there you go okay item 2.5 recommendation to approve the retirement of the following employees dr wright do you want to read them or shall we go through whatever you provide i'll go ahead and read them nancy bowen she's been with us for about four years incidentally next month will her husband dr bowen will be also retiring at the end of this year they've done a great job diane hall retired and came back and is retiring again she's at the at the junior high working for um miss hoffmeyer and eric fogle as we just mentioned after uh 22 years will return at the end of the school year all right so can we have a motion to accept item 2.5 as written i have a motion from jennifer's segment from chuck all in
048favor that's i there we go we all raised our hands sorry and again thank you to those teachers i look at anybody that teaches high school on junior high as having my highest regard because those kids are those kids don't know who they are every day they change from day to day and it takes a lot of patience so i appreciate that all right item 3.1 a recommendation to approve the hire of the new employees dr wright do you want to go through this list if somebody's here we have them stand so we can recognize them in transportation i believe denise can you enter introduce your new employee please absolutely good evening from the student transportation we would like to present to you rene buchanan and she is our new fed aid bus aide and
049couldn't have come to us at a better time we also do have a david martinson that is another bus aides that aid that also couldn't have come to us at a better time and we appreciate these guys and these and their service that they will provide for us thank you congratulations glad you're on board you're welcome okay dr wright you want to go through the rest of these or point out the others are are our classified replacement positions i i do want to point out a couple of uh teachers that were recently hired for the upcoming school year because one of them's a blue ridge graduate so ricky lynn london archivet will be joining us as a teacher next year and head track coach for girls and boys track and her husband jake archibet will
050also be joining us as a teacher on assignment in the upcoming school year that's great what classes are they do we know what classes are teaching yet a ricky lamb via comp uh a combination of social studies in english and uh jake is going to help us out in the on asu online learning center in the yellow jacket learning center in that area okay so um any questions about any of these hirings no we have a motion to accept the arteries as written a motion from jennifer a second from chuck all in favor aye here we go thank you item 3.2 recommendation to approve the teacher and counselor contracts for the year 2022 and 23. uh this is a yearly thing those contracts have already been presented the as a backup to the board we
051give you a list was provided of all the teachers and counselors that are recommended for rehire for the upcoming school year all right any questions regarding that it is just function thing that we have to do to make the function proper so can we have a motion to approve item 3.2 i have a motion from chuck a second from jennifer all in favor and i hi there we go okay item 3.3 recommendation to approve the renewal lease agreement for the church and uh i think we need to open this up for a conversation right now dr wright you want to start that and then we'll you know sure we've been in a partnership with the church i believe we're in our fourth year um and we had talked about offering an extended year lease whether
052it's two years three years four years five years or some there's a willingness on the church to have a long-term lease i'll add that they've been a wonderful tenant if you recall the paint that was done to that facility four years ago we provided the pain they provided the people power to have it completely painted they also have redone that inside which was an old cafeteria that now is a sanctuary and conference room that we have access to i'll also mention i must have sadly have gone to half a dozen funerals that the church offers for that at no charge what the concerns that i've fielded recently is just the escalated cost of utilities and then just the question with the least price those are the discussion points i think that um my question was
053haven't this been a year to year it has been year year to year yep it's been re uh renewed every year and renegotiated as we just kind of rolled it over from year to year we have we they've the price has increased over the years and last year we included utilities in that price and so it has been on an annual basis and it's been reviewed just on the basis of you know i think current i think what kind of the concerns that i've heard from the community and whatnot is uh are we subsidizing with with voter and public funds to help the church maintain the presence at that at that location so that that's kind of the bottom line question i have i think we might need to look into that a little bit
054more how about chuck um yeah i agree with you and also on the length of the lease i guess i guess that doesn't bother me so much as the what we're charging for utilities utilities are going up rapidly and is that rate the same for the whole seven years in the current lease that's the way it's reflected right now yes sir well but if if we lock in those prices on utilities for seven years it could be a lot more expensive down the road i think maybe we ought to have an option to review the utility part at least but maybe with rents going up uh the cost of construction and so forth maybe we need to take a closer look as compared with the going rate in the community uh per square foot for
055commercial property and so forth not that we have to charge the same as that but i we shouldn't be it would be far below if i might mr president it would be tough to find a comparable property that's leased because it's this is not open to a lot of different businesses it's a very narrow group that could use this nacog an organization like the church that's willing to you know use it during business hours and then to uh you know not and to make it available on the weekends essentially is is the highest use i will address the the gift of public funds is really what it amounts is what the question we do not pay for any of the maintenance or the upkeep on that building unless it's a major thing like the sidewalks
056trip hazards that's the schools uh they put in i would say conservatively hundreds of thousands of dollars in either roofing and also the inside remodeling of that structure so we're not varying cost of the everyday maintenance of that we don't clean it we don't upkeep it so there's not a there's hard to uh we'd be hard-pressed to find an exact exact comparable but to your point rents have increased everybody knows that real estate everywhere is going up and uh so i could find some i'd do my best to find some comparables that might sort of reflect where we're at more comment concerns margaret yeah somebody has to turn the result off uh i'd just like to mention i think it's very hard for an organization to plan ahead if they only have a one year
057lease and if there's any way that we can possibly give them a longer lease and then review the costs annually instead of reviewing the whole lease annually because if that building were sitting empty all this time it would look horrible it really would there's nothing that that ages the building faster than not having anybody in it and from the highway you can't tell that that's not part of our campus right i believe the state would come back and that building set empty and we weren't using at the state oh yeah yeah so i think we need to look at a longer lease so that they can plan better everybody needs to be able to plan farther ahead than a year i agree with what margaret said i think maybe one way to do that would
058be to tie it to the cost of living index or the inflation rate so it's written in there that if inflation goes up four percent in the next year then the rent goes up four percent and so forth um same with utilities or looking at that option then we wouldn't have to renegotiate it each year it would be based on whatever the inflation is or the consumer index thank you i'm kind of go ahead margaret they've also provided a quite uh thing for the whole community that we didn't have before i mean we don't have a place that big in the community really that they can use freely it's been a lot of wind been a lot of good come from that but i do think there's some concerns i think i don't know if
059somebody objects to this speak up right now i think we'll table this until next month and we'll let ron and dr wright address some of these concerns now that you know what they are and maybe come back next month and vote on this yeah i will visit with ron and the executive they have an executive team in committee and get some ideas i i should add i would say we probably hold a dozen events conservatively a dozen events from the school on and and probably an equal number on an informal basis to share the shared space the conference room is really it's been a nice um jesus via hermosas coming out next month and we're going to use that all day and then into the evening too so i want to point out it is
060an asset for the the school district as well good deal okay with that ron just just one thing in general i think that what i'm hearing is we love that the church is there they've been an excellent tenant but let's just make sure that we're wise with our taxpayers dollars so there's almost like a break even point is basically what it's coming to because when we have our events they're not charging us utilities right so we just need to take a little bit more time to dive in and then come up with something that's beneficial for all i totally agree that having you know one-term lease is very difficult um to plan but three times propane's three times higher or whatever you know so we just need to make sure the utilities costs are covered
061well to plan ahead to spend any money on that building why would you want to do it if you're only going to have a year right yeah definitely yeah definitely i agree with that you do yes okay so i think the ideas are out there yes sir i bet we can come to some agreement on that and we'll we'll move forward there so do we need a motion to table that or i can table that no you can i can table that it's stable we'll do it next month okay item um 3.4 this uh just moving to the last part diana i didn't ask you what do you think uh i think that they have been excellent attendance and i am glad that we're looking at it but i think five years there's a long
062time to try to spread that leap great thank you diana okay okay item 3.4 superintendent's retort dr right we'll turn the basically the balance of this part of the agenda over to you thank you there's a couple of things we want to review real quickly including the upcoming breaks we have on a president's day if you remember we looked to try to find because we reduced the length of the fall break and the spring break from two weeks to one week we look at a couple give backs frankly for teachers to create a little space so friday there's no school the district's closed and and monday's off as well that provides this coming week absolutely and so it'll be very happy presence day and then we have in march we have spring break that is
063reflected and it's the second week of march it begins on the 14th and it's through the 18th and those are the upcoming uh calendar events that we have i don't i mean is there any other upcoming calendar events oh i know i want to talk about jesus he's coming to 21 20th and 21st the 21st and 22nd jesus v hermosa who has been out here before is going to provide training all day for staff and students and then uh on march 21st will be a community meeting that will hold that is going to be at the church if they're inside the conference center there and that will be on school safety and uh it's a timely it's a timely conversation and i'm really proud of the efforts our principals and directors and supervisors have invested
064in doing their best to create a safe environment for all and we're challenged weekly with with uh events and we're they're just doing an exceptional job i also want to thank local law enforcement we're very we're very blessed to have a chief of police that works closely with our principals and takes any threat seriously they're not ever downplayed or ignored and we always research any threat to the fullest extent we're also equally blessed to have a number of fbi agents that live here locally and they have a task force here that work closely with local law enforcement that doesn't happen anywhere else so we've uh we've been very fortunate uh to to have that added support the expenditure limit is under review right now it may have been it was considered in the house and
065it passed 45 to 11 successfully it's now in the senate which is going to be tougher and that's the the funds where the legislature already approved their budget that we're not asking for more money we're asking to spend the money that we were given to begin with and so there's doesn't appear to be a large appetite to undercut that and to put schools in crisis which means we would have to close the date would be we'd have to figure out what that date is it would be late march early april and we'd be done for the rest of the year well no one wants that that's not good for kids and i don't think it uh it's what most adults really want so hopefully the legs that the senate does the right thing follows the
066house's lead and approves this uh spending limit if they haven't already done so i i'm pretty confident in the discussions we have that that's the direction it's going and as we get information on that i'll inform the community just recently a 1.5 million dollar grant from the state facility board was granted to finally fix the gem so chuck and and jeff and i have been working in roger for about three years on this and so thank you roger for your effort and jeff for yours and chuck uh chuck and i had a phone call with jack smith who is the the the new director of the state facilities board he was very accommodating and true to his word they the funding was approved and that's a 1.5 million dollar project that it does not come
067out of lower uh local taxpayer funds so i'm proud of the team for getting that done we appreciate your help too chuck we're now working and turning all of our attention to the elementary we have roofing that needs to be repaired there and redone we have sidewalk issues we have excuse me flooring issues if you remember in 2017 when the bond was passed we put in 2.5 million in civil engineering it did its job when that foundation is no longer being under eroded or undermined by water but now that it's settled the floors are shifted in some areas two or three inches so the state's gonna need to come in take all that flooring out smooth it out probably just put a finished concrete on it and we're working also to weatherproof or paint it
068needs to be done as well it's a 12 year old facility and so that's our next thing that we're continuing to press on in april we'll form a committee and by statute if you're going to teach sex ed that curriculum has to be approved by a community committee and so that'll be formed in april and we'll review with the principals and the people that want to participate right here in this room it'll start in april and we'll review what we're doing now i believe it starts at is that the grade five or six is is where it starts principles five or six six and so we'll uh we'll have that underway it the wrap up needs to be by the end of may and so we'll we'll uh report back on that as it comes
069in barbara symington is not here right now but barb simonton and through her efforts and her team efforts she secured essentially a forty thousand dollar grant for our programs and for her program for the food service if you remember it's now it's operating at a profit and they've done a a very good job of leveraging federal resources getting those food stuffs out to the entire community we slowed down the past six weeks because we needed to make sure we had enough to feed the kids here at school if those supply chain things are corrected we'll start distributing again community-wide and that federal program is throughout the whole year the kids at school get free lunches now irrespective of income for the entire school year current school year and we also just want to i want
070to commend brenda and barb working hard to make sure we're maximizing those grants we're getting kids fed and feeding families we are well over 700 000 meals served since 2020 that's a lot of a lot of food the district affirms its commitment also to its uh protection of teachers and students and staff members we won't tolerate threats or abuse of its of their teachers or coaches or anyone and we've been working really hard uh to ensure our employees know that they are safe and they are uh we work really hard to make sure that uh any any threat is brought to light and we research it right to the end and uh the conduct of our athletes we expect it to be exemplary and we expect them to re respect their coaches as well and
071will continue to have that that's not that hasn't started with me seven years ago that's a blue horse br standard it's been here for you know since the beginning of this 1963 of the district and i'm very proud of our kids and coaches and students and teachers i think all of them do an exceptional job but where mistakes are made we hold folks accountable and that's just a message we wanted to reinform or reaffirm with the board are there any questions on any of these items that i need to provide i don't do you have anything diana no nothing thank you thank you board any other questions nothing there next item on the agenda is item number four it's call to the public we'd invite anybody that's here that would like to speak to the
072board to come up tell us who you are tell us where you live tell us what your concerns are we might not be able to act on that at this time we can definitely direct staff to address that but we'd invite anybody to do that that's here that would like to do that we'd like to limit you to like three minutes if we could come on up there should be a microphone there for you so we can all hear good evening thank you so much uh it's great to be here my name is janelle and a common drug concern i have or would like to know is with kids that the easy merit i believe that was taken last year how would the public be able to get information on the students that did not
073meet or exceed the test like what was the percentage and then what is the ramification of how you're going to go ahead with um increasing the knowledge of those students that did not pass so if that's something you guys can get back with me i can leave my email i would greatly appreciate it thank you dr wright i'll let you take care of that because i don't know absolutely and i'll say statewide for the most part it did kids horribly we were no different and so we expect that this spring will be somewhat of an improvement but still well below average learning loss is not going to be made up in a semester but we could provide that data and what we'll do is we'll if it's acceptable to the board we'll do a report
074of last year's arizona merit by school and grade levels and just present that data the principals will review it and then we'll talk about our learning loss plans that we have in place and some of the measures we have taken and we'll are in the plans to address if that's acceptable so can we put that on the agenda then yes sir mary yes sir we'll do great anything else nothing further and we have a motion to adjourn i have a motion for margaret second from chuck all in favor of a german diana we're adjourned