001um all right well thank you thank you everyone who showed up for this public hearing we appreciate you being here we're going to call this meeting to order uh it is simply a public hearing to discuss instructional time model and attendance for the year 2021 and 22. we are here per in person diana butler myself and uh margaret gabby is on the phone jennifer uh brimhall and uh chuck waldo are not able to attend but we have a full quorum so we will proceed dr wright will turn the right over to the time over to you to explain this yes hearing thank you mr merrill we have uh the desire to make sure our schedule reflects what it has in the past the last three years there's no there are no significant changes however we
002do want to implement if necessary the ability to utilize flexible learning models to respond to inclement weather natural disasters or god forbid another pandemic that creates a shutdown that would be state mandated and so the there are not any real significant changes most of these changes outlined simply give our students credit for the work that they're doing and provides added flexibility this is a requirement by hb 2899 in the arizona department of education and two hearings another in addition to this one are required to meet the standard to enable us to adopt a flexible learning model again i want to re-emphasize we're not looking to change the school schedule we're not looking to do anything differently it is a monday through friday reflected just like it was at school's end in the event however we
003have to adjust because of uh circumstances beyond our control we want to be able to flex if needed in order to do that and to count that instructional time an uh flexible model is required so that's the purpose of this hearing uh the handout outlines a couple of things that might be of interest to folks the high school students are required to have at least 720 instructional hours grades 4 through 8 ninety hours and grades k through three excuse me first through third seven hundred and twelve hours and kindergarten students are only required to have 556. we exceed all these areas within this instructional model and have done so for you for years and so the uh the purposes of this again is just in the event that we had let's just say we had
004to evacuate because of a forest fire in the area and we were unable to attend in person for a period of time our students could switch to an online platform prepared like we had last year episodically as needed and the students would receive instructional credit as it were those minutes would be received toward the average daily membership for our students and that's important for funding frankly we also want to make sure that we have outlined within these procedures how our attendance is tracked that's one of the requirements so st teachers still have to track tens irrespective of the model that we have in place there's there are steps in place to make sure we know which students are participating who they are and to what extent are there any specific questions relating to the flexibility
005element within this adopted adoption we're seeking from the board and feedback from the community margaret do you have any questions no not at this time how about you diana well you know and i don't i was just looking at the hours our high school students exceed that our grades four through eight and seven through eight are right at what they need to be yes we've built we built in a little bit for inclement weather however this schedule would enable us to give credit for those if we had to have you know i guess ten years ago you could have four or five feet of snow in a relatively short period of time our community would not be poised nor are our facilities prepared to handle that much snow that quickly so we have to prepare
006for those things until just recently in the blessing of rain we were very much in fire in the danger of a forest fire in fact we had one in the wagonville area about six weeks ago that posed a threat we've had him at white river and thankfully though that at least for the moment for the next several weeks were out of the woods there no pun intended and then uh they're just that there's there's so many different things for which we must prepare that the state has allowed us to have this flexibility and i think one of the takeaways from the covet pandemic is that the state needs to be prepared to allow the schools to flex so i we are not looking to shorten the school day we're not looking to change any of
007the models and we're certainly not looking to move online only for any length of time i think it's important to announce and to reinforce mr president that we do not have an aoi which is an online instrument for students in k through 6. those grades we tried to look at implementing the model for our students in grades fifth and sixth frankly the interest wasn't there and we do not have the instructional capacity to support a parallel path for families that wish to do that we do have the ability in grades 7 through 12 to implement if needed a an aoi to support those students i will add if it's an aoi there are very strict requirements with respect to the time needed daily it equates about five hours a day or more for the core
008subjects and 300 minutes i believe is the time so it is not something they can come and go we did we set to a i think there was statewide an expectation that we're going to work hard to overcome with respect to student attendance and participation if this is not going to be a come and go within this schedule for the 21 22 school year we are going to strictly enforce attendance at all grade levels and that's something that will need support from the parents and we'll send that in all of our communication and those messages will be reinforced by administration as well so you mean a come and go a family couldn't choose to do online and then do in person and go back online you have to commit to one or the other correct
009for the entire year or semester for uh in this instance uh grades k through six don't have that option in grades 7 through 12 they would have to commit for at least a semester at least a semester and then if they are not maintaining the requirements they would be dropped and have to register and come in person so this is a there's rigor involved in any school year it's important to note that most of our students are behind and there's a certain amount of ketchup that must be played and so given the every school i think is struggling to find and retain qualified people we're very blessed to have our needs met and have a strong teaching core however we don't have a bunch of additional capacity and so we're wanting to make sure that
010we put our teachers in the best position to succeed as well and don't over tax them we learned a lot last year things that look good on paper in a practice they just were not practical and one is having kids online with it with kids in front of you and other kids that are corresponding as it were it just doesn't work it's not a it's not fair to the teachers frankly we also learned in the data revealed grades 7 through 12 did better grades 10 through 12 did markedly better on online online only environments 7 through 8 did marginally well grades k through six it was frankly was disaster we didn't make progress we went backward and that was across the board simply put students uh within those age groups need a person and teacher
011they need to teach your lead instruction they need the socialization all kids do but it would be putting families and students in a poor position i think even to offer an aoi for the k-6 grades all right thank you dr wright margaret do you have any questions or comments no how about you diana all right uh if there's no questions or comments any principles you have anything to pipe up and say anything about it anybody in the audience yeah all right so um we'll just adjourn this hearing at uh 509 so this year we don't have to have a motion since it's just public hearing this hearing is adjourned