001call this meeting the order with the pledge of allegiance and chuck weldo's going to lead us in that all right thank you everybody for being here and uh appreciate those that are watching online just a reminder to members of the board when you speak you need to speak into the microphone or nobody will be able to hear so wouldn't hurt to turn your mics on now and ready margaret you don't have one do you guess you're not talking today here comes one here comes one so all right the first item on the agenda is uh recognition of br star awards for the month of april dr wright would you like to take over yes sir thank you very much first off we have uh for the operational side brian jackson representing the district home office
002brian does a lot of different things wears multiple hats and anybody has contact knows he does he provides outstanding customer service and we will make that presentation when brenda gets back i would also like to ask the board to please excuse brenda robbie had surgery and she's attending to him the next one is brittany eddie bitten yet he's a president of the ptso and also operates the front desk on the primary side of the k-3 and is always anxiously anxiously engaged helping others and we're very thankful to have her we'll have ryan make that presentation these folks are our br stars for the month of april thank you dr wright uh next item is item two consent agenda are there any items that the board in the review of the consent agenda would like to
003take out and vote on independently instead of collectively in the consent agenda i know there's some retirements here i'd like to mention tommy crane how many years did he work here yeah so everybody but tommy crane shall we just i'm sorry margaret i can't hear all of them okay okay just the recommendations to review and approve employee retirement at item 2.6 so we'll remove that and we'll vote on that independently any other items if not 2.7 recommendation employees withdraw with intent to resign okay i don't have my list it's attached right mary oh it's just jeff robinson and angela okay great so items 2.6 and 2.7 will vote on independently we have a motion to accept the consent agenda with the exception of those two i have a motion from chuck have a second from
004margaret all in favor be unanimous okay item 2.6 recommendations review and approve the employee's retirement you know dr wright you know these people independently would you like to just come in on each one of them sure and uh i will and if i need help from their respective supervisors or alaska to jump in the uh the first one tommy crane has been with us i believe since 2002 so quite a few years and he will he will complete next year and then retire at the end of the next school year do we know how old he is i think he mentioned he's 85. it's his birthday today happy birthday tommy 85 and working hard like that that's amazing jeff akins will retire at the end of next year jeff is is going to be taking
005care of his mother she's moving in and he's taking care of his mother and he will need to pay attention and attention to her and so he's going to be completing his this will be his last contract for the upcoming school year of course he'll be sorely missed and larry garrison will be leaving us and i can't remember how many years off the top my head lauren could you speak to the tenure of mr garrison approximately i believe it's 15 17 years something like that here with the district okay thank you lauren similar to what uh brian crane's tenure has been brian is going to retire after next year and uh he of course has been lauren's right-hand person and uh those are big shoes to fill he's he's made a number of contributions over
006his about 17 years with blue ridge stephanie connigani i believe has been here about as long as i have about seven years she's an outstanding teacher and she will be retiring after the next school year and then dawn dawn works in our maintenance department and i'm unsure how long he's been with us but my guess is about 12 years and so these are um you know it's we're happy for him but we'll fill the will fill some of those voids we'll work really hard to do our best and each of those folks have have done an outstanding job and we extend our gratitude to each thank you dr wright so we need motion to accept the the retirements for these individuals listed in the agenda check uh motion from chuck have a second from diana
007all in favor accept these retirements gene animus thank you okay item two seven these were individuals who were going to retire and chose not to retire yes they were going to i think both folks were going to move and decided not to move and so we're we're glad that they're both stay they're classroom teachers and they've individually done a great job angela desmond is a kindergarten teacher she will remain in that capacity next year and at least with the board's blessing she will and jeffrey robinson wears a number of academic hats and will uh will continue supporting the high school are there any questions i i could have uh ryan or lauren answer more specific questions if there are any from the board looks like not so we have a recommendation to to accept these
008uh withdrawals of intent to resign from these two individuals have a motion from margaret have a second from diana all in favor be good can i ask a question really fast i'm sorry i didn't realize that 2.11 was actually in the consent agenda i think that if we're okay to review it maybe we don't approve it until next time because of some questions which is the school calendar year we're uh if i might just add we i i'm open for suggestions on it where it it's sort of a it's really not a school board function to prove it but we want to seek school board feedback so it's somewhere in between if there are some areas and if you want to pull it off i'm happy to do that and meet with you and discuss
009those items and bring them back for to may yes and then put it on that time if that that works for you i'm hoping if you want to withdraw that item from the agenda this time mr president that would work for us what any any other comment questions about the calendar the big concern is the lack of a fall break because it does not align with i know it aligns with mpc but it does not align with the tr what we have been there is a fall break it's we we have a two day fall break no it's 10. it's so excuse me it if it 10 calendar days but it's thanksgiving break no correct no that's not correct there's a fall break that aligns with the npc calendar and there's thanksgiving right for which
010year jennifer just in october yes historically we have a very robust community that's in the hunting realm and that's one of the reasons why october break works so just shifting from having a long november break versus an october break we do have an october break correct we have an october break first through the 12th is october break and then there's an independent of that there's a november break you might be looking at it on this calendar yeah i'm looking at the calendar it might we might it shows parent-teacher conferences on the 8th and the 9th and then it shows i don't have that in front of me mary can you go help her with that or give her yours as an adult at this time so i could be missing well we do have a
011break in october if that's the hang up we definitely have that and it's a period of 10 count 12 calendar days was it uh in the one that was sent to us it might have been the wrong one sent you oh well i wasn't given that one in my pocket yeah it's a little different in the packet i'm sorry we gave you the wrong calendar i was looking at that looks really good the calendar has but if i might mr president may i shed some light on that yes this the significant changes are we are taking the the break from two weeks to one week and a day and then when the teachers come back after the fall break there's a planning day a prep a preparation period and a pd period for that day
012so they're not inundated with kids it has time for collaboration between departments and preparation individually the same is true with the january break it is followed by the with it with another pd the uh excuse me that's not true the winter break doesn't have it the spring and the fall breaks both have a planning day and a professional development following the break so the teachers have an additional day to regroup and and to coordinate okay teachers will be coming in a day early from the students for this professional development yes they'll be the teachers will come report a day earlier than the students will report and then there are also two four day weekends that what we did is used a three day and made it a four to create some a little different uh
013some mini breaks for the teachers understanding uh you know they need those breaks and and then of course we're out a lot earlier than we have been the last couple of years yes and so we have a longer summer so those are the looking at a wrong calendar that makes all the difference in the world i'm sorry about that right calendar looks like it makes a big difference um that's in our notebooks is not the correct on the calendar that was sent to us mary is the correct one so yes perfect okay sorry about that my fault i don't need to make any changes so we're okay with that thank you so do we need to remove that any okay so we're good to go all right next item on the agenda would be item
0143.1 recommendation to review a review and approve the gifted education scope and sequence document for the 2021-22 school year any questions about that document that was provided to us dr wright do you want to explain that absolutely absolutely gifted is is a part of the special education program frankly you have to take care of the needs of all students on all ends of the spectrum these are programs that are left to the district to decide what is appropriate to make sure that the students that are excelling academically continue to be challenged and that's the scope and sequence is how we intend to do that this program must be approved by the board annually so we're asking for your approval of our gifted program so we may continue to move forward in the upcoming school year
015any questions regarding that this is the same as last year right yes it is all right we have if there's no further discussion can we have a motion to accept item 3.1 a motion from chuck second from margaret all in favor that would be unanimous item 3.2 recommendation to review and approve the addendum to the talon intergovernmental agreement the iga for 2001 2002. this also is the same as last year right this has regard to payment for teachers i want your payment yeah i want to i want to double check that um lauren is this the element that we have uh agreed to at talon or in principle said we'll take it to our board for approval we'll incur a charge this year that we haven't incurred in the past that correct that is correct
016okay and so the net difference for the district there are a lot more opportunities for our students but the next difference is we used to get in lack of a better term a rebate and those dollars amount to about ten thousand dollars annually annually we're not going to get that any longer that accurately reflect it does i remember it yes okay thank you so that means basically we are providing the same we're going to provide actually pay for it without any reimbursement an expanded program an expanded menu and expanded seats for talon we're no longer going to get a rebate for that we're going to have to absorb that ten thousand dollars which we can do and we still believe it's a good value is there anything you want to add to that mr webb
017in the past we're also paying for the equipment rental in the talon room and so mpc is covering the charges on the the equipment rental so we're not having to cover that and so there is a trade-off on what the district is picking up and what nbc is covering so it's definitely beneficial having the programs and the opportunities for our kids like dr wright says we did expand it we have more sections offered that are dual enrollment now any questions about that there's no questions can we have a uh motion for item 3.2 have a motion from diana a second from jennifer all in favor aye unanimous thank you all right pins okay item 3.3 recommendation to review we have two early graduates as everybody had an opportunity to review those two individual students any
018questions or comments that we would like brought to dr reiter lauren if uh mr webb would take a chance to introduce mr ruble caba that would be a good good thing to do all right we've got frank here who's requesting to graduate early and i'm going to go ahead and hand the microphone over to frank and he can tell you a little bit of where he's at right now and why he's looking forward to have this early graduation request approved um so i finished all my requirements to graduate early and i'm trying to graduate early because i applied at pinetop fire and i got a call not too long ago and i'm going to get an interview the 12th of this month and that's why i'm trying to graduate early congratulations the beginnings of a
019great job yeah so he's looking to be able to get onto the fuels crew with pine top fire and it's one of those where if the position is open now he can take it if he waits until after may graduation that position might not be there so that's a big motivator of why he's here chuck are you a member of the navit fire science program yes i was for first semester good deal so there's no further discussion we have a motion to accept these early retirement early retirements i mean we're not retiring you from education these early graduation requests have a motion from jennifer a second from chuck all in favor that's unanimous also yes congratulations item 3.4 recommendation to review and approve the junior leadership academy after school program this is what the schimmel's
020run isn't it it is mike and beth schimmel support this program it'll run april 19th through the 30th of this year and it's fully funded by the jla the junior leadership academy it's a great program for youth and so we're very supportive of it but we still need the board support to move forward i think it's great anything any any questions or discussions about this if not we have a motion great program did that serve as a motion also all right we have a second segment for margaret all in favor okay that was unanimous for item 3.4 uh now our next item on the agenda is just a superintendent's report there's a long list of dates are you going to go through those or yes yes sir if i may i'll take off my mask
021but it's not so muffled and there's a lot of important information would you like me to review those now yeah okay beginning with april 7th and april 8th tomorrow and the next day we'll have interviews begin for the principalship at blue ridge elementary school there are five well-qualified candidates each of these candidates will will be reviewed by a panel that consists first of teachers ptso members and parents uh there's about 12 people in total on that group the second round of interviews will be with the admin team roughly 12 people and then on the 13th of april with the board's permission we'll notice a potential quorum we're inviting the community and board members that are interested to come to a meet and greet that will be held from four o'clock to 7 00 p.m on
022the 13th that time coincides with the elementary pre-registration so parents can do all shopping at one area they could pre-register their children if they have high school and elementary kids or various bands they can enroll them or rather pre-register them all at once and then go over and meet ask questions of the candidates we're going to limit it to two or three of the finalists that are selected after the the first two rounds of interviews and that'll be an opportunity for the community all stakeholders parents kids anybody who wants to come and we'll have that in the high school east gym over here and so there's plenty room they'll be spaced out we'll have the doors open be well ventilated and that's a chance for people to just that is the reason we have this
023meeting tonight instead of our normal yes that would have been our normal board meeting so that's why we moved it to this night yes sir correct on the we have just explained the meet and greet before i go there are any questions on the process with respect to the selection of the the principal so i will take feedback and i'll let the committees know that i'm not going to ask them to vote but i am interested in their feedback and i will weigh that in to my decision that i'll make to submit to the board for its consideration for approval we'll also allow community members to provide feedback on a piece of paper and then file that give that to mary and i'll review whatever comments are made as well and take that into consideration
024i think it's it's a it's a pretty arduous process it's it's thoroughly um i would say a lack of a better term vetting the candidates and giving them a chance to meet important stakeholders and for parents and teachers and kids to meet these folks too and talk with them so that's the process that we're using and are there any questions with that before i go on to the next item all right on the the 13th through the 15th we're going to have a pre-registration event and so we have mailed postcards out around 5000 of them to local members of the community anybody that's been in school community members we've even mailed them to the area of wagon wheel and towards show low and so for students that have an interest in attending our school they
025can come and pre-register if they're if they are an open enrollment student they'll be placed on the list they'll be pre-registered and placed on the list for open enrollment consideration same rules apply and then we will work to try to we're not going to try we're actually going to have a much more streamlined process where we'll have about 24 data input specialists we'll call them that the parents will just share their information and these folks that are trained to input it will put it in it's about a third of the time and the tenth of the frustration where we're trying to be more intentional with our use of language registration and pre-registration means we're just gathering your information a student is not formally enrolled until they are accepted and issued a schedule and so that
026has caused terminology that we've been using interchangeably has been causing us some miscommunication parents were having to go and do things two and three times next year we're going to make sure that we have documents like shots memorialized so once they provide them we don't have to ask them every year to keep providing us the same people piece of paper and i i must give the principals including ryan credit for coming up with this process um josh and the principals and others for training these people and i think it's going to feel far more convenient and i think the parents will appreciate the support that they're going to get so we're working really hard to make it as easy as we can for our in-district students and students that want to be considered under open
027enrollment from wherever they hail the uh the next thing is that we'll have our follow-up for the covet shots i believe the facility we're going to use is what the old gym or the new gym because we're also we have these desks and stuff out here by the way i told facilities the board would not want our facilities to have to clean this all out and put it right back up tomorrow this is substance over form we're testing in here daily and so that explains the chairs everywhere this room will be used for arizona merit testing and we have also pre-registration and all the other things that are going on so we but we did not want to put off the shots of covid so that will be on the 13th we'll have another my
028assumption is a couple hundred up to four to five hundred student students community members and some of which may be students get their shots 18 years old and older will be able to access access the johnson and and the pfizer shots on the 20th the elementary school will have our first open house of the year we're also trying to streamline these functions and well we'll have transportation available there for them and questions and teachers will be there to answer questions we want to try to make this as painless as we can for the parents and yet as informative as possible that's why we're having these on different nights some of the feedback that we have had over the years is please don't have your open house in the same night i have kids at different
029grade bands i can't get around to all of them it creates a fire drill for me so we've made that adjustment this year actually we made it last year but really couldn't take advantage of it because the code would excuse me we probably ought to make a notification of possible quorum so the boards can attend those thank you so let's uh on the 13th and then on the 20th thank you mr marrow the element excuse me that junior the high school on the 26th will have its open house have the same functions and then the junior high will have theirs on the 27th are there any questions on the open house functions i've got all of our representatives here to field them if you do all right may 14th is the last day of school
030the on that day we're going to be able to hold our final lap for the eighth graders which is a blue ridge uh tradition i believe i have it from 12 30 to 1. is that right principal hopmeier all right and that'll be in front of the junior high school and uh will the last lap be at around the school or where does that take place courtney we'll start we'll have the kids start at the front of the school they walk around the perimeter of the junior high and they come back it's a very slow walk and the parents will line up out front and we'll ask them to space out and have masks on so we'll be as covet friendly as we can be thanks yeah and it's all outside and i'm and i'm
031fine with that we are going to have our kindergarten graduation at 9 a.m at the bres gym there are only about 90 kids this year that that we could definitely face space people out keep the doors open allow that to move forward on a traditional kindergarten graduation commencement ceremony it's always the highlight for parents and kids and frankly teachers too the kindergarten team wishes to thank the board and administration for moving forward with that they're very excited about kindergarten graduation it's adorable if you haven't seen it so would you in fact i'll give a list of anything where i think board members might come i'll just notice a potential quorum the board is obviously welcome to come to all these will have it appropriately noticed in the event there's more than two the uh the
032baccalaureate we're going to have the same program that we've had in the last couple years past where we've had a the senior video is shown this is going to take place on monday may 17th the kids run the event the kids invite the speakers and it's a nice function we've seen the popularity and participation increase significantly last couple years we'll also notice that function that was my phone sorry diana that's okay it's okay it is it sounds almost like uh pomp and circumstance we're talking about graduation that's perfect on may 17 june 3rd brez will have their summer school program begin as will the other great bands all summer school will begin on may 17th the elementary school will have a three-week program monday through thursday 8 32 1 the junior high in high school
033will have the same time frame but excuse me same times starting and stopping but their program will last for four weeks as opposed to three so i'm really thankful that the principals got in front of this i'm grateful for the teachers willingness to support we want to address learning loss and get after that immediately and this is a good start forward to that end grades one through eleven any questions about that i have uh the graduation is a traditional ceremony going to be conducted at paul morrill stadium at 7 00 p.m now there will be some changes we will not have the the the the kids lining up and parents and everybody coming out to take pictures like we do and we have most years we'll have the stadium set up where we're going to
034utilize both the home and visitors side the orientation of the stage will be adjusted so both sides can participate equally we'll name the the student and then we'll name the next student we're going to move them through a little quicker the program though is going to be more extensive and it will have the accolades for example dylan bach is going to go to columbia it will say in the program dylan baca is going to colombia by the way that's not just that's true don't block is going to colombia and so uh we'll make sure that the kids get the notoriety we'll still have the speakers the valid vic valedictorian or valedictorians and salutatorians will will address the audience um we'll have some brief remarks by administration and we will uh we'll invite families back and
035so what we're going to we're going to set up if a kid has a large family they'll be able to bring in their entire family we'll have it set up where we're going to utilize the track if necessary we'll make sure that the folks that need special access that might have a disability are provided that support and it will be it'll be a beautiful event we'll have it set up right it'll be bob london's last graduation and jeremy hathcock's first and he's going to pass the torch to jeremy so he has a he has big shoes to fill on the graduation side too hopefully he can whistle like bob the next is i'm really excited about our graduation lock-in we're moving forward with it we have parents that are are stepping up and helping out
036we still need some more volunteers we'll find that we are accepting donations as well at that event hatch toyota will give away a brand new car to one of the seniors that qualify correct mr webb do you want to add anything else about the lock-in uh event um just that like dr right said we still need some volunteers to make it happen there's emails that have been sent out with the link on where parents can go to sign up or ask more information and then donations are accepted here in the district office or can be paid to ptso so we have a fun night it's it's usually from 11 00 p.m until six in the morning we want to hold off at the giving away the new car at the end of the event as
037like one of the top things that we're doing kids that have a 3.5 or better gpa will be able to be eligible to receive put their name in for the drawing and there's a couple other stipulations in there but pretty cool prizes and we're grateful that hatch toyota stepped up to donate the car for our students here at blue ridge mr webb how many kids would fall would meet that criteria at your of the seniors it's over 50. okay it's a good number of kids yeah graduating class of 150 so yeah very well have a 3.5 or better thank you uh dr laura brown and the bratch family and others have just been a mainstay for this program uh we we have done an exceptional job our community has done his exceptional job our school
038administration particularly the principals have done an outstanding job of working with community members to provide a safe environment for our kids that's fun and so now more than ever we need to get arms around these kids and make sure that they have a fun safe environment it's going to be it'll be a nice function so thank you mr webb for your efforts are there any questions about either graduation commencement exercises or the lock-in okay put the word out we're accepting donations and we need volunteers um you know especially those that can stay awake after nine or ten i'm usually up by three i'll come and do the second shift the uh we we're going to put the correct calendars jennifer on the website the correct calendars will be on the website uh tomorrow and then
039i will post those the only other district update i will say is that arizona merit testing arizona merit2 testing is underway mr grace and dr eyerstone i want to commend them for getting 95 percent of their students to participate which is amazing in this environment it's amazing doesn't happen without planning and preparation so thank you as kids get older we know they become a little less compliant and more independent we're struggling a little more at the junior high high school but the administration and our teachers are doing their job i also want to give a shout out to technology and facilities for putting this place up and back and forth several times during the week creating an appropriate learning space and testing environment for our students i want to make the board aware of the
040efforts that administration facilities and and i.t are making weekly and daily and so none of this stuff of course happens by itself and we're very appreciative of their efforts i i do not have any other district updates i will you have these and we'll be posting these on the website as well are there any questions mr president from the board that i might address or elaborate on if not that would conclude my report thank you dr appreciate the information a lot to happen in the last part of the year next item on the agenda is 3.6 it is the board's performance evaluation with dr wright this is an executive session item closed to the public to move into executive session we need a motion to move into executive session motion from margaret a second by
041chuck all in favor that'd be unanimous so at this time we will excuse ourselves to this room for discussion and we will return when that discussion is through so you're welcome to stay you're welcome to leave whatever you would like to do thank you