001we'll call this meeting and order and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance led by chuck waldo i pledge allegiance to the flag thank you chuck um just for those since we're not sitting at the rostrum we're going to introduce who we are my name is dave merrill this is chuck waldo and this is jennifer brimhall diana butler is ill tonight she's not with us and we hope she gets well soon margaret gabby another school board member is welcoming twins into the world not herself i mean her her daughter-in-law is having a set of twins soon and she's there helping out so and this is dr michael wright and mary ford and we'd like to excuse brenda our finance director today because she's also ill we will begin with the recognition of uh the vr
002star award dr wright we'll do let you do that mr webb has the the plaque i don't see alicia here but uh mr webb if you want to give a little bit of background on the role alicia plays thank you so alicia de cruz is our front office receptionist and she fills in for all the other ladies when they're out too so she's new with us this year and she's doing a fantastic job helping out whatever we need her to do she jumps in and helps out with substitutes getting them lined out when sandy's gone she helps out with attendance just really a bright face for the public parents students when they come into the office so we're grateful for the work that she does out there for us thank you mr webb we'll make
003sure she gets her plaque and a picture so we can show that around next item is a consent agenda consent agenda consists of minutes from previous meetings vouchers and reports personnel items just business items that really are necessary but they don't require a lot of discussion any member of the board have any item that you would like to pull out on the consent agenda and vote on independently can you pick up your are any of our new personnel or any of the new personnel here we've got um no henry john penrod okay so can we have a motion to vote on the consent agenda have a motion from chuck a second from jennifer all in favor okay the consent agenda has been accepted item 3.4 this is uh three proposition 301 performance pay we received
004a handout on that earlier reviewed that dr wright do you want to review that for us again yeah this is a requirement in order to provide incentive pay for uh teachers classroom teachers and so this year's plan is closely resembles what we've done in the past there's a baseline test that is administered to figure out where the kids are and then they measure the progress of those students they keep the students in the group that demonstrate high attendance too so we're not holding them accountable for kids that have excessive absenteeism on this plan but if they have 90 attendance or better they take a baseline test and they take a post test and that they show the growth of the of the amount percent i think it's 10 then they qualify for that portion of
005the pay and that is based on that 10 performance for the teachers themselves that's correct do you know how many people how many of our teachers tend to qualify is it virtually all of them we've had we have maybe a couple a year that don't but i'd say a vast majority do any other questions chuck yeah um on that i noticed that the teachers have a couple of other teachers come in and observe them and then make comments i think that's a great idea i i'm assuming that they're teachers that teach in a similar environment is that correct i think it's at the same grade levels the principals are here that actually created the plan if you'd like specific on any grade level i could turn the mic over to any of these three people
006i was confused just a little bit about the high school i understood the elementary and the junior high completely but the heist cluster confused with that one so the high school teachers they act we did this last year and those teachers that go to another classroom that may not be within their discipline they've actually appreciated seeing different techniques that they could actually take back into their own classrooms so it's been beneficial staying within their department and also going to other departments a cte teacher going into an english teacher's classroom or you know different even a regular classroom teacher going into a cte classroom there's different techniques that they use within those categories that are beneficial across the board well also i think teachers learn a lot about other things that are going on in the
007school that they might be oblivious to yeah that is for sure the case they get to see that the kids in action especially if they're going into one of the hands-on classes they get to see the kids in a different light like oh wow this kid is really engaged in cabinet making when maybe they don't like to write an essay or they don't like doing their their math homework but they get to see them in a hands-on environment and they see the kid in a different light too very good there are no further discussion you can have a motion to vote on item 3.1 have a motion segment by chuck all in favor motion is passed item 3.2 discussion of the occupational safety and health osha and federal mandate regarding the covet 19 vaccinations and
008testing dr wright so the the state is questioning the the feds and they're legally challenging the mandate to have every organization private or otherwise 100 employees are more vaccinated so our legal counsel said hold off we don't believe that they do have the authority to do that and we think that's the way it's going to fall out if you recall we took a a survey some two or three months ago probably even four months ago when we found out that approximately 10 to 15 of our teachers said no i'm not going to get it i'll resign before i get it so that's a problem for other health care facilities schools and other things and in arizona it runs a little differently and so our direction has been just to sit tight they think the mandate
009will be overruled and in the end public schools won't be forced to do it that's where it says but i wanted the board to be informed about the the legal challenge that's going on and to make you aware of the the federal mandate that had been issued and subsequently challenged we have a policy right now in the school district what is that policy the policy is we strongly encourage the vaccine but we don't mandate it and the same is with mask if you want to wear a mask that's fine you may but we don't require it for the teacher or the students with kids now from five to 11 being able to be vaccinated do you think it will have an effect on them or will that our continued policy remain the same with the
010children as it is right now i don't think we would adjust the policy at any age group what we would do though is make our facility available with the indian health services to come in and provide vaccination for those that are interested in booster shots the last event we had i think 100 100 booster shots and 20 or so new shots and so it's we're getting a fair turnout when we do that so we'll continue to support it in that respect yeah i came and got a booster and i thought well i'd be able to walk in walk out a couple of minutes it took me about 30 minutes paperwork to do i hate paperwork all right so any other questions concerns comments you'd like to make on the board okay we'll move on to
011the next item and that would just be our superintendent's report in in in your report i'd like you to comment on how many cases how many absentee students we have during the week on any day and how many teachers are affected right now we as far as absenteeism that's a big push we're seeing an inordinate number of students absent for good reason another uh there's been a bit of a lingering effect with you know hey for a year there was a lot of flexibility and rightly so because we were online only for half of that year and parents and kids got accustomed to kind of coming and going and so when you start keeping score and you tell them you're going to keep score it's it's a change it's been a little over a year
012and so essentially what we're doing is making sure that we're announcing to the families and letting them know if you don't make satisfactory progress you're gonna have to repeat the grade or the class or the course and so we're uh we have i would say right now a third of our kids at the elementary are probably in the high absenteeism and i would say that would be consistent with a high school in the in the junior high last week we had 48 kids out in one day so there there is illness going around in addition to covet there's a common cold and there's a respiratory thing going around and some other things but we're really trying to help the parents see that it's important that they work with us on this issue and that they
013may have to have attend summer school in order to stay on pace we're going to start in the second semester and certainly in the summer school we'll have sessions for remediation and that's going to probably continue we may have to move that up into having you know after school remediation some of those things to try to and we're getting kids moving in too by the way and and some of these i know we've had a couple of recently second graders that came to move that moved in didn't know their letters and so they're not only non-readers they can't even identify identify letters and so if they haven't been in our school system for a long time we're trying to get those kids caught up as well and that's in addition to the efforts that we're
014putting in on the social emotional side if you recall we're really worried about the stability of the home and some of these kids and the residents in which they reside and we're worried about frankly teenage suicide we're worried about self-harm worried about kids doing harm to others and all of those things are valid concerns and coming out of the second year of a pandemic and so of our roughly 1850 students we have about 178 identified as suffering trauma right now in in the process of or recently we've had a couple of our students have had multiple deaths in their family from the disease and and other reasons so it is uh to answer your question on the numbers uh for the disease itself we were averaging one or two a day last week we were
015up to probably i don't know on an average ryan do you have any five to six at your school a day and maybe an equal number between the high school and and the junior high the highest number we had in one day was about 25. and so we're it's you know it's right now we're at a very uh it's we're at a difficult spot we're out a lot i think 15 teachers on monday at the elementary school we've been at a just at the balance of having to go phase two with instead of direct instruction having just organized supervised instruction but the teachers and administrators have been able to hold it together to this point jennifer did you have a question my question was in regards to i know that you're doing some type of
016programs will you update us on what programs you're doing for those hundred and seventy some odd kids they're at risk that we have in our schools it is a it's more of a concerted effort that we're communicating we megan the director of student support is commuting directly communicating directly with teachers and the administrators and working with special ed and also the counseling staff to help them understand the identifiers how to identify the students that are in crisis and then make sure they let us let her know and her team know so they can get them the counseling they need if you remember we've added a counselor at the high school last month she's been busy she's a clinical counselor along with becky montoya is working probably 14 hours a day and so we are trying
017to find the resources to help those kids we're working with chains point and other other health care providers as well to ensure the kids have support right there was something and i'm not sure if i know the title or name i think it started in the junior high with kids that are struggling in their some type of club or organizing is it abbott abbott no avid is the the one for the kids that are interested in advanced placement correct well no this is the avid's more of of uh support total support for kids and helping them understand that they have what it's called even at the junior high level we so yes there we do have avid at the junior high level it's more six through and it's that is more of a college career
018readiness program but they do have social emotional support programs included in it as well and we're exploring those a lot more right now so that we can get the full benefit becky montoya is also doing the mental health first aid for adults and students and then a safe spaces training she does that as well for a lot of our students as well those are the things that we have the program to working with right now but as dr wright was saying everybody is just rallying around the students who are showing those signs of trauma so we can best support them with all those avenues i've heard good things in the community and i also and helps for our special education kids too so hearing lots of great things that the kids are really getting the
019attention that they need so great job with that and so the other element the if you remember one of our objectives was to provide a focus on reading and remediation and so at the elementary level i visited that campus yesterday they're doing a great job of keeping score k-6 of where the kids are and which which students are below which students are above and then working to pull those students out that need that additional remediation for help and the principals are now looking for ways to inside the school day provide additional help because if we're if we're just staying on task you're still going to have a proportional number of those kids not make it and so it it but i'll tell you it's a daunting it's probably one of the more i don't i
020don't know how to describe it but it's one of the more unique experiences i've seen with so many kids that are that are struggling and it's a function of them of many of them not having much last year not progressing very well last year and so we're behind question um you said that we're identifying the kids that are behind are we doing like a pre-post test well and if i recall on the 301 goals they have to do a pre-post test is that one in the same or are we doing two pre-post tests it depends on the grade level and the campus so for the i think we're doing galileo dibbles at yours uh ryan what testing are you doing for identifying for the reading so for the prop 301 we use galileo and it's
021actually three tests throughout the year so there's or is it four tests it's four tests throughout the year so there's a beginning of the year end of the year there are two progress monitorings one happens right now and then one happens again early in the spring and then we take the last one at the end of the year for the reading side of things we use acadiance dibbles for our lower grade levels which is letters sounds reading fluency that kind of thing and it's progress monitored once a quarter and so we're able to keep track of them that way and then provide remediation as needed our title group they fluctuate kids so they pull on the k3 side about 25 kids 30 kids a day for reading support and when they progress monitor again they
022will then revamp all of their groups and hopefully kids are moving up and out of it every single time well i guess my thought was that i hate to see us duplicating and doing two pre-post tests with every student and i know from experience that the more testing you do the less serious the kids take it they get tired of it and they they're tired of taking tests especially at the high school level i think what we're what they're talking about though too is the the galileo is a total picture test it's not just the reading and there are specific tests to diagnose and to pinpoint and analyze where the child is at the high school level are you using galileo as well depends on the subject they use galileo if galileo has a test
023we move to the a.c.t as our test for the state so there's an a.c.t test in galileo that kids are doing but then if there isn't a galileo test then the teacher does their own department pre-test post test that is approved by the department and and there's a balance too because you don't know if you don't know where the kids at you know what progress they're making you don't know how to adjust and so i'll tell you some of our best teachers do test a little bit more but they can tell you where each of those students are where their strengths and weaknesses are and then they adjust their approach to meet those needs yeah i'm just thinking if we can combine and use one test for both purposes that would be great it's that
024much less time spent testing and yeah these are both these are distinct activities is what i'm trying to say though when they're distinctive yes you have to absolutely um the galileo is a standards-based test so it covers actually the material that's being taught whereas a lot of our other tests like dibbles and the star test that we take they're skills based and so it's about can the student actually do the skills needed less about did they get the content correct um so identifying their letters and sounds all skills based while that is a standard there's they are distinct um two different tracks of thought makes sense that you if you're testing for different things it makes sense to use two different tests and then the other part of it is our activities we're we're proud
025of all of our our co-curricular and extracurricular our chess team still in the mix our girls played a very close volleyball game on saturday they did a good job you know the struggles that the football and soccer team had some injuries and the girls at girls soccer were they eliminated on saturday on tuesday okay semi-finals okay so they're they're still competitive now we're in all it's unbelievable but we're now in the winter sports and so trials for boys and girls basketball and and wrestling began at high school in the junior high and before you know it it'll be a thanksgiving break and then we'll have the winter break so it's starting to starting to move pretty quickly there's a lot to get done and it feels like a short amount of time and that concludes
026if there's no other questions that i did have one other question in in our information you noted that we have a student population in the 1800 range and that we are actually only counting 1600 kids a day what's is sickness some of that and or is it just unable to locate some of those kids a little of both i think there has been a legitimate amount of and a good amount of legitimate illness and also family crisis because of the the disease and death and those things that happen one person dies that impacts a long line of people we're also seeing though a little bit of laxed attitude where it's just i'll just take the day off we'll just come next day you know kind of come and go attitude so that's why we're trying
027to communicate with the parents look there's truancy law that you must abide and we're going to refer these kids to the court if you're if they're not coming to school i mean we can't it's so important for kids to be there and then we just have other things we have we have single parents that have transportation struggles if they get sick or there's no one to watch the kids or there's a whole list of things what we're trying to isolate are just the excuses and get them focused back on look get them to school and sadly for a certain percentage of our kids this is the best experience they can have is at the school where they're fed they're supervised they're taken care of and that the situation they go back to sometimes is not
028great and so it is school attendance is important i i did read that the chess team is qualified for a national competition i think that's eight kids yes sir yeah so uh any other questions from the board regarding what we've discussed or anything on the agenda anything you'd like to see in the agenda next month if there is let me know like dr right now let mary know anything that needs to come on normally we would do a call to the public right now i think and i would really like to do that next month we'll we'll do a call of the public and we'll be able to move back up i think we should be numbers wise where we can do that so if uh if there's nothing further the regular our announcements will
029be that our next regularly scheduled board meeting will be december 14th at 5 pm in this location uh jennifer jen there's some activities that's happening right at the school with our choir programs and theater performance programs did we want to announce that i know that yeah the annie production is the 19th and 20th is that 18 to 18 19 and they have several days so we'll make sure that we we've had flyers sent out on that and we send it out with our emails we'll make sure that's included with emails and then choir concerts will be coming up at the end end of it'll be a first part of december and choir band orchestra concerts okay there's nothing further i have a motion to adjourn a motion from jennifer in a second from chuck all
030in favor of adjourning this meeting's over thank