BCSD Board Meeting 04/17/2025

001[Music] In my [Music] hands down. [Music] One day [Music] Number two. Nothing. [Music] [Applause] this to order the workshop for Bullhead City School District board on Thursday, April 17th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. Roll call. President Melinda Subrai. Charlene D is here. Fred Rushton here. I know who it is. Zicki here. Judy Reed here. Okay. One point item 1.3 policy advisory for BA EB evaluation of school board self evaluation. That's us. So, Madame President and board members, this is an exhibit. So, it's one of those things that you don't have to vote on, but it, you know, I told you that I would continue to bring things forward that are exhibits and resolutions. Remind me when we are supposed to do evaluation. Doesn't say on there. No, just once a year. Remember last night when I

002went through this stuff? BB A I think it may do. Do you think it's mid school year? No. I mean the board school year start the the board member school year starts in January. I'm thinking November, October, November. Seems to me it is late. Yeah, it's later. I couldn't remember when I was going through this and I could not remember. I thought I should probably know that. Uh item 1.4 four policy advisory of IHA basic instruction program. I had a question on this one. Okay, it says don't go too fast. I didn't talk something about Oh, there you go. July 1, 2022. Yeah. So when they when they update the policies when ASBA updates the policies relative to the state law, they'll reference the date that's in the law. Okay. Um Okay. But we're in

003compliance, right? Yes, we are. And then uh Cassville, scroll down to see any changes. Okay. So you can see there a couple of the changes. Yeah. I just had a question on the date. Yeah. Just needed that explain. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's another thing we don't have to vote on, right? Not yet. And and it's in the agenda because it'll be first reading. So you won't vote on it tonight anyway, but we try to bring them to you in the workshop so you can have some discussion if you want. Okay. policy or item five 1.5 policy advisory of JLF sex offender notification. So they just they added some wording. Have we ever had a child who is actually an offender? not an offendee but an offender with this well it's not the child so

004much it's the offenders and they're saying to us when we have to be notified and when we have to notify parents but down here in it says the juvenile is adjudicated delinquent c um I don't I not in my memory but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened and we've certainly had there have certainly been some investigations in the past. We do get regular just for the relative to those things that are underlined. Uh we get regular information from the police department um about uh sex offenders and um uh we share those then with the principles at the sites so that they're aware. Um uh in the past I as I remember as I recall level one offenders we didn't even get the notices for we only got for above a level one but now they

005are sending us any of them you know the information about any sex offender. Um we don't put it out on social media. No we do not. We do not. I was reading in the newspaper that um people are getting kind of nasty with people. Yeah. No, we don't we don't put it out, but we do notify our principles. Yeah, of course. Um for a couple of reasons. One is to kind of keep an eye on who comes on our campuses. But the other thing is there are very very occasional instances where a parent is one of the people on the list. And so that just means that the school has to be very careful about when that person's on campus. Not that they can't be, but when they being careful about when they are. Any

006questions on any of that stuff? Just trying to move through it quickly. Item 1.6, the district integrated action plan and parent involvement. This is a packet. It's a huge packet of things because Jen's been working hard on this and uh and we have to have a public meeting and so it was a good opportunity to share the information with you as a board and then if there are any families or anybody present they have input so it's up to Jen. Did everybody get a packet? Did you guys all get one of these? Yes. [Music] Okay. Good evening. We are we are required um every year to have what they call a title one meeting. And in the past we've struggled with getting parents to attend. So that's why we like doing it during the workshop

007because at least we have the opportunity for people to see us on YouTube and in person. So um why we have moved it to you. So every year we're required to do an integrated action plan and the in integrated action plan is actually part of the title one. So we do get title one funds. Um title one funds are determined by the percentage of students who qualify for free career reduced lunch. Even though we our C which means all of our students receive free breakfast and free lunch. Um we still have to fill have all of our families fill out a form for our official percentages. Okay. And then the funding is determined based on each school's percentage. So within um within title one, it's used to improve the academics of students who qualify for

008free and reduced lunch that are at risk. Okay. So things we can purchase are like uh supplemental materials to help the teachers in the students in the classroom, family engagement activities, um meetings, um and then salaries, benefits thing, a lot of resources. we buy a lot of resources for our classrooms through. So, as part of the action plan, this is what we start in February. So, all of our teachers get together um and they form committees to look at specific rubrics and things um that AD requires us to do. One piece is to look at these specific eight questions. And so, they determine based on their school individual school data, student achievement, um they can look at discipline um attendance uh where we fall um based on these eight questions. That's a very thick rubric

009that they do go through. I did not you guys um keep your eye on this 0123 because I think the next slide it took me a while to figure that out too last night. Okay. All right. So after every school completes that rubric, they also develop goals and they develop action steps. So as a district, we take a look at all of the school plans to create a plan for the district that supports what the schools need. The numbers that are on this on the side are the average of our schools. So each school rated themselves in each of those eight categories and then that's the average of all five of our schools. Ky does not have to do this because they are not a title one school um because they're mostly preschool. You did

010so um those so the three areas that I highlighted are the lowest places you know that our schools rated themselves. Okay. an understand. So this is just what it looks like. This is how I organize it so that I know can kind of see. So the each school's goals I know it's very small is at the top in kind of a salmon color and that's their goal. Um so this would be for math. So that's their goal. based on last year's um like state assessments and then where they want to be at the end of next year. And so you can see in the green how they rated themselves in each of those eight questions and then um the action steps that they chose for math. The state wants us to only do three to

011five action steps um per um subject area. So they want a goal and action steps for math and a goal and action steps for ELA or English language arts. Um our two schools, the Bullhead Middle and Fox Creek test for science. And so they have goals for science. And then we have one school, Fox Creek, that is under improvement for their special education um students because they're not progressing as as much as the state would like them to. And so they have goals for special education. It's a lot. Go up to Excuse me. Um the SAP what is SAP that's the schools integrated action. Okay. And then basically these are the goals for that the schools have set right. Yes. Um okay I I want to come back to this later. Okay. This this screen.

012Jen also make a comment about those. Um it used to be that the state said um oh you just you need to set goals as high as possible as high as possible. Finally somebody realized that um you kind of defeat the purpose if you set goals that are unrealistic and and so they really they really encouraged us to do more like smart goals. So is it is it something that's attainable? So you want to you want to stretch but you don't need to have you know you don't want to go from 15% in something and say our goal is 70%. Because that's pretty unrealistic. So um uh you know while these are not necessarily goal the percentages might not exactly be where we want them to be eventually um they're realistic in terms of okay

013with a stretch can we make these goals? Okay thanks Jim. So this is the same thing for y English language. Now when the schools rate themselves, they don't rate themselves like once for math, ones for ELA, once for science. It's an overall rating. So you'll see the numbers are the same on all of the spreadsheets. Two schools for science. No numbers. No, I didn't. That's my laziness. Maybe I didn't put the numbers in. You're just busyiness. Yeah. And then Fox week is the only one that has the CSI is comprehensive support and improvement and that's for special and this is the sped goals right? Yes. What are FAW students? So those are students who are here. So they measure like last year and then their growth to the next year. So students have been here

014for a full year. Okay. Or two. Like you get points if they're here for two or three. Um, unfortunately because our schools um only have two testing grades at each school, we don't get all the points that you could get because you can get up to three if they're there with you for three years. So, I know none of our schools have students that test for three years unless maybe they're retained, which is a very small number. Thank you. No, go back to the There we go. So, from all of that information, uh we met um Dr. Stewart, myself, Amanda Aean, um Kate Hall, and then Sheree, who was our homeless liaison, all that to go over what the schools did and create a a district plan. So, this is for math. Um what our

015goals are for math. So, so these aren't just title one goals. These are for the whole school, right? This is for our district. So, this is our district. Okie dokie. They call it an LE, which is like local integrated action plan district. LEA is local information agency. So, that's just the L. So, we've separated K2 because they don't test on the state assessment. And so, um what our new we do have a new assessment program we're going to use next year. So, based on that, um we would like 70% to be proficient or or higher. Um in K2, if we can get our K2 students there, then the rest, you know, it'll be easier for the teachers and helper grades to get them where they need to be. um taking an average of what the

016schools had for their AASA or their state assessment um from last year. So, spring of last year to spring of um 2026 um looking at that 20 what 21% growth and then also a special education goal and then um for our homeless students as well. And so then after doing that and looking at what the schools had for their action steps, you can see our five action steps on the side. A lot of them are similar for math and ELA and a couple for science. We're still looking at unpacking the standards and making sure teachers know what is expected of students. Uh we did mostly concentrated on ELA and math this year, although we got better as we went. So, we need to go back and review those that we did at the beginning of

017the year um to add the things in that we learned later to add into our um unwrapping. We will be spending less time though. So, this year we spent half of every PD day as a district seems unwrapping standards and next year we're looking at hour and a half to two hours. Um so that gives some time back to the schools and but continue unwrapping and continuing with coaching. Um let's see one big piece that was common across all schools for both math and ELA was MTSS which is um multi-tered system of support which means like we strengthen the core program which all students receive. Then we strengthen tier two for those that um still are struggling after um main like whole group instruction or whole class instruction and that's usually done by in small

018groups by teachers and then increasing uh um our efficiency in tier three which is like title one instruction um e and special education. So although we have things we don't really have a really strong program of um even resources and procedure in place. And so that's something that we really are looking to in improve, which will also help with those areas that were starred on um the other page that was um aligned instructional practices, um intervention for students not demonstrating mastery, and then also providing enrichment for students who are easter. In number five, you say create a position. Is this an additional instructional coach that we're going to be looking at? This is an instructional coach, but only for special education teachers. Okay. And and it's not a new position. You all approved it two

019years ago, I think. And the issue is we've not been able to find somebody to put in that position. So, we've kind of had it on hold. So, we're bringing it out again. and we're hopeful that we can uh can find somebody who's qualified to be in that position. Originally to be for special education teachers and EL, but finding someone who has expertise in both is difficult. So, um and then it down, our EL teachers are doing really well. We have outside coaching for them already through title three grant. And so, um we decided ELA. These are our goals as a district for ELA. Refresh. We just What's VO y and e y beginning of year? No. Good. You have to remind me. I just I just after I said that I thought oh that

020and so they were developed in the same way looking efficiencies that we already had um last year and looking at what the schools had as their goals in determining what we needed as a district when the action steps are very similar. Um the pieces that are different would be a screener for ELA for seventh and eighth grade. We have a lot of things in place for our K5 well K4 and then next this coming school year we have things in place for fifth and sixth grade. We need to get some some things for seventh and eighth grade for them to better kind of narrow down what students need when they're struggling. And then something we learned um Amanda through monitoring things uh we learned that we're supposed to be um providing some compensatory services for

021students. So, if they're not mastering the state standards based on either our benchmarks and or our state assessment, we're supposed to be offering them additional support. Now, they are invited to our after school program and they already receive their targeted minutes and things during the school year during the school day, but um we are supposed to be providing additional outside of what we provide to anyone else for those students. So currently we do two days of um after school program for all of all of the students that um would like to come and so we're adding an additional third day that would be only for the students and those programs are voluntary. They don't have to come with their voluntary um the after school invited encouraged but it's not mandatory. What is the percentage of

022attendance? We're It's It's We're The elementaryaries do a lot better than probably the middle and the junior high. As they get older, it's harder for to get them here. Um, and who runs the after school? The the principles do a lot of the running of the program. Oh, okay. So, in the past, we had our 21st century grant and so we had an actual coordinator at every school and we don't have that um anymore. So they look at their data, they determine which students need to attend, they invite those students, and the teachers help invite those students to them. So the teachers do not attend that after school at all to help. They teach they teach. Oh, they do? And they're they're paid $35 an hour for after school. Oh, okay. So here's science. Um

023we will be piloting two science programs next year. So next year is our last year. Um we're contracted with Amplify. Um teachers are not happy with Amplify. Um they don't feel like it's rigorous enough. Um they feel like they need to reach out and grab additional materials to teach the standards. So we are going to pilot new programs next year in hopes that we find a better program that better matches the state standards and teachers and our students better than their current program does. The community engagement for the district, we're always looking to engage our our parents um in more academic things. So, coming to board meetings is one, but al it's outside of the fun things like the carnivals and those things. We would we want to get our parents involved in some of

024the kind of thing so they know how to support students at home. It's something that we had in the plan for this current year and we didn't do the best for reasons. So we had not excuses it just didn't happen. We had plans to do summer school training um and have a list for things we were going to do something quarterly and it just it fell through. So, um, make sure that we do that next year. Any comments, ideas, questions, suggestions, anything you'd like to see that isn't on there? When you say uh the district will engage 20% of our parents, does does that mean actually having 20% in attendance or is that meaning reaching out to 20%. That means over the course of the school year having 20% of our parent population attending at

025least one of our events. So based on attendance, thank you. So in other words, you're saying about 400 parents will have attended an event throughout the year. A minimum of this. So then parent involvement procedures, it's not really a policy. You can't really call it a policy, but we do have and that's you have here in the back. Um this is um kind of a compact that the school puts out for parents. It also explains the things procedures that um the district will do to try to engage parents. Um schools also do one um and they meet with their site councils about their plan. But one thing we are noticing is that I don't I don't know if either we're not providing the type of parents want or if there's additional supports that we can

026provide for parents so that they can attend. Um, and so we would that's kind of we're looking for we do surveys and so I know in looking at our survey which just closed so you should have that data at our next board meeting but in looking at some of the results some of it is you know lack of child care so it's hard for them to attend some of them because they don't have child care for their little ones or they don't want to bring their students with them. Um, transportation seems to be another barrier for a lot of our parents. I'm just thinking Thank you. Thank you very much. Item 1.7, adjourning the workshop. Do I have a motion to adjourn the workshop? I'll make a motion that we adjourn the workshop. Is there

027a second? I I second the motion. All those in favor? I, Melinda Subraki. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barb Zarziki. Hi, Judy Reed. Okay, we have about three minutes before we go into a full meeting. [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. [Music] Hey. Mhm. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Inhal. [Music] Number one. [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music] I call to order the regular meeting of Bullhead City School Board on Thursday, April 17, 2025 at 6:00 PM. Roll call. President Melinda Sabrasi. Charlene Diaz here, Fred Rushton here, Barbar Ziki here, Judy Reed here. Would you guys please stand and say the pledge with me? I aliance 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. Okay. I hope

028citizens present. No calls. So, go ahead. I'm sorry. Everybody signed in, right? Did everybody out there sign in? We don't have any of that stuff. So, we're on item 2.6 six and this is donations. Thank you. Um, we needed nine more blue chairs. Blue chairs. Were they teacher chairs? I'm I'm sorry. I don't know. Just Kate sounds like she knows. Sorry, they're big people chairs. Okay, that's what I thought. Maybe for for uh you know, we got some big kids and big teachers. So, yeah. And we're at a school within kids and tiny chairs. You don't like sitting on the floor, huh? Yeah. Going down's not bad. It's going to back up, right? That was nice of Legacy to do that for us. And is it Wnik? Uh, Dawick. I think it's Widow. Widow. Wedawick.

029Okay. What kind of books were these? Does anybody know? What were they children's books? So like in preschool they Oh, for preschool. Okay. And so it was big books. Okay. All right. I need right now. We're all about the big stuff right now. Big chairs, big books. We're in, right? Yeah. Thank you, Lance. Since you're sitting here with us, thank you very much for the donations of your materials. Um, that was really nice of you, Lenor Nelson. Wow. So, where do we put the TV that she donated? I don't even know. I'm sorry. It's at middle school. So, I don't know where at middle school. It's not in the teachers lounge. I don't think so. No. Okay. Mm- Okay. I really wish to thank everybody and I'm sure that this is not a complete the

030complete list that there are people. No, I think we have some things that are not on there. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. I'll get Cass uh uh smacking people around to submit the forms because I know we got we have some other things. Yeah, I'm sure that the community is I know she's been doing it. I'm just giving her a hard time. Um, I know that we have I know that we have uh an employee who has donated a number of u the glass white the glass like whiteboards only they're glass uh to the district and uh kind of refuses to turn in the donation sheet. Uh, but at this point, I mean, we've got the nice big eight foot one in here and we have six foot ones and three foot or four foot ones

031at particularly at Fox Creek and every time somebody does something like that, you give them a absolutely we give them a thank you, but sometimes they won't fill out the little form. Well, I really appreciate this and I think that everybody on the board appreciates those who donate to the schools. Um, it's just those little nice things that Yep. that we don't normally provide. Item 2.7, adoption of the agenda. I need a motion to adopt adopt the agenda for tonight. I make a motion we adopt the agenda. I'll second the motion. All those in favor? I Melinda Sabraski. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barb Zarziki. I Judy Ree. I was looking at this last night and looking forward to this. I just want to see what these guys have done and obviously they've

032done some good stuff. So, Miss Hall, Miss Hall, would you introduce your uh your your your crew because I know it's more than just the students presenting, but so it would be nice for the board to know the other folks as well. Good evening. Um, tonight we have the Life Academy, a couple Life Academy students um with us to show you guys some of the things they've been doing. They've been working this last semester real heavily on research projects. So, they've done various different um projects so far this year. We've had some projects on um right now they're doing cities. They like picked a city within the United States and they have to do a whole research project on the city. They've done body systems. What else did they do? Debate. They've done debate. Debate.

033Um and so with me over here in the corner I have Miss Johnson and Miss Downey. Um they're two of the para profofessionals um that work within the program. Miss Ashley Pierce, we stole her from preschool. Um she was a preschool parah and then she joined the dark side with us. I have Mr. Schnobble. He is our teacher extraordinaire. Uh and then I have Owen and Cecilia who um are both eighth grade students this year. Um have been with us for quite a while and they're absolutely phenomenal at what they do and they wanted to share with you. they actually volunteered to share um and to come present tonight um with you. We asked all of the students and these kids were like, "Yeah, let's do it." So um they wanted to share with you

034what they what they did within their um Thank you. presentations. They had they got to choose the output of pre like what they wanted to do for their output of their research project. So some students did oral reports, some students did PowerPoints, they did trifold boards. So they're going to start. Cecilia is gonna come up first. My name is Sal. I am in eighth grade at Life Academy. Today I'm going to be telling about the nervous system. I can't hear. The nervous system includes the brain, spinal cord, and complex networks or nerves. ALS is when motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. Um the body system overview the stem the stem the sorry the stimuli from the sense organs change to electrical

035signals. The nerves carry these electrical signals to the brain and the spinal cord. The brain decides what the stimulus is and how to respond to it. Ner nerves then carry the response or what to do message to or away from the brain. The message is delivered to the part of the body that will respond to the stimulus. The disease description ALS is a progressive neuro degenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Motor neurons travel from the brain through the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. When these motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to entertain and control muscle movement is lost when voluntary muscle action is progressively affected. People may lose the ability to speak, eat, breathe, and move. The risk factors are older age, male sex,

036a family history with the disease, a military service, potentially exposure to environmental toxins or he or heavy metals, lifestyle or occupational choices. Symptoms are slur and nasal speech, difficult chewing or swallowing, muscle weakness affecting an arm, leg or the neck, weakness associated with the muscle cramps and twitching in the arm, shoulder and tail. The cause of ALS is unknown although scientists do believe that it has something to do with genetics. Um there is no treatment known to known for ALS although there is medication that you can take to slow it down. It involves rusal and edervon. Um the conclusion ALS is a fatal type of motor neuron disease. It progresses the generation of nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain. It is often called the Gary disease after a baseball player who died from

037the disease. This disease is very important to be aware of because the disease can start off as something small and within time become something very big. Thank you. I got a question for you. How did you get interested in ALS? Um my teacher, Miss Pierce, she wanted to um I heard from a bird that she that she wanted to learn about it. And I figured since it was an option, why not take it and maybe show off, you know, tell her something and maybe she'll learn something from one of her. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for volunteering. Oh my gosh. You're welcome to stand up in front of these guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. [Applause] I had a cousin that died of illness. I had a friend and

038terrible dizzy. Pull the microphone up so it's closer to your mouth. There you go. My name is Owen Curtis and I'm in 8th grade in life academy. Today I will be pres presenting about Parkinson's disease. The nervous system helps all parts of the body communicate with each other. Park communicate with each other. Parkinson's disease is a brain disorder that causes unintended or uncontrollable movements such as shaking, stiffness, difficulty with balance and coordination. Symptoms are usually beginning to gradually worsen over time. As as the disease progresses, people may have difficulty walking and talking. Disease overview. Parkinson's disease is a move progressive movement disorder that of the nervous system. causes neur nerve cells called ner neurons and parts of the brain to weaken and become damaged and die leading to symptoms that conclude problems movement tremor stiffness

039and impaired balance comp the components are brains the brain the spinal cord and neurons the functions the main functions are receive sensory information processes the information it receives and respond with motor output Causes age of age. The risk of Parkinson's disease increases with age. Usually it starts around 50 or older. Average age of onset is around seed 70. Family history. Having one or more first-degree relative such as parents or siblings with Parkinson's disease increases your risk. Gender. Men are more likely to develop Parkinson's disease than men many other women are. Risk factors exposure to toxins ongoing exposure to herbicides and pesticides may slightly increase your recent Parkinson's disease. Head trauma, diabetes, smoking, although some studies suggest it may have a protective effect. Certain medications and antisc psychotics of cases. Symptoms rigid muscles. You may have

040stiff muscles in any part of your body. Your muscles may feel tense, painful. And your arm movements may be short. Speech changes. You may softly or quickly slur or hesitate before talking. Your speech may be flat or monotone without typical speech patterns. Treatment surgery. Deep brain stimulation DBS. A proc surgical procedure that involves implanting electrodes into the brain that to simulate areas involved in movement control medications. Lev levodopa the primary medication for Parkinson's. It increases dopamine levels in the brain. It is often combined with card caroba or sorry that one to prevent side effects and collagenics. These medications reduce tremors and rigidity. Conclusion inclusion the nervous system is a very important part of the body. For example, the the brain receives message and sends out messages to different parts of the body. also learns function

041by sending chem chemical and electrical messages. All in all, there is the nervous system is a very important interesting and very interesting system. Okay. So, how long did it take you to do the research? Um, I think with the help of my teachers, probably maybe 3 to 4 days. 3 to 4 days. Yes. I see you have some citations down there. Were they mostly uh internet citations or Okay. And you had to read all those nasty words to Thank you very very much. Thank you. [Applause] Yes, sir. YouTube channel so they can watch it so they can watch themselves on TV. Y sounds like a deal. Great job, guys. Thank you. That was wonderful. Thank you, crew. The whole crew. The whole crew. Very proud of you. Assumption. She has a second job. She had

042to go tonight. We're missing her tonight. But well, make sure that she gets congratulations, too. Yes. It was very nice. Thank you. It's nice to see what the what the kids do. Item 4.1, superintendence report. Uh, Madame President and board members, you have the uh the usual monthly reports. Uh, if you have questions, I'll try to answer them. uh go to the cumulative report. I think that's where it is. Yes. Yeah. Keep in mind that it's not this year is not a really good one to compare to last year because we're including data this year that we did not have last year. All right. particularly the bus uh because they're now reporting bus ride, you know, the bus discipline and that has skewed all of the data. So, it looks like we're doing worse than

043we have in the past. And that's not the case. Um and here's here's a here's a case in point. Um I don't remember how many uh disciplinary hearings that um Miss Aiman had done last year with Fox Creek uh at this point in the year. Uh but this year five oh that's five. Great. That's it. Okay. We have one one pending so six. So it's April midappril and six. Um, and that's um and and that's a testament to a lot of work on culture and consistent um uh behavior management and high expectations and things like that that have been going on um uh there and at the middle school as well. But the big difference this year is at Fox Creek. That's wonderful. Is that be because um Mr. Brutus has been there? I think

044it's a whole lot of things um uh that um you know I first of all I think it's four or five years of us slowly building culture and and uh the word getting to the younger kids of what our expectations are going to be at junior high. I think a lot of it is consistency. Um uh and I and some of it is uh Mr. Burgess works really hard with kids to connect with them and head off problems. Um but I also think that two other factors uh changes that we made this year have impacted it greatly. One is not having backpacks and one is parking cell phones. Okay. So uh there's no one thing. I think there it's a combination of all those things that have worked well together. Okay. Okay. Other questions about

045the existing reports? Okay. I have a whole lot of updates for you tonight. a lot of updates. So, Cass, if you would show the recruitment retention graph. Okay. So, uh if you recall, one of our goals this year was to uh rec reduce uh increase retention. And so, last year uh we had 39 positions uh uh resignations from 39 positions when we put out contracts and work agreements. And uh at this point, we have 28 for this year. uh several of those have already been filled for next year, but um that's a significant reduction um for uh for retention. So, uh that's a good thing. Um and then related to that, uh you all approved uh earlier in the year that we could start um recruiting H1B visa folks, which means that we are not

046just recruiting them, but we are sponsoring them, which means that we're paying some of their fees to get them to come. And the difference between the J1, which is a cultural exchange program, and the H1B is that H1B visa uh holders are working toward citizenship in the US. So they come and and work three years and then they there's a process that they can start working on to get a green card and then to become citizens. Uh and so that total thing is six years. So, uh, typically a J1 visa is for three years and can have a two-year extension. H1B is automatically a six-year. It also means that since we are the sponsors, if they come to us on an H1B, they cannot go to some other district. Um, because we're we paid for

047them to come. So, uh, this is a good way for us to, uh, recruit and retain people, uh, particularly if we can find folks in difficult to fill positions. They can't go to other districts ever or after a certain amount of time. Probably after the six years, six years because we're paying their fees to be here. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. So, uh, we have already filled, uh, uh, from a, we already have three, uh, H1B people. Uh, one is a music teacher for next door at the middle school. And, uh, and this person and this person will also work at least one period a day at Fox Creek. And I'll explain in a little bit in another in a minute about uh, our music program, what we're working on that because I had shared with

048you we're trying to rebuild it and how we can do this. Um but this person has uh lots of experience and um and focuses on voice but also can do uh you know the other parts of the music program. We have replaced a special ed teacher position at Fox Creek I think Fox Creek uh and uh and then um the other position in the life academy which is uh the special ed teacher position in the life academy has been vacant this year. Uh, and we have hired a a returning teacher who was here earlier on a J1 visa, has been back in the Philippines for two years and wants to come and will be coming on an H1 visa. Uh, and he will be the sped teacher uh, in the academy. I will tell you

049that when he was here before, he was an amazing teacher. So, we're really looking forward to having him uh, as part of the life academy program. Okay. Awesome. So, we pay the fees for the fees. we pay. Yeah. Well, there the legal fees upfront. Okay. Legal fees upfront and um and that's what we're really that's what we're doing. And then if there are there are usually for any of our visa folks, there are annual fees. Um and and once we started this process last year of looking for H1B folks and contracted with the company that we're working with that can do H1B visas, then we've started paying for the excuse me the annual fees for our existing teachers. We didn't feel like we could start paying for some new people to come and not support

050the people we already have. Um the other thing that we do, excuse me, um the visa sponsor companies, um and the whole visa process requires some certain kinds of insurance. And uh and because it's a a nationwide program, they can get medical insurance for the uh visa holders at a lot lower price than we pay for our folks. So, uh, instead of them, uh, getting our our group insurance, we pay that one. And it's it's significantly less than we pay for everybody else, but they have to have one that that includes um, uh, they call it a repatriation fee so that if they become ill and have to go return to their native country, uh, or we don't want this to happen, but if one of them passes away, the insurance has already been paid

051for for them to go home. and um and that's a requirement. So um uh we work with we work with everybody on on those kinds of fees and those are good questions. So thank you for asking those. Um so where where are these people coming from? Uh these three are all from the Philippines. They're all from the Philippines. And Jen's been busy working with principles, interviewing candidates all week uh this week because um uh you know, we're trying to fill as many of these 28 positions as we can. And they're not all uh international teachers that we're interviewing, but um a number of them are, and it's partly because we do not get applicants from the US. Um if we did, of course, they're going to be in the pool to be interviewed and um

052you know, and we go from there. Okay. Uh any questions about recruitment and retention? Okay. My second my second category um uh one of the things that you all talked about recently was looking for a new assessment platform uh to replace Galileo. And uh I probably should have Jen present this to you, but I'll do it. And then if I make mistakes, she'll she'll jump up and correct me. Um so uh there was a committee and they reviewed at least three at least three uh companies uh and uh selected uh a program called DNA. I don't know what the letters stand for but it's called DNA. Um and that is uh the equivalent of Galileo. So it is the benchmark testing. Okay. Um and it is very much aligned with our state standards. Um, and

053interestingly enough, only costs about half of what Galileo has been costing us per year. First year it will cost us the same as we've been paying for Galileo because we'll have to it's program, you know, it's a program. So, we'll have to have it installed and we'll have to have training. So, year one will be about what we've been paying for Galileo. After that, it will drop back. But in that process um one of the things that uh this company also offers is a program called uh fastbridge and that provides screening so skill screening and um uh progress monitoring in math and math and ELA both of those. So, if you remember when Jen presented our goals, our district goals, uh one of them was to find screening instruments for uh students so that we

054can figure out, okay, coming in, what are they missing, you know, what are skills that they're missing, but then we also want progress monitoring. So, we've been teaching and a student doesn't do well maybe on a benchmark or maybe doesn't do very well even on uh a formative test that's not the benchmark. Well, the teacher really needs to know what's what part of this did they not understand because I, you know, I can give interventions. I can do retaching if I know which piece the student didn't didn't understand. So, um, this program goes handinhand with DNA. It's the same company, so they're really meshed together and, uh, and really meshed with our state standards. So, um, that program, uh, uh, is fairly expensive. It it costs about what Galileo cost us, but we were going

055to be looking for screeners anyway and we had that in the budget. So, uh so we're okay um to to put that screener in progress monitor in. How is this um the DNA benchmark? How is that um in relation to our state assessment? Is it is it pretty help? Well, it's very much I I I can answer the part that it's very much aligned with the standards and I can say to you also that the state uh has been making uh some identification of what they're calling what we used to call essential standards. We know that there are lots of standards more than we can possibly have time in the year to teach. And so they've identified key ones and then the the assessments the state assessments starting next year about 60% of the items

056on the state assessment will be from that pool of items and the other 40% approximately will be from the whole standards. Okay. Um they can't they they would ruin the validation and reliability of the test if they suddenly changed the whole thing. Um but that's uh that's a piece of it and Jen can answer any of the other part. So um this the questions and the question types are aligned to the state standards. We have there's a couple options. They do have benchmarks that are already set. So we can give the three benchmarks and similar to what we were doing with Galileo. We found that also when we looked at the Pearson products that they had set benchmarks and there once again the yearly standards like we're doing but there's also you can your own

057as well. And so you can pick certain standards. It has an item name. You can choose them based on the um DLK or the rigor level. You can you can choose the questions. Um so they're very much aligned. It um also has what they call mimics. So at some point maybe we haven't figured out all the the timing logistics, but um it is like a mimic of the state of the state assessment. So it's the same blueprint um as our state assessment. Um so it would be very similar. So we could give that assessment to really see like predict where our students would be on the state assessment and use that to intervene. So Galileo you can pull questions um to practice if you will. Does this DNA have the same type of uh ability

058to do that? Yes. In fact, it's even easier. So, you can go in, you can choose your grade level, your subject. They have reading, math, science, and social studies, which we haven't done social studies before, so I'm kind of curious to see what those look like. But they um you can pick a standard and it automatically comes up with their test, you know, sample questions. You can and then you can just from that list pick which ones you want to include in that. So, they there's a lot of features. The the reports I think are a lot more friendly for parents. They have reports for students so students understand what their progress is. Um you can you can almost like AI you can give it a qualifier and then it'll sort the data based on

059the qualifier you want. You can sort it by standard. So you can really track the standard um a lot better per student. Um it even has a feature where if you were doing a test and you can monitor kids are doing, you know, on the test. If you notice that all the students are getting the same question wrong, you can literally stop the test for all students, go back and talk about what the misconceptions are, and then get them back. And you probably wouldn't do that on a normal benchmark, but if you're doing like a classroom assessment of some kind, you could stop um the test and retach right there before they go any further. You can start on like item type. So, if you're wondering, well, is it really the concept they didn't or

060they just not understand the way it was presented. You can pull up and see like um did the of the questions that students got wrong were the majority of them like a drag and drop or were you know so you can see kind of it's what it can do is amazing. It's options with it. Jen, um, for the benchmark test, will we be able to design our own so that basically we're only testing on the stuff that has been taught in the classroom and not the stuff that's going to be taught in the classroom. So that the benchmarks are more accurate on how much the kids have really learned, not versus what they might pos what they're going to be learning, but you know, so we we we have a better benchmark to see are

061they getting what they should be getting this semester or this period and stuff. Yes. So it comes with benchmarks that are set, but we can create our own. Okay. So if that's the direction that the board would prefer we go in, then we can create our own. Um we worked hard this year on creating pacing guides. So um we should have a better indicator on, you know, what we're teaching from quarter to quarter. We would probably have to like for quarter two do all of the quarter two standards and some from quarter one because we want to make sure, you know, that they're maintaining what we taught before. But it is a possibility. Yeah. Cuz like on the benchmarks like you know what you know having been a teacher and what I would like to

062see as a board member is okay we test on what they have supposedly been taught this benchmark period. And that way the teachers can go back and look at it and go, "Oh, this is what we need to." And also then in the like the second benchmark, include some of the stuff from the first benchmark to make sure it stays with them because I mean you can learn it for this, but if you forget it by the end the next one, then you're not going to do well in state testing. So, you know, include in each benchmark grow from the the previous one, but start with the first one just being on stuff they've test. And and so it's always something they've been taught in class, not something that well we're going to be teaching

063that standard in six weeks or something. Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. she uh she Jen actually invited me to attend these meetings um on this system and I went in and I looked at it and I said well this is way past my pay grade and so um I kind of gave them I said just make sure it works. Yeah. Yeah. So I appreciate Thank you, Jim. Um and they're all pretty excited about it. I I could hear the um because they did some of the they they did a lot of this with Zoom meetings and so I could hear the conversations across the hall and uh even when I couldn't hear the words because Jen's pretty good about closing her door most of the way but I could hear the tone of

064voice of the committee and the presenters and and the enthusiasm was the committee was you and um Mrs. Brown, but we also had one um teacher or instructional coach from each campus. So we had a variety of grade levels um so they could all see how it might work for their their grade level. So we had a second grade teacher, a fourth grade teacher, a sixth grade teacher, instructional coach, eighth grade teacher, an eighth grade teacher, and then no, okay. And then myself, and then we had um Mrs. Wily to represent the administrators. Okay. Really a really good committee. Yeah. And we're looking to give that test the same amount of times as we three times. Yeah. Three times. Three times. Yeah. Uhhuh. Okay. Okay. Next item. Music program. I referred to this uh a

065few minutes ago. So, uh if you recall, and maybe you don't, but that's okay. Um, uh, Jen and I met about two months ago, two and a half months ago with the music teachers in the district, um, who, uh, wanted to know if we could really work on a comprehensive music program that flows all the way from elementary to middle school to junior high, uh, because it's been kind of disjointed and that's partly because we haven't had consistent people in those positions, particularly at the middle school and at the junior high. And I think they were a little surprised when Jen and I said, "Well, yeah, uh, we'd like that idea. Um, give us a proposal. Understand that we might not be able to do all the pieces in year one." And, uh, so they

066gave us a proposal. Uh, serendipitously, the high school district has offered us a a band teacher at Fox Creek two periods a day for next year. Wow. Yes. So, uh, we are taking them up. So, uh, we we will be doing an IGA with them, uh, for, uh, the music teacher to, uh, teach the high school music teacher, the new band teacher that, uh, that they've been introducing around the neighborhood to, I mean, around the town community, um, to teach two periods of band at Fox Creek. Um, Miss Edge, who was here with her group at Christmas time with the Bells, if you remember her, uh, from Desert Valley, she is going to be the music teacher at Fox Creek next year. and her specialty is strings. And so we're excited to to re resume

067or uh reinitiate strings because we had a pretty strong strings program about three years ago, four years ago. Um and so uh the two uh principles from the two schools are working on a schedule that will allow Miss uh uh Miss Edge to come down to the middle school next year and restart strings with fifth grade. Okay. and she will start strings at Fox Creek as well. The new teacher that we just talked about that we hired for the middle school in Fox Creek, uh uh the new H1B teacher, her background is coral. And so, uh we will uh of course continue coral at the middle school, but then when Miss Edge comes down here to teach strings, uh the new teacher will most likely go to Fox Creek and teach coral music. So, we

068have a a really almost two and a half teachers uh to teach at the two schools and play to their strengths, you know, work work with their strengths to really build our program. The next year then we would look for having strings at both fifth and sixth grade and um and you know and expand the program. Uh part of that and part of the reason the high school is offering their band teacher is that we've not had a good continuous program to feed into the high school music program. And so we want to build that back up. First of all, it's it's good for kids, you know, and and nobody can argue that that it's good for kids, but it will be it will help the high school program and it will help kids continue

069in music uh to the high school level. So, I'm pretty excited about that partnership. Carolyn, are they providing instruments for the children? We have lots of instruments that we Yeah, we have lots of instruments. Um strings and we do have strings. Yes. Because we had a pretty strong program. Um they didn't the music teachers were tasked with doing a good inventory of all the instruments in the district uh so that we could figure out you know if we needed to move anything around if we you know whatever it is we needed to do. So no child will be excluded because of lack of should not be known. Yeah we we want everybody who wants to participate. So um other questions about music. Okay, landscaping den landscaping. Cass, pull up some pictures. So, I went up.

070They completed this project today. So, I went this afternoon and took some pictures. So, when you enter the property, this is just to the north of the mailboxes. This is in front of house number two. Uh, and you can see all the rocks and the whatever. Now, uh, between these two houses, um, uh, they graded that, you really can't tell because it's pretty minimal, but they graded that, uh, space between so that it's low in the middle. Yeah. So that water will run off the houses and then it's graded so it will run toward the back of the property. We will uh, if you see, if you look by the window of that lefthand house, you see a post there. Uh, that's because we're going to put a fence because that's a wind tunnel. But

071we didn't want to put the fence in until we uh until the you know until the landscaping was done. And you will also know that we have notice that we have security doors on the front and we also have them on the back door. Oh, good. Um now, okay. Are the backs fenced? No. And I'll show you what the back looks like here in a minute. This is what the back looks like. So, this faces south. It faces uh the non-existent part of Kayed Marcato. Um and uh so you notice the big boulders uh and the various uh the tall cactus and then there are some short one. These are all none of these are living plants. I'm particularly impressed with on the right hand the okato um uh because it certainly looks like the

072ones in my yard right now. We have not had enough rain for my okatillos to have leaves. But my okatillos have been blooming regardless. And if you uh Oh, I think it cut off. Uh at the top of one of those um is actually a a bird. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. As part of the as part of the plant, right? Oh, there you go. See him up there? Yeah. Um so, yeah, this was the next picture. So, you can see some pretty good sized boulders that they brought in for us. Um and um and it looks really nice. It's not fancy, and there's not a lot. Actually, there are not nearly as many of the cactuses I had put in the design, but I think that's because they're very expensive. Yeah. So, it looks really

073nice. And then this is looking down the east side of house number one. Um, so if you you can see my car down there. So, if you were, you know, if you're driving in, um, uh, on the left, you can see down that embankment where they've put rip wrap at the bottom, they have put what's called castle stone, uh, to hold, you know, to hold things. And it looks really nice. the big boulders. Um, and you can't see all of the cactus that are along there. Um, but it all looks very nice and it was completed today. So, when is it moving? Well, I'm not sure. We're going to we're going to need to do a a a ribbon cutting, but here's the other part of this. So all along uh the um Bullhead City

074area, Bullhead Mojave Valley uh uh board of realtors uh had told us that they would support us uh in in the landscape proc progress process. Um they applied for a grant from the state uh realtors association and were denied. Uh but they don't give up. I don't know if you know Karen Summit or not or Dana Walters uh but they don't give up. So they have designed a fundraiser for us uh to uh to pay completely for this f this landscaping and our monument our monument sign which we don't have yet. Um and it will be uh to purchase a stone one of those sandstone the flat sandstones. Um and uh have your logo or your name or whatever on it. Uh we met down at Karen's office yesterday because she had the stone samples.

075I thought that she was talking about the biggest one being about maybe 18 inches by 12 inches. No, that's the smallest one. And then the next one is about 24 to 28 in by 14 or 16 inches. And the big one is probably almost 3 feet by 24 26 in. They're huge. Um, but the idea is to go out to the community and uh uh ask folks to donate and get their name or their logo on a st on one of those stones. Uh, and then um, Cass, if you'll go back to the first picture, please. Yeah. So, oh, well, this doesn't really show, but um uh we originally thought we would either put them right in front of the monument, you know, that says Den Pro Den Project, uh but they're so big they

076would cover up our sign. Um so, to the right of this picture is a drainage a drainage uh area and then to the right of that are are the mailboxes. And we've put stones along the back because we had people coming onto the property driving through there. And so our our our uh facilities people have built just so a rock thing. It's not a wall. It's just this rock thing. Um we could stand those uh those stones up on the property side of that those rocks uh so that when anybody comes in, they can see who helps support our project. Um that's not a final decision. It's just kind of an idea at this point. Um but um we're looking at uh kind of an exciting project to be getting uh off in in the

077next week or so and getting out there and uh finding some people and some businesses to support us. So I think that's pretty exciting and and I'm appreciative of the Realtors Association for supporting us. Questions about that? Okay. Uh this the PowerPoint if you would please. Okay. So, one of the things that's part of um our IE contract is twice a year uh culture survey. Uh we have a bunch of results. I'm going to share just part of it with you. Um so, this um Jen and I met with Heidi um two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I think on this. So, I just want you to know that this is completely blind survey uh anonymous. 19 questions. You can see the dates. Um there were um questions about about the three pillars of school

078culture and then additional sections on leadership, innovation and or innovativeness and teacher satisfaction. Next one please. So uh there were 130 invitations to teachers. So that kind of answers your question about how many classroom teachers 130. Um 122 responded. That's 94%. Those of us who Yeah. Isn't that great? Those of us who've done any research are really excited if we get 50% response to a survey. Uh so to get 94% is amazing. Yeah. Um and we had 94 in the fall as well. Um and um of course and they had to answer at least 10 questions to be counted. So there may have been more people who responded but maybe didn't answer all 19 questions. I don't know. Um administrators are not uh included. And uh and then they they kind of they did their

079own little research. average teaching experience among our respondents was 13 years. Now, that doesn't mean they've been with us 13 years, but they've taught for 13 years. Um, and the average years of experience in our district is five. Um, so cast the next one. So, I have two two data points for you. Um, because I thought these were particularly interesting. Um, so this question had to do with uh change in practice. How much has what you've been learning uh in the model of instruction has actually changed the practice in your classroom, changed what you do or how you do it. And um so you can see the blue was the response in the fall and the green was the response um in March uh February March. Um, uh, I'm pretty excited that we're not quite

080at the end of year two and we have, uh, we have 64% of our folks, uh, say saying that they've changed their practice a lot or a great deal. Um, and then if you add the 29% that's, uh, moderate, uh, that's pretty significant change of practice. And then the other one I wanted to share with you is the response to uh the impact on student achievement. So 75% of our respondents say uh that it's true uh or completely true that participation in their PLC so that means their professional learning communities that means the teamwork that the teachers are doing in preparation of instruction uh that it's made a difference in uh in student achievement. Um, and I think it's pretty significant that 75% of our teachers say that that really honing in on that uh

081professional learning community uh is is changing student achievement. Could I ask to go back to the previous slide, please? Sure. So, I'm kind of looking at this and it and it looks like um there's there's more teer teacher satisfaction and enthusiasm than there is uh uh not so much, if that makes sense. It does. So, that's wonderful to see that the majority of our teachers are in favor of this. Well, and and I'm not I would like to say that that they're saying they're in favor of it. Okay. Um but what they're saying is their practice, what they are doing in their classrooms has changed. Um I would like to think that means that they're in favor. Um but what it really means is they're changing their practices to do a better job of teaching

082kids. And that's really what we're after. So their their experience as educators, they must see the value of the IE program, right? That's how I would interpret it. Yes, that's how I would interpret. That's wonderful. And and as I say, at the end of year two, to have this high a percentage, um uh I I was pleasantly surprised to have it this high. 64% is pretty significant for two years into a significant change uh in behaviors. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Cass. Any other questions about that little survey or those pieces? I have the complete report. I didn't want to bore you with the complete report, but you're certainly welcome to see it anytime you would like. Okay. Next thing is um we did the panorama survey uh that Jen mentioned because we do it

083as part of the title one. And so students get the survey. It's opt in. So, um, we don't get the student response we used to get, uh, when it was we give the survey unless the parent opted out for their child. Uh, now it's opt in. And so, we don't get as high a percentage of students participating. Um, we have the teacher survey, we have the staff survey, and we have the parent survey, which just closed today. Um, and that's why we don't have all the data for you. Uh but the uh but one of the things that I did was read through the comments and look at the data on the teacher survey and you'll get all of this next month. Uh but one of the things that I noted in the uh in

084the teacher uh comments um people are entitled to their opinions. That's fine and we want their opinions. Um but some of their opinions were based on some false information and so I wanted the opportunity to share with you the the correct information. Um, and I was a little surprised myself because I hadn't put this information together before. Uh, so Cass, if you would put up my payroll history, uh, table. So, what I did was I went back through uh, since I was here. By the way, I got an email today from or a text today uh, from a neighborhood person who was congratulating me on having been selected as superintendent six years ago tonight. Oh, hello. Congratulations. Happy anniversary. Congratulations. I didn't even know I didn't even remember the date, but I thought, well, it's

085kind of uh it's kind of uh ironic that it's tonight, right? The same day. Um so that's why it starts in 201920, which was when I started. Um and of course that was the year I inherited a budget, which is fine because you know we I do the budget in I do the budget next month for you all and if I were to leave whoever comes in in July would inherit it. So that's just the way it works. Um, but the teacherbased salary step one uh was $37,000 that year. Um, but I also wanted to talk because one of one of the comments that was made several times in those uh survey uh comments was that classroom site fund money seems to be going down every year for for teachers. And um and so that's

086why there are the those next columns uh for this the $1,450 which is base uh is for base salary from classroom site fund is in red because in 2019 and the two following years that money was included as part of the base salary. So if they had done, we don't do it that way now. It's now on top of whatever we publish as the base. So at the time the base salary was $1,450 less. Actually, it was less, you know, 1450 less. So I put it as a negative there simply because the rest of the whole the rest of the table shows what teachers are getting on top of the base salary. Uh so you notice in in uh that the total they got not counting the 1450 uh the the the points and the

087performance pay uh was 2770. Um classroom site fund allows the district uh that law allows the district to pay for positions teaching positions in the district which help us reduce class size in our district. Those funds have been used since the beginning of classroom site fund um for specials teachers because if we lose specials, if we don't have periods in the day when kids can go to art, music, library, PE, then that means that um to have decent class sizes, more of this money would have to go or more of M would have to go into that. So, and more of this money. So in that year, nine positions were paid out of classroom site fund. The amount of money that we receive each year is set by uh it's set by AD school finance,

088but it's based on information that they get uh from the other part of the Arizona govern because it's based on sales tax. Arizona sales tax. Okay? And they tell us, I learned a week ago what our amount per student will be for classroom site fund for next year. It will go up $50 per student uh from what it was this year. Okay. I don't know what it was that year. It might have been pretty low. I have no idea. Okay. Um Okay. So then in 2021, uh the base was 375. Well, and you can see in 1920 in the middle of the year, we raised the base. So everybody got another bump in in salary. Okay. in 2021. Um we started with that same base and then in the middle of the year we we

089moved it up. Um and um so the 1450 was still part of whatever that number is. Um $1,000 for the points. And if you're wondering what the points are, um those are activities that teachers participate in um that are not uh paid other paid things. So some of our teachers are on paid committees. Sometimes we have we decide we need a committee and it's not a paid committee. They can get points and uh there was uh in up to 10 points at $100 per point. Maybe they excuse me. One of the things they can do is come to board meetings. They can get a point for coming to board meetings. they can get a point for uh they can get more than one point up to a certain number to be the um on um

090the um uh TAT team uh which is the review for uh student achievement to consider for special education. So there's a whole list of things they can get a point for um uh serving at back to school not back to school night um spring fling or the Halloween whatever it is school activities. Okay. So they can get up to 10 points which at that time was up to $1,000. And then the performance pay had was is always tied in one way or another to evaluations. So you see that year they got $3,422. Um 22 2122 uh same thing. Um oh in 20 uh 2021 we had eight teachers paid out of classroom site fund. uh in 2122 and 2223 we had fewer teachers but that's because we put as many teachers as we could over

091into our ESSER funds paid for those out of grants um so that we could feed more money back into our teachers pockets. Okay. Um and then uh starting in 2223 we made sure that the uh the the base pay was on top of whatever our salary schedule said it, you know, it wasn't absorbed into that. And so we started with the same salary schedule, but there's that 1,500 separate and then we raised that one in the middle of the year. And you can see how that progresses to the current year. Um but you can also see the points stayed the same until this year. This is the first year that they can get $200 per point. And um and then performance pay, you can see what happened with performance pay. It increased each year. It

092did not go down. Um uh last year we had eight positions scheduled to be paid out of classroom fund, a classroom site fund. Uh we only filled seven of them. Uh, so the money that we did not spend on a teacher from there went back into what went back to teachers. I bring that I bring that fund down as close to zero as I can get it each year because it's intended to go to teachers. Um, uh, I don't let it go in the red. U, but I usually get down to about 25,000. That that's all that we carry over from from year to year with that. Uh this year I'm estimating um um conservatively estimating that performance pay will be around 5,000, but you can see we've already gone up to 2,000 on base

093pay and 2,000 in points. Uh so it comes out to around 9,000. So it's a not that much different than last year. Okay. Um the next column over I just noted some uh some extra pay, special pay that teachers have had. Um uh in 2021 there was the $2,000 uh from ESSER funds for um risk um because they work during COVID. Okay. Okay. Uh and then for two years in a row uh we had $2,500 out of Esther funds uh for a signing incent a signing incentive and they had to stay the whole year to get that. Okay. Uh, and then for 23 and 24, 23 24 in the current year, I just put the number 500 in there just to mark the spot. Last year is the first year that we did longevity pay.

094Uh, and so we have some folks uh who've been here uh more than five years who get $500. Uh, some folks who've been here more than 10 who get a,000. Folks who've been here more than 15 who get 1500 on top. um you know it varies from person to person but I put the 500 in there just to to spark our memory. On the right hand side, you can see what happened uh along the way for our classified positions. And several of those changed in the middle of the year because uh because of the minimum wage uh changes in the middle of the year and I finally got a little smarter and and said let's anticipate what the middle of the year thing is going to be and try to hit it at the beginning

095of the year rather than uh make a change in the middle of the year. So, um, and then where you see a new column 8 over on the right, uh, that started in December, it actually started in October of, uh, 2223 was when we, uh, ended our contract with ABM and set up our own, uh, facilities department. uh and to get qualified, experienced people who could do HVAC, plumbing, uh construction work, we needed to we needed to boost that base salary so we could compete with the real world a little bit. Uh the reality is that's probably only about half of the starting pay for uh for people in those trades. Um but we managed to get some pretty pretty good people in those spots. So, um, uh, this was just a a quick summary,

096but I wanted you all to be aware of it in case anybody any staff say to you anything, you know, well, we haven't had payraises. Yes, you have. Okay. Uh, that classroom site fund has been going down. No, it isn't going down. It will change a bit next year because I have said to the committee uh that we are going to fund 10 positions out of classroom site fund for next year so that we can hold our regular class sizes where they are which is a maximum of well depends on the grade level. So we have we have a number set for kindergarten which is 18 to 20. Uh oh you're going to test my memory here. First grade I think is 2122. Second grade I think is 22 23. Uh third grade 23 24.

097Fourth grade 23 24. Um middle school and junior high um are at like 25 to 27. Um and uh and and for next year our projections are that every single regular classroom in the district except for first grade and second grade at sunrise will be within or below those numbers. uh those two grade levels, the number of kids that we anticipate in those uh first first grade and second grade uh will be at 25 instead of 22 23. Um uh and then we'll see what it really what it really ends up being. But um uh I have to tell you as a teacher to to think about being a a second or third grade teacher and having only 20, you know, 23 or 24 kids uh is ideal. to have 25 26 in fifth or

098sixth grade is ideal. Um and um uh so I'm I have to tell you that I'm not real um concerned when somebody complains about our class sizes because um um we've asked around in you know our neighboring schools and they're higher. They're higher. So, um, and sometimes, you know, people out there in the real world go, "Well, what's the difference between 24 and 26?" Okay. Well, it's two bodies, but it depends on the grade level. Okay. Um, we remember Jen Jen taught kindergarten and we had times when the district was growing so fast that we had 27 kids in kindergarten. I will tell you, you get more than 22 5-year-olds in a room, it's hurting cats, you know. It is. Uh, I mean, it's all you can do to keep them keep I don't I'm

099not I'm not even sure we can say keep them in order because it's not true. Um, and there have been times in the past when classes at junior high have been 30. Okay. Um, is that impossible? No. Um, but the best learning doesn't happen at 30. But there have been times when it's been a little bigger than that. It's been higher than that. And so we're we're certainly below. We're certainly below. And that doesn't mean that we don't have an occasional classroom at the junior high that has 30 because it depends on the schedule for that period. U but that's very rare. It's very rare. So u we've got pretty good stuff going on. Okay. I would say so. Okay. My last big area for you is funding um updates. Um Jan Jen has been

100working hard um uh because the window opened April 1 and she has to have all the grant applications in before May 1st. So she's been burning it up across the hall. Okay. Um and uh so um she's managed to include in within our grants uh the salaries for all of our instructional coaches and our new MOI coach out of grant funding. Okay. So that's the instructional coaches, the um uh tech tech coach, um not the achievement coach. No, achievement coach I'm doing out of sped money. Okay. Uh but all of those other positions now, she hasn't funded them all at 100% out of grants. She's funded them as high as she can out of grants. Funded all of them at the highest percentage she can. And here's why. Uh, we did talk about this when

101we talked about budget, but it was such a it was such a small point. You may not recall. If we take any position that is currently funded by a grant and remove it from the grant completely, we can never put it back. If we pay for a position out of M funds, okay? If we pay for a position out of M funds, we can never put it back in a grant because that's called supplanting. Okay. It means that you're trying to purchase with grant funds which are supposed to be extra supplemental on top of everything else money. It means that you know you if you take a position you were paying out of this budget over here and try to put it back, it's supplanting something that you required out of here. However, I'm just

102going to use these numbers because I don't know what number she's using. But let's say that all of these coach positions that the grant is paying 80% of the salary and benefits. I'll build the other 20% into M. If extra money comes, we'll move them over there. Okay? But it means then that we can keep those positions in those grants and the percentages can go up and down within that. Okay. So, um, uh, so that's when we talked about braiding our funds when we talked when we did our workshop. That's what we're talking about is how to maximize all of the funding streams to get us all the people we need into these positions. Okay. Um, and so that's pretty exciting because at first we we weren't sure that was going to work, but it

103it it worked out. She did a great job with that. questions about that piece about the grants. That approved already grants. No, because she hasn't submitted them yet. Oh, okay. But it's the way we've done it for a long time and so neither one of us has any fear that it will be approved. Not approved. Yeah. That it won't be approved. We we are sure that it will be. I mean, we don't see it. And and um and the other reason for her doing it this way is if we can bump up if we come back in July and uh we see that our budget will hold enough to raise the all of the salary schedules, you know, raise the salary schedule. She still has wiggle room to raise those salaries because anytime we raise

104the salary schedule for people paid out of M, we we do the same thing for anybody paid out of grants. So she left herself some wiggle room there uh to you know to include those uh to include uh any raises. Okay. Um okay. Then uh out of the grants we also pay for a lot of our computer programs to supplement instruction. And um uh so if you recall, we talked about if uh if grant funding was uh cut in any way um that we would try to keep people and we might cut things. Okay. So uh Jen's been building into the various grants uh purchase of the programs that we use all the time. And uh so today uh she shared with me that entire that entire thing. It'sund It's just short of $118,000 uh

105for licenses for the various programs we use across the district. Okay. Um she's currently got in her budget 79.8% of that. I will build the rest of it into our capital outlay because that's where it goes. Um and uh and then if additional grant funds come in, we will move some of that expense over to those grants. So right now we're filling in with uh with M or I mean in this case with capital. Um the thing that's holding us up a little bit, not holding us up, but that we think is waiting in the wings. One of the grants that's called rural or lowinccome uh right now is on hold. out of all those grants, that's the one that's on hold. And um uh so that's part of the reason that we that we're

106having to do the 20 roughly 20% thing. Um uh so we anticipate that that will move over. Okay. Um and then the other piece is uh related prof professional development. We just talked about having the new benchmark assessments. We have to train our people to use that and how to do all of those things that the wonderful things that we'll do. Um and I will do that out of uh out of M. Okay. Um Okay. M and capital budgets. Uh next month I will bring to you uh the final revision for the current budget and I will bring you the proposed budget for next fiscal year. Our budgets are in good shape. we're in good shape. Um and uh so that's the piece for you to think about. We're in really good shape. Um there

107will be some adjustments to the current budget. Our remember last month when I uh when I reported to you as part of the plan for next year that we will not have the four pay the two forpay uh preschools. Okay, that program did not grow and develop as we expected it to. uh and the enrollment was considerably lower than we expected, but we weren't going to shut the program down in the middle of the year. Um and we've uh we've lost some money on that. So, I'll have to absorb some of that back into the budget. Uh right now, it doesn't look like it's a huge amount. Um I'm estimating about $25,000. Um the child care center um uh is uh operating um in the red right now and that's part that's primarily due to

108the fact that many of our employees children qualified last year for um high assistance from the federal federal child care bills that expired and the Arizona child care uh system which changed its its its base and so several of our employees whose children were in the child care, they could no longer afford to have their kids in our childare. We have re really reasonable rates. Mo many of those children ended up being in family child care because the families couldn't afford the other child care either. So um uh so uh that's part of that. I don't anticipate that being huge either. Um I anticipate that being around 20,000. Um, and then, um, I can't I I don't have it nailed down, but we probably will have, uh, some food service, uh, some food service to

109cover, uh, for two reasons. One, increased cost of of food and materials. We have the contract with Chartwells. It's a guaranteed contract. They pay us back money um, uh, on that. uh but increase in food costs uh is hurting them. And the second thing is we did not have 21st century program this year. So we've not done afterchool snacks this year. And after school snacks historically bring in between 200 and $300,000. Yeah. So that's a significant that's a significant drop in that. We learned last week that we can do uh since our school days are longer than a typical school day uh that we can offer snacks in the afternoon to our kids. I wish I'd known that six months ago because I would have applied for it. Uh but we're going to do that

110next year. We will have snacks. I took it to the principles and they unanimously Oh, yeah. said yes because our kids are hungry in the afternoons, you know, and and as long as we do it just before school's out, you know, or 20 minutes before school's out, whatever. So, it gets served in the classroom just like our breakfasts do. And uh and that will bring back uh that will bring back between 200 and $300,000 in our food service program. So, um uh so it's kind of bad news right now. It's not horrible news. Um uh and we can we can we can afford to cover it's not you know it's not exactly what we want but we'll take care of it. I'll have the details for the for those things when we do budget next

111month. Lots of updates of things that have happened in the last two weeks. Thank you. You're welcome. Trying to keep up with the changes in the government really are. Yeah. It's not as grim as it looked. It looked pretty grim for a couple of weeks, but it's not as grim. So, thank you for a long opportunity. Okay. Thank you. Item 4.2, board member updates. I was pushing to get us into schools and guess who failed. No, you're not alone. You're not alone. I actually went to Did you? And I did because I get the life academy, the the the preschool and and the childcare. All three of them. Get all three of them done. So, what'd you learn? And other than life academy, none of them were testing. So, it wasn't easy. No, that's I

112I looked at that and I said, you know, that's just an imposition. Yeah. you know, that was that was not fair to anybody to have somebody come in. Well, I I planned it right because the Life Academy kids were done with their testing, but um so it it turned out fine, but it was it's always fun to go through the watch the little kids and whatever. And thank you. But I was telling Dr. Stuart earlier that one of the young men um eighth grader at Life Academy um we had asked how how he felt he did because it was the math portion. He said it was so hard. It was so hard. And I guess he's pretty strong in math. And the funny part is that um the night before at dinner my granddaughter who's

113in eighth grade at a charter school was saying the same thing that it was really hard. So I don't know what that means. I haven't cross my fingers. She's a usually a pretty good tester. So we'll see what happens. But yeah, that was Yeah. Now my grandson fifth grade he said piece of cake. And my other one was seventh grade. He said piece of cake. But the eighth grade one they said was horrible. Horrible. Horrible. So, you know, just we'll see. Just giving you that heads up, Belinda. Thanks. Um, thank you for doing that. I do encourage myself and everybody else to at least get into one of the schools. I think we kind of all chose a school to go to. So, um I'm I will make a very very strong effort to do

114that. Um next week, Barb and I go to Flagstaff. Flag staff for a meeting and we'll have a report when we get home. Awesome. Uh consent agenda. I need a motion to approve a consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. I second it. All those in favor? I Melinda Subraki. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barb Thiki. I Judy Reed. Old business. 6.1 Updated certified specialist salary schedule for school year 2526. Uh, Madame President and board members last month when we talked about uh the MIOI coach and uh and you approved it as part of the plan for next year. Um, I quoted for you a salary that really was from the instructional coach line. Uh, but as Jen and I talked about it later, I realized that

115we we need somebody in this position who has not only been a teacher, a a quality teacher, you know, a good teacher, but probably somebody who's been an administrator. Uh, because this person's going to be coaching teachers, coaches, and principles. And, um, so um, column Q there is a salary column for that position. um uh because we're looking for somebody who has some experience and who has certain qualifications and um and we frankly talked about what price are we likely to get somebody for. Um and uh so I'm proposing that we add that column to the specialist salary schedule. I looked at this and I, you know, if I was a principal and I was looking at this, I'd say this is unfair. And I still think it's unfair. You know, I could put that

116model of the instructional coach back down in the principal column, but I don't think they need Yeah. what uh $8,000 more about I I think that's right. Well, it's somebody who will have had experience won't be a step one principal. So, you know, we're looking at somebody who's The reason I did that is because when we bring principles when we hire a principal who's had experience, we give them up to 10 years experience. So if we were to hire somebody who into this position who had a number of years experience as a principal um then and they get $82,500. No, they get $83250 because we if they come in with more than 10 years experience. So if we hire somebody with 15 years experience, we still only pay them on step 11. Okay? And that

117was the basis on which I did that. And I'm not and I'm not saying, you know, that you can't change this because of course you're the board and you can. But that's the that was the rationale that Karen that Jen and I had when we were talking about this was um uh with somebody with some years of experience. And in the job description, uh we put in there, I think we put in there at least five years experience. We're going to look at it in a minute because I have the job description in here for you. Uh so, but I mean, play with it how you will, but that was our rationale. I tend to agree with Melinda on that one because the thing is is you're going to bring this person in their first

118year at 8325 and uh principal who's had 11 years experience. I mean granted this person's going to have had the experience but'll be starting at the same thing with 11 years. And I just don't see somebody coming in for the first year in our district making that kind of money when our principles aren't up at that that salary level either. Well, they're first year they would be first year with us. They would not necessarily be first year principal or administrator. They they would have you want someone that's going to have some background, right? But the thing is the principal coming in at 11 years has the same experience as the person we'd be bringing in as a at five years is experience of a coach. The same same experience. Yeah. Yes and no. It just

119kind of depends on who applies. Yeah. Well, I mean, you could have somebody that's a retired superintendent that's been a administrator and decides, oh, you know, I want to get back into the schools, you know. So, I mean, I I don't think that that 83250 whatever that first year is is too high for someone that is 82 83 250 is principal. Then we're talking the model instruction coach model. Yeah. Then we're talking 90,750 bucks if they've had 11 years experience as a coach. But that's a possibility as a coach here. Sorry audience is not supposed to contribute. So if they come in and they have had to work in the district to become the instructional coach. No, not necessarily. And uh and it's not necessarily that it might be somebody who has had experience as

120maybe it would help would it help if we looked at that job description because it's on the agenda. Yeah, I think might bring it up if you want. Please. Uh, did I not put those on there? Oh, yeah. 7.6. 7.6. 7.6. There we go. Model of instruction coach. There we go. Phew. Okay. So, bachelor's degree, master's preferred. Well, if they're if they have experience as a principal, they're going to have a master's, right? I would think that masters would be a minimum requirement. Yeah. And we could change that, too. um uh graduate work in curriculum content administration and other educational area. Um and I also think that they should have had administrative certificate. Okay. Because how are you going to tell principles how to do something if you've not been one? Yeah. I'm sorry, but

121I mean they won't I mean I think that if you're going to be telling a principal what to do, they need to have Yeah, you should have. And you know I would say a minimum of that. So we need to work on this job description too. I think so because I I mean I having been a principal and having worked in district office too and stuff like that I know that that uh teachers and administrators respected me more because I had been in their position than if I had not. And uh when I was working in the high school district, you know, I I had been those things there too. So I just think that you're you're not asking enough for this kind of salary level. Okay. For the experience uh five years administrative experience,

122I would say minimum of five years administrative experience. Okay. I I would say five years classroom and five years administrative. So at least But you couldn't be administrator if you haven't been a classroom teacher. Yeah. But you don't that's a requirement. Yeah. But you don't have to be in there only for a year or two and then you can get into the administration. I thought it was more than that. Okay. But I'm just saying I think that they should have been a principal. They should have had some of the background that people will admire and will respect their input because otherwise uh you're saying, "Yeah, this person doesn't really know what he's saying." And Right. Good points. Okay. Yeah, it's a valid point. Okay. Excellent. But even with this, I I still say that the

123compensation is too high. I think you're expecting a s former superintendent to come into this position. And I honestly look at this and I think you in order to pay them more there they've already been a superintendent and then they decided they didn't want the huge job of superintendentship and would do this job you know as kind of like and I hate to say in their retirement years but in their later years uh when they're tired of all the rigma roll that goes with the other administrative positions. I don't know. I mean to get an retired superintendent to come back to this would be a miracle. Well, some consideration even for retired principles. I think yeah, retired principles might. Yes. If if this is too high, then please talk about what would be an acceptable

124um uh acceptable and and the reason I'm kind of pushing on on that is so that we can get this position posted and post a salary a salary range for folks. Can I ask a question? Absolutely. So, and and this is coming from ignorance. I mean, I have some idea, but but I'm hearing a chorus here of all saying the same thing. So in in fairness does uh uh a firstear participant in column Q are they going to be um for lack of a better word please forgive me are their pedigrees going to be greater than a first year participant in M okay so then clearly column you uh would merit being more than column M. But the thing the thing is Fred, if you look at the number of hours hours, the number of

125hours for the the new model of coach is only 1560 where the principal is 1920. 400 hours. There's $400 more in there. So then if if they were to get equivalent monies, all things being equal, they would still be getting a bonus because of their lack of hours. Exact. Exactly. But kind lack of that 400 hours. Then just just as throwing it out there for consideration, and that brings up a a good question. Is that should they be only doing 1500 hours or should they be doing equal to what principles are doing? I mean depends on how you want to utilize that person but right and and that was part of our discussion as well. These 1560 hours you'll notice is the same as our instructional coaches. So it's some time before teachers report in

126the summer and a little bit of time after teachers leave. Um uh and you know and it can be flexed a little bit. Uh but it's coaching. So you know they're not going to be coaching coaches when coaches are not here. they're not going to be coaching principles when principles are not here. Um although as you pointed out the principal's hours are, you know, are more days, uh kind of thing. And so it was it was pretty arbitrary on our part just to say, let's make it the same length as the um as the other coaches. Um well, are they But even even at that place, you know, the instructional coach um compensation is a little less than than half or a little bit more than half of what you wanted to do for the

127the um model. And that's if you look at a teacher. No, that's teacher base right now is 40. If you require plus all those other things and and and you're right about 45 almost 40 almost 500 5 almost 49 5,2 Yeah. And and the and up until last year, the um uh the coaches did qualify for we had them qualifying for uh for uh classroom sight fund. When uh when the auditor general's office changed the coding and said that we could only use classroom sight fun because they defined what a teacher is. And so we can only code as teachers those people who are in the classroom 75% or more of the time. 75% of the time or more. Um that was also when we created um this sal we raised this salary and I'm

128not telling you that it's high enough because I'll never tell you that for any of our people. But um that's why we added last year why we increased this column significantly was to try to compensate partly for that difference from not having classroom site fund because we knew that was a that was a big amount of money and uh it's a big it is a big so if you change column Q number of hours okay and give them the same compensation as column one. But they're coaching those. They're coaching. You mean do K for these? The MOI coach? No, no, no. Okay. I'm sorry. M. Oh, M. I'm sorry. Which principal column? The principal column, 1560 hours, which is more than the principles are getting. That's true. Then I think if you're going to five

129years of parenting start a little bit better. Yeah, which would make sense. Okay, you know the instructional coach has the instructional coaches and some principles to mentor a lot all of them. But the thing is the principal has the whole school and every parent and every kid and every custodian and every roll of toilet paper and every roll. You know what I'm talking about? There's a there's a difference in responsibilities. Okay. If a principal is absent, it'd be a heck of a lot more important than or not important. That's not the word. Impactful. Impactful. Thank you, Fred. Than than if the structural coach is okay. Absent. So, you know, like um if they're go if you're going to if you want to give them more compensation, then put them in the column M, leave the

130number of hours like it is. because that's a justification for the instructional coaches. That's a good one. Yeah, I like that. Or leave the column and just copy the numbers. So, so we have the hours down here that match. Well, I was going to say the hours should be it doesn't necessarily have to be equal to the pres pr principles, but it should be more than the instructional coaches. You think so? be well is is this person going to be assisting the principles as coaching then or coaching the principles? Yeah, during the school year. Yes, absolutely. During the school year during the school year. During a school year, but there's going to be periods of time when they um when there's no children when they can still be coaching. Okay. So, it's true. You know

131what I'm saying? Where it's uninterrupted coaching basically. So if you're increasing, you'd almost want to increase that their hours a little bit anyway. Yeah. I don't think it needs to be 1920. I don't think they need to work than the same number of hours that the principles work. No, but it should be. But it could be more than probably more than the instructional coaches. Um uh Madam President, can we ask Jen for a little input on this since she supervises these folks? I'm glad and she was part of the discussion. Jen are listening. I mean, it's a good point because principles do work um coaches only work like two weeks or two days after students are out. Principles work weeks after students get out and then coaches begin I don't know like a week or

132so later than principal. So really with principal bringing scheduling, professional development planning, all of those things um before and after students, they probably should be longer than instructional coaches because they're going to be coaching principles who are planning on those things and maybe even helping now that I think about it, maybe even helping coach new principles or new assistant principles. So I do agree the hours. So boost it up to 1,600. Move column M over to column for prices for for salaries. Well, I just I was going to say more than I would think that an instructional coach though should also be helping with professional development and they should be involved highly in professional development that is presented through the year um through the offices of each school and so that the principles get the

133requirement of that kind of off their shoulders completely that this person would maybe do a lot of the professional development for the teachers, not just the principles. I don't know. I mean, okay. I just think it should you should broaden the definition. Well, we'll work on that job description. That's for sure. Yeah. And I do think a minimum of five years. So, so could I just throw this out for discussion? Since we're going to expect this person to have had five years experience as a principal, could we start this column at step five or step six in the from column M 795? Yeah. Could we start that one there since we expect because principal who comes in on column M at step one has never been a principal before anywhere. Yeah. Before you're going to

134require five years. I I could see that. Can you live with that? That we move it over to make it seven either 78750 or 795. Yeah. To start on it makes I'd say go 7850. Yeah. 78 750. Okay. Fiveyear mark. That makes sense. Carolyn maybe come in on step six. And then 1,600 hours. Well, it you could approve it with the with the changes if you're willing to do so so that we can get it posted, get the position posted with salaries and, you know, salary range and those things. So, it would basically go by $250 a year experience down from 850. Well, it's 750. 750, but yes. So, we Yeah, it would just we'd move this over this column over and move it up and fill in the blanks at the bottom. And then,600

135hours. That's another uh that's another week of work. Yeah, that's why it said 16 hours. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Do we have a motion? I make a motion that we uh for the instructional specialist salary that we start them at 78,750 and the hours increased to600. Second. All those in favor? I Melinda Saski. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barbber Ziki. I Judy Reid. Okay. Thank you. Well done. Um Um 7.1 proposal to add one special education par profofessional position at Desert Valley. Are you sure we only just need one? I'm ser I'm serious. I'm serious. At this time it's they are on overload. Well the uh and and I'm not laughing at you. I'm Kate and I've had these conversations. So, the new uh the new position that you all approved last month

136for uh the additional life skills classroom at Desert Valley, our life skills classrooms have two pairs in each of those rooms. Okay. Uh we have one position uh that we are moving from another site. So, this person would have if you approve this position would have two pairs for that classroom. It's just that we're moving one from another site. So that's an already acceptable needed, right, where they're not needed and and then add this position and Kate's been involved in this discussion thoroughly through all of this. So how do you guys feel about it? I think if they need them, then we definitely should. And especially being with special ed and stuff, I you you can't put enough par professional people in a special ed class as far as I'm concerned. especially with some of

137the classes we have to have over here and stuff. Okay. Then I can I have a motion to approve um adding one special education par professional position in Desert Desert Valley. I make a motion to approve to add one special education par profofessional at Desert Valley. I'll second that motion. All those in favor? I saski. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barbara Zerki. Hi. Judy Reed. Okay. 7.2 proposal to add one halfime paraprofessional position at Bhead City Middle School. What would this paraprofessional be doing? This um I will tell you that this is an example of um of people taking a challenge and uh and uh or or the the proverbial taking lemons and making lemonade. So, uh, at the middle school currently, our ch our students have only one recess. So, it's fifth

138and sixth grade. They only have one recess. It's after lunch. Um, the, um, about six weeks ago or so, uh, the principal asked if we could have enough PE classes at the middle school so that every middle school student could have PE every day. So currently the students have uh one/4th of the students have PE you know at any given time any given quarter of the school year one/4 of the students have PE okay because it's one of the specials and they rotate. So I'm looking at that and I did some calculations and I'm going I can't add six I can't add six PE teachers so that every student at the middle school gets PE every day. So, uh, they went back and, uh, did some things to their schedule. So, what they're proposing and

139and I've given my blessing to because I think it's I think they've just been really creative with this is, uh, that they've shortened their class periods by a couple of minutes, two or three, four minutes. They've shortened their home room by a few minutes, and added one more period to the day. What, however it is that they had to adjust minutes to do that without extending the day. Okay? and then uh created a schedule that would allow every student to have PE every day um using all seven periods. Okay, so right now uh they have I think it's six periods and uh and the PE teachers teach five of those six periods. So to make this work they need the P they need PE to operate all seven periods of the day. Okay. So uh

140uh so for six so for six of those periods there would be for five of those periods it would be both PE teachers. Four of those periods I guess no five of those periods it would be both PE teachers with two classes of kids. For two periods it would be a teacher and a parah. So the other teacher gets a lunch break and a and a prep period. Okay. Um, and then the then flip it and the other teacher in the parah have PE. So, we're talking about a half-time position so that both of those teachers still get a prep time and a lunchtime. Um, and and all of the kids get PE every day. So, now they have physical activity every day in addition to their little lunch recess. Uh, pretty creative solution uh

141with a pretty minimal cost uh for our kids. And uh so it's a halftime position, you know, 0.5 um and um um I I am very much recommending this for our our folks and we can afford it. What's what's the chances of finding somebody for a half position like that? You know, it was like uh when I asked you last month as part of that big plan for next year to have a part-time substitute custodian and and even though I really am convinced we need that, part of my mind is going how how likely are we to find that? And yet when one of when the facilities person who's been looking at because Mark doesn't do all of these pieces anymore. Um uh the facilities person who's been looking at uh hiring people, he has

142two applicants already for that position. So I guess I would say based on that that we probably have a pretty good chance of finding somebody who might want to work in the middle of the day uh for you know for what two and a half hours three or four hours whatever halftime with middle school kids with fifth and sixth graders. That's about all you're [Music] I I mean I have to tell you I think this was a hugely creative thing on their part and um to solve to solve a tough problem and to do something really good for those kids. Yeah. And it's good to have PE every day. Yeah. Yes, it is. Do I have a motion to add this one half time person as middle school? I'll make a motion that we add

143a halftime pair professional position at Bullhead City Middle School. I'll second the motion. All those in favor? I Melinda Saskki. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barb, Judy Reed. Okay. Item 7.3, contract with Chartwells for food service school year 202526. And we have Christina here who is the manager. She might have some qu some answers that I don't have. I just have the documents. I did meet with Corey last week uh who is the regional what's regional? He's her boss. Okay. For Chartwells and uh and uh brought these documents. So uh and then there was some updating that needed to be done. So we got them in time to get them in this agenda. Uh keep in mind this is year two of essentially a five-year contract. We put this out for bids last

144year uh to a number of uh a number of vendors and um and when we do that it's always for a fiveyear. So this is really excuse me this is really an amendment to the existing contract and there are some changes in it because of food costs and those things. So um I'm I'm not quite sure what order I have these in. Uh Christina, would you come up close in case they have questions for you? Um they may or may not, but we don't have to have you running around. So, if you'll just show them in order. Uh, Cass the um, uh, Okay. So, um, this just I think this just verifies that um, it's a verification. Yeah. Is that what this one is, Christina? Of of the price determination. Um, and u, we would

145have to sign it. Um, any the same thing as we did. Yeah, it's it I mean we do these forms each year. Okay. Um and then the next one, Cass, if you would. Okay. So, this is the guarantee of uh minimum return. So, uh they're guaranteeing that we would have at least 150,000 on top of our of our expenses um uh to to them. And um this amount is important to us because it helps us pay some salaries. uh for secretaries in our district and um uh Casera Mach who is our business office person who does food service things. So it helps us pay parts of their salaries, pieces of their salaries. Um so that at least this amount of money then is available for us for all day kindergarten um in in our M

146budget. I have a question. Under the conditions specifies student enrollment of at least 2190. looking at them. What happens to this if for some reason uh since we are such a transient district, what what happens if we go below 2190 because I think we're really close to that right now. Pretty close to that. Um Cass, can you go back to superintendent reports? I thought we were at 2173 or something right now. And um well, I don't want the monthly the second one there. That's the Yeah, the student count 21. Yeah, we're slightly below that right now. So So what happens? That's a good point. Um might have to have them recalculate this a bit. That's a really good catch. Very good. Um, yeah. Yeah. Uh, okay. So, let's look at the other documents. That's a

147good catch. We'll have to uh work with them on that. Uh, and this is the this is the contract. It's it's the amendment. It's called an amendment. uh because uh year two is always amendment number one and uh and it just summarizes all of those other documents. um and approval of those and then okay so this is pro this is their projection based on what happened for the is happening for the current year um so uh uh they're estimating our uh total reimbursements to be around a million nine and then they've got the expenses for the current [Music] year and the fees and uh and you can see the um uh that there are rebound rebates and those things and the surplus is 185,000 and that's that was not what we thought it was going

148to be because remember I said we we didn't we don't have the snacks and so that's hurting us in this because as I recall uh in the In the original thing, it was uh I'm thinking it was about 200,000 or 220,000. It was a It was a bit higher than this. Okay. Right. I mean, I'm making sense of that. Yeah, it's down some. Okay. And then this is a document they have to give us that talks about the pricing uh per meal. um the administrative fees for uh that Chartwells charges us to to run the program. You guys have thought this through with USDA and all that stuff. Yes, that has been talked about everything you know it's kind of USD what they'll do. We did not, am I correct in saying we did not

149get hit particularly hard by the drop in the local food thing? And part of that is because Chartwells is part of Compass and it's a nationwide, you know, so there's economy of scale with something that big. Um, and we we particularly did not get hit with that uh big cut in the funds for locally produced food products that other districts in Arizona got hit with. So, what do we do about that number? Well, we'll have to get it fixed. So, it may change our numbers a bit. So, um um and I'm sorry I missed that because we would have had it fixed. So, we may just need to bring it back next meeting. We just table it. We'll have to table it because we'll want it. We all want accurate numbers. Do we need a

150motion to table? Yes. Um madam madam president. Yes. I move that we uh table this discussion about the contract with Chart Wilson until next month. Is there a second? I second it. All those in favor? I Meinda Saskki. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. Hi Barb Zarziki. Hi Judy Reed. Thanks Christine. I'm sorry I missed the little detail. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Good catch, Fred. Yeah. Yeah. Just lucky. Just you I'm learning from you all. It was late at night when I read and those small numbers just don't. Yeah. About about this time I was like I didn't even think of it though. Okay. Item 7.4 contract with instructional empowerment for school year 2025 2026. U Madame President and board members. Um, Cass, if you'll put the um thing up. Um, last

151month when we talked about uh budgets and whatever um and my proposal for you for uh that whole plan for next year, uh we were at a million dollars, 650,000 from uh instructional improvement and 300,000 350,000 from uh M down from 900,000 in the current budget. Um, and I did indicate at the time that um, given their initial proposal to me that it might be a bit higher. It is only a bit higher. So, uh, Cass, if you'll go to I think it might be page five. I could be wrong. One more page. There we go. Uh, a million31,000. Uh when I was working on uh the current budget to make the revisions for next month um uh I realized that I had in other lines in M for professional development. I had about $40,000

152in other lines that were for professional development that we have not used this year. And uh so I thought it was not unreasonable then to get this bid with this additional 31 32,000 um uh on the million. Um um but other than that uh prior to this page you can see all of the things that are being offered this year. Uh I did some negotiation with them because I said there are some things we have to have and uh but I said we have to come in as close to a million as possible and um uh so up and down and up and down but this is the this is the number that um uh that they that they've given us. So could we see some of the services that are included in this please?

153Yes. I just wanted her to get to that because I couldn't remember the number. Um, uh, okay. So, okay. So, uh, under the district leadership services, uh, there are some new things there because, uh, we want to train this MOI coach and, uh, uh, IE has a actually other districts have done this uh, and so they have a a a set of training for, uh, that kind of a coach. And so that's uh part of this district leadership uh team services. And then you can also see in under rigger walk uh certification you see the thing that says district leadership coaching um and the rigger leader uh certification that is for the rigger leader is what they're calling what we're calling the MOI coach. So they've built into the district level uh training and um

154opportunities for that person to grow and learn as they are also performing these uh tasks. Um the shared services for principles and the shared services for instructional coaches uh is the next step for them which is continuing to do what they've been doing and being coached by IE people. But part of that coaching is now teaching our principles how to coach, how to work together as teams. So it would be the three elementary coaches and the two uh uh the middle and and junior high teacher principles, I'm sorry, principles and their coaches to to start to work together so that they can do walks in their various campuses. And uh and so you can see that training is eight day eight half days where the the IE coach coaches would come and for instance walk

155with the principles as a team and teach them how to support each other. It's not so much coaching as supporting because we have good things going on at each campus. They're not necessarily the same good things going on at each campus. So the opportunity for the principles to learn to um uh to support each other. So three coaches then would go walk or three principles would go walk a site, visit six or seven classrooms, come out and talk about how how that went um and and what they could do to support their people with what experience each one of them has. Same for the coaches. So they're still going to be doing i.e. would still be doing the kinds of things they've been doing for two years. Fewer days. So you can see um if

156we go to page two, okay, the number of days that they would be here to actually themselves walk and coach principles or um or uh uh our coaches is down from 36 days to 22 in person. uh and still 10 days virtual because the other eight days that bring us back up to closer to 36. It doesn't bring us to 36, but it brings us back to 30 days involves the principles or the coaches. So, we're still getting close to the uh same number of days. It cut it's cut back some because we're cutting back on our uh on our contract with them. Um, and then you can see below that, um, uh, the the kits and the things that they need to do, but that also includes all the training for using those. So,

157um, uh, Cass, I'm sorry. Let's go back to the page, previous page, please. Okay. So, you can see there then, [Music] um, what am I looking for here? No, it really is on that next page. Sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. So you can see designing independent tasks and model of instruction 400. So our our folks have had 100 101 2011 and 301. We would be adding 401 level this year. And so uh that training that's a that's professional development uh for everybody all of our teachers in the district all of our principles um all of our coaches. And um and then we would still do the three times a year of uh rigor appraisal at all sites. So it looks like it's one day per it looks like it's one day. It's not. You can see

158the schools listed above. And so you can see that it's one one per site. And that's what we were doing this year. That's the same as this year. Um and uh and then the resources uh when they teach a new a new strategy. So like the 401 um then there are the teaching kits that we have for them. Um the DL suites are online uh things for uh recordkeeping and for tracking um uh any of the work that they're doing and we've been doing the earlier version of 4DL. Yeah. So we've been doing 3DL this year. We'd be doing 4DL next year. And so those are licenses for them to use software uh to track data for how their kids are doing and and what's going on in the classroom. So what's really the the

159biggest change here is the drop in number of days that they will be on sites uh uh and dropping from full days to half days but then increasing uh the days that they are going back going into the classrooms that have a slightly different purpose. So the overall goal of this is are whoever the model instruction person is going to be is going to be able to she'll be trained or he'll be trained in this IE and then eventually they will um be able to take over for IE and continue the best practices. Yes. So we're talking about this. Yes. So this we're talking about this being the last year of contract with IE and training the person who will then move into the role of all the current coaches that we have who come.

160So we have uh we have two coaches that come for principles. We have two coaches who come and work with coaches right now. Um and and uh and then they also they bring in what whoever needs to come in to do the PD. So what we're looking at is that MLI is going to be replacing in year four replacing those four coaches and uh and moving along with uh with what we and and and sustaining what people have already learned. So this is going to be the last year of expenditure for IE then? Yes, that's our proposal. Okay. I got a I got a counter proposal. Um earlier, you remember when I was saying I want to go back to these things for Jen. Can you can we pull those back up? Sure. Uh okay.

161Jen's gonna have to tell you which piece it is. Um that one right there. Wasn't it that for math? Well, it doesn't matter. Go down. Go down to the Well, maybe this is I There were so many of these. Keep going. Keep going. No, that's it. That's it. Okay. There was another page that had a lot more of the the percentages on it. Well, this is ELA. You probably want to see the math one. Maybe the math one. Yeah. I don't No, I don't need to see the math one because it Oh, the district one. And oh, maybe it was the power was the Wasn't it the district one? Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Okay. Starts starts in here somewhere. All right. We'll just take this one for example. Okay. We have

162a million $32,000. Um what I'm suggesting is that we let the teachers who we have hired as professionals do their job. with the caveat that these this for example this 15% is the chip is what they're shooting for to get their share of that million 32 they have to bring it up 15 or more% and let the teacher who is the professional who we have hired to do the job do their job. They have the standards. They have to teach the standards. We have a brand new program where they can choose the the benchmarks so they can actually set up interventions. I'm saying that if the teachers brought this up 15% or the 20% or whatever else the other percentages were that I would be willing to pay them the bonus for doing that. We

163can't pay a bonus. We can do incentives performance. Sorry. Exactly. But yes, basically what you're saying performance performance for doing their job to do for for doing the goals that that Jen has set or the Jen's committee is set. I'm sure she didn't do this by herself. That's my suggestion. I I the problem with that be Yeah, that's okay. The the problem with that is that we have had such an influx of new teachers. Back in my day when I taught and were or administrator, you know, we always call those best practices. We've kind of gotten away from that. When you have all these new people that are coming in, they're not necessarily teaching best practices. And so in order to make sure that that's what they're doing, we really need to have someone that's

164that we have instructional coaches. The what? We have the instructional coaches and then we have this person who's going to be over the instructional coaches to make sure these things get done. But before but in order for them to do that, they have to be trained to do that. And and okay, the instructional coaches have been around for forever. Yes, they have. But education has changed. A lot of training. But education has changed. They've had a lot of training. Okay. And I you can't tell me that if that there's not a master teacher at every grade level. If that if there isn't a master teacher at every grade level, then basically we are in serious trouble. Well, I can't say that there's a a master I mean a master teacher at every grade level. I

165can't say that but because there's too many new ones. There's too many new teachers that have not been trained in best practices. Okay. So then basically we have a master teacher who is now a mentor teacher. Who are you talking about? I mean what are you referring to? You do you agree that we probably have a master teacher at every level? At every grade level? No, I can't I can't say that without without knowing every single teacher. I can't say that. I'm just saying that I would prefer keeping1,32,000 here in Bullhead City, giving it to the people who who are not flying in as experts. I would prefer coming up with a a homegrown system or something that that works with these percentages. We've got the percentages. Now we just say and we have the

166testing program. We have this brand new testing program. So basically we say to the teachers, Belinda, for 28 years I've been in this district. We have tried different things and we've never stuck one out. We've never stayed with one more than a couple years and we've already seen improvement. We have not seen improvement. I'm sorry. Desert Valley just walked away last year with an A. That's improvement. That's But that doesn't necessarily All the other All the other principles. all the other principles when they shared their um the um scores and whatever last at the last meeting all talked about improvements that they've seen maybe steps but they've seen improvement. We have to give them a chance to continue to make those improvements. 32 I don't like to spend money anymore than you do. I really

167don't. But if we're if we're asking principles, instructional coaches, and teachers, we're expecting XYZ, then we need to be able to willing to back them and support them. And if it costs money, then it's going to cost money. Let me insert a fact here. $650,000 of that, million33,000 cannot be given to salaries. Cannot be given as improvement. It has to be spent on professional development. Okay. Okay. Just that's just a fact. That's what I'm to to bring up the 15%. I'm just I'm just saying that I think a million32 should stay here. It shouldn't go east with four people. It's not they're providing us a service. Whatever. I don't care how many people, you know, it's no different than than bringing in some other other program or some other service to help us. They're not

168all going to be here in Bullhead City. Yeah. So, we have to we have to ship them in, so to speak. Saying that, no. I think you we need to complete the program as set because at least if you had a three-year plan, let's finish a three-year plan and see what the outcome will be. If you don't I'm kind of with Charlene. I I've seen so many things started and then dropped and started and then dropped. It sounded like the wonderful thing and you know all the bells and whistles and and and nobody ever completed it. And I've seen it happen and happen and happen, not just I mean in every school system. And so I I think you need to complete the program. If this was a three-year program, which was committed to, I

169think it should be completed as a three-year program. I have a problem with it because I went back and I looked at the cohort scores and the test scores for these students. And I'm sorry, but when we don't have at least 30% of our students at all grade levels being in the passing grade level, there's something wrong and they're not there. I was looking at the year right after COVID and the scores were higher then than they are now. And to me that doesn't pro that doesn't say these guys are improving our scores at all for our students. I mean 2021 the scores the state testing scores for our students were higher than they are as of last as the benchmarks are higher then than they are now. And for a million32,000 I feel our

170teachers need a a raise on their base salary before but we can't use that money for rais 350,000 of it. We can of I'm going to tell you Barb there's no correlation between teacher salaries and student outcome. I've never seen any any research on it. Is there is there correlation between teacher salaries and hiring? Yes. Of teachers. Yeah, absolutely. There's a direct relationship. I agree. But there's no correlation between teacher I mean teacher salaries and student outcome. I'm not seeing the correlation here for the student outcome either. So raising salaries and we've been raising I think Caroline did a nice job explaining that they have% 2% a year. It's I remember days we didn't miss steps. I do too. I mean I I want to remember I think there was like eight years there that

171we didn't step or anything. Oh yes. I remember those days. You know 2% is better than nothing. Yeah. But but but I just I I mean I'd love to see teachers get Yeah. I mean, I think they should be paid way more than what Oh, we all do. You know, teachers, we know that. But you can only do what you can only do what you have. Yeah. But like I'm saying, I just The bottom line is is we're telling teachers and we're telling instructional coaches and principles that we want our scores to improve. Mhm. Well, if we're not willing to provide funding to help them change whatever it is that we're doing, in this case, our best practices, if we don't help them do that and and pay the funding to do that, then how

172are we any better than the state when they mandate stuff to us and aren't willing to to provide funding for it? You know what I'm saying? It's just I know it's a lot of money. It's a heck of a lot of money. But like you said, you know, we hire professionals here and every teacher has their own teaching style that I mean I know when I was teaching eighth grade math with another eighth grade math teachers. We were two totally different styles of teaching. And she would not have been comfortable using my style and I was not comfortable using her style. But with this, we're telling the teachers, this is the style of teaching you have to use. And maybe some teachers are excellent teachers, but they're just not comfortable with it. So, their scores

173are not going to be improving because they're not able to relate to their students like they should be able to. Not changing their style. You're changing how you are teaching the subject. Are you effectively teaching? That's what that's what it's all about is effectively teaching whatever the subject is. And unfortunately, when you have new teachers, yes, they don't always have that. I mean, you know, the colleges don't always teach, you know, those things. And so, it's up to us to make sure that they do that that we show them how to effectively teach math or effectively teach ELA. Well, that's what our coaches are for. I understand that. And that's why they're going through this training as well as the principles because somewhere along the line we've lost that best practices. And in order for

174us to get that back, we've been sitting here, you know, knocking our heads against the wall going, "What are we doing? What are we missing?" We brought in IE to tell us what, you know, what it is that we're missing. And they've and they've in my book They've shown us some things that we need to work on and in order to continue to make those improvements. And yes, some schools are they're baby steps. Mhm. Desert Valley is kind of the Yeah. you know. Aha. But we have to continue that process for one more year to allow those other schools to make some bigger gains. And I know it's a lot of money, Barb. I I get it. Yeah, it's Yeah. But I mean, I'm not real happy with our eighth graders going off to the

175high school with the scores that they that they have. Not at all. But we have to do something to to improve those scores. So I I mean I like the idea that okay, this is going to be our last year and we're going to train those principles, train those instruction coaches, train this new position, and they're going to continue that process forward. And hopefully we maintain enough of our teachers that we don't have to keep, you know, retraining, although we may wind up with new teachers. But I like that that that piece of it. But I think we still have to take this last step because again change does not happen in change takes three to five years and we're starting our third year and we have to give them time to show us that

176okay this program has worked and this is what we're doing. Okay. Fred, did you're the only one who hasn't said anything. Do you have any comments that you'd like to make? Well, again, I'm you know, uh you guys have much greater insight than I do, but I do remember when we were first considering IE that Kevin I believe was the gentleman's name. He came and he stood right there and he told us that it is a process and it was going to take three years to get through the process. Um, and I I understand that that's an awful lot of money, but 650,000 or whatever that amount was was not touchable by us anyway. So, the only thing that we could do is divert those M funds into salaries if that's what we elect to

177do. But I uh I think I agree with Charlene and Judy that we we should see this thing through. That's that's just my thought because it's u I I don't want to see the style. I was really sold on IE the first time I ever went into a classroom at middle school and I saw those kids sitting in that pod of the four desks and they were interacting with with each other. They were respectful. They were supportive. They were encouraging with each other. And that's not the kind of education I remember from when I went to school. I sat and I I sat there in a desk in the same old wooden chair that would I hated at the end of the day because my bottom hurt and and you know I was I I

178got the lecture I got you know of course I learned how to do things and they demonstrated and stuff but if if what I saw is truly the model of instruction that we're we're going to end up pursuing. I'm all for it because I I just I couldn't believe the engagement and the enthusiasm of the students and I know that one of the things that is is the most difficult thing to overcome. I I have done a little teaching myself of apprenticeship classes and if you don't have the students engagement and the students um interest they're not going to benefit. you're going to you're going to get your pay whether or not, right? But this the student engagement I think is oh so critical to giving them a fair chance at having a decent life,

179getting a good education. So that's my thought. Okay. Any other thoughts? Then I need a motion to approve uh the contract for IE for instructional empowerment for school year 202526. I'll make a motion to approve the contract with IE for the 2526 school year. I'll second the motion. I usually say all those in favor. All those in favor and I'm v I'm going to vote no. Say, I'm sorry I didn't hear you. I'm voting no. Oh, okay. Uh, Charlene, I Yes. I Fred Rushton. Barb Zerziki. No. Judy Reed, yes. Okay. Item 7.5, Title One, Chromebooks bid. Um, Madame President and board members, um, I could have put this in my positive, uh, positive list of things from the superintendent report, but it's its own item and it's pretty exciting. Um, so the technology department would

180like uh to award Title One Chromebooks bid to Gov Connection uh, in the amount of $200,962.75. And this gets us a heck of a lot of Chromebooks. Um uh and you can see the this was these were the various bids and um uh and you can see the point system. So we always establish when we have this kind of thing we establish a a rubric ahead of time before we open the bids. Uh Jen was involved with this with uh with James and um and so you can see that connection uh Acer uh as and connection also had put in a bid for Lenovos. Uh but you can see that uh the highest points were for the Acers and I'm sorry I don't remember how many we're getting but it's a heck of a lot.

181Jen 564 a lot of them. Okay. So I recommend that we accept this bid. Any discussion? May I ask a question of our IT person if if it's permitted. Hi, thank you. Um I I not quite um well I'm I don't know much about Acer. Is Acer the brand that we would be getting? Yeah, my apologies. I I should have included a little more information in there yet. The that particular brand that was proposed was Acer and that's the manufacturer phone book. We had several different manufacturers represented, you know, Packard, Lenovo, um several others. Uh we did put out a minimum specification of what we expected and um we got back a myriad of responses that the models were kind of all over the place in that and some of the scores reflect that. You

182know, some of the models were not quite as robust as others. Um, some of the vendors put a little more information in their packet than than others didn't. And so that's kind of why you see the scores kind of all over the place. And we felt that the Acer uh Chromebook that was proposed, it's going to be sturdy enough to to handle some of the the environments that our students are going to put it in um and have enough hardware in there that we could hopefully get, you know, five to seven years of it before it became kind of unusable. And what uh in in the event that something goes wrong, will they have any kind of a warranty or anything? Yes, our minimum was a one-year uh warranty with mailin support. So, we we

183try to keep a lot of the stuff in house. You know, if a screen needs to be repaired or a battery needs to be replaced, we like to handle that here, not not ship it off. And looking at the warranty support that we got with the Acer, they kind of have uh both ways. So, we could mail in a Chromebook if it needed uh some work done on it, but also if it was a part that we felt like we could replace, they would just mail us a new part and we could fix it. But even after that one year, um if something went wrong with it, parts are still going to be available and we could, you know, buy them as needed. As a general rule with the Chromebooks, the first year if anything

184major gets broke on it, we we don't generally repair it. When you when you figure, you know, a new screen or a new budd is 50% of the price that you paid for it, it really doesn't make a lot of sense to to make that repair. But if we can pick up a new battery for $35$40, well then that that kind of makes sense, right? Understand. Okay, cool. Thank you. question. Do we do a replacement a cycle of replacement like 50 books this year and 50 books? Right. Okay. Um I personally do not prescribe what the schools should dispose of or or recycle. We we put out what we would recommend, but you know, I I I'm not in the classroom. I'm not a school administrator, so I I don't I try not to say

185this is what you must do at your school. Um, but yeah, we do have a number of Chromebooks that are no longer receiving updates, um, no longer receiving security patches and cannot run some of the applications that we need. And so as these new ones go out, we're kind of bringing some of those old ones in and they get recycled. Sometimes we can get a little bit of money when we recycle them. Sometimes we can't. But yeah, that's kind of our plan is we send the new ones out and hopefully bring some of the other ones in that are no longer. our librarians are uh reluctant to give them up even even if we cannot update them anymore. Um but we also have some of the ones that are older that we use like with

186kindergarten and first grade. Um because they will if they will still run programs that are suitable for those. They might not be able to be updated but if they will still use it. So we have right now I think it's safe to say we have more Chromebooks than we have students. Um uh but that means that we have them in the places that we need them. So there were a lot of them on the list. Yes. The disposal list. Yes, there were Chromebooks that I mentioned that have not received security patches in a while or not received Chrome OS updates. So a Chromebook basically is just Chrome browser installed on a purpose. That that's really all it runs is Chrome. Um and many of the programs that that we use and that are designed specifically

187to work on Chromebooks. They're a very affordable device. I can remember not too long ago when you know a 30 workstation computer for a classroom was 28 $30,000 and now we're buying Chromebooks for $300 a year instead of $800. The other thing I will tell you is that the funding we're using for this uh uh the state sent to us, I'm not sure leftover is the right kind of money, but uh the funding for this and a few ex a few more dollars than this. I think it was 280,000 um uh is money, title money that was not spent in fiscal year 23. So we have to use it or we lose it. And so this is a good opportunity for us to, you know, to start replacing some Chromebooks and get get that rotation

188going. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Um, do I have a motion to or do I have a motion to to award the contract for title one Chromebooks? I make a motion we award uh title one Chromebook bid to uh Acer. A it was something Acer it's Gov Connection Acer Chromebook connection bid to government gov connection the Acer Chromebooks for $2,962.75. I'll second the motion. All those in favor? I Melinda Subski. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. I Barb Zarziki. I Judy Reid. Item 7.6 updated job descriptions. Well, we have one. Well, we know one one I'm going to withdraw from consideration for right now. Um, uh, the student achievement one. Uh, this one is the one that I told you that has been approved position. It's been kind

189of on hold because we've not been able to find somebody. Um, but there's there are things in this job description that we've needed to have happening and Kate has done them when she can. uh she was involved in revising this from what it was before and she probably can do a better job of answering any questions you might have about this one than I can. Um uh if you want to ask her those things, but um u we really are hopeful that we can find somebody for this position this year. We really desperately need somebody to be coaching specifically coaching our special ed people. Kate, this would be for all all grade levels, right? Yes. would cover preschool through 8th grade. Um it would cover all programming, so life skills, behavior resource, um the resource

190classrooms. They would work with the special education teachers who are new because we do have um some new teachers coming from overseas. they will work with them on how to run an IEP meeting here in the United States, how to write an IEP um that is um compliant and legal um by US standards. They will work with the teachers in the classrooms and developing um visual schedules, things like that for students, help them work on behaviors to try and extinguish some of the behaviors that we have going on in the schools. um and really just do the do a lot of the things for the teachers that I can't get out and do on a daily basis because of life academy commitments and the director position commitments that I have every day. Um so I'm

191really my fingers are crossed my toes and eyes that I can find somebody this year because our special education teachers like they they want the training, they want the help, they want those things. Um I'm hoping we can find somebody to help facilitate that for next year. Okay. Thank you. Oh, wait a minute. Um, anybody else have any questions for Kate? No. Okay. Sorry, Kate. Thank you. I just said thank you and ask I didn't ask the board. Okay. So, we're going to I'm going to ask for approval for instructional coach for student achievement. I make a motion we I'm sorry. Go ahead, Shirley. Go ahead. I make a motion that we uh accept the description for the instructional coach for student achievement and find one. I'll second that. All those in favor? I Melinda

192Saskki. I Charlene Diaz. I Fred Rushton. Hi Barb Ziki. Hi Judy Reid. Okay. This is the first reading for this 7.7 policy advisory for IHA basic instructional program. Um we talked about this in the workshop, right? Uh so we're going to talk about it next meeting. 7.8 policy advisory for JLF sex offender and notification. This is the first reading in a in public meeting. So, um, we'll talk about this one next time. Closing items. 8.1 Future topics. Is there anything that the board would like to have Dr. Stewart prepare for us? I really appreciate the kids from Life Academy. I know. Yes. It would be really nice if I could get their at least their first name. Okay. Maybe. And so I can send him a personal absolutely thank you note for that. So if

193you can do that for me, I appreciate that. Um, and we'll have another school next month. Can't wait. Yeah, we will. It's already planned. Um, which one? Or is it? I knew you'd ask me that. Never mind. Yes, it is a secret. Okay. We want to surprise you. I really I really appreciate seeing that stuff. Yeah. And I and I am I'm extremely pleased with the fact that our life academy is functioning the way that I have viewed it needed to function for 15 years. I mean, you know, for a long time, um, the kids are the the students are benefiting from this opportunity to to turn themselves around and and I think you saw two really good examples. Congratulations. I'm glad that we didn't see them in the executive session. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. That

194has a lot to do with Miss Hall. It does. It does very much. She needs you need very much back. I will tell you that the crew that works in there, I mean, uh, uh, Mr. Schnobble is working on his teaching degree. Um, he's a long-term sub right now, but we keep him in there because he's amazing working with those kids. And I'm sorry, who is the little the little one? Oh, I don't know. The three that look younger than the students, the three pair of professionals. The little one is she's actually in college right now to get her math degree. Um, and her future goal is to teach college level. She has more energy. I can just tell. I just thought, "No, no, no, no. We're here at 8:30 at night. No, you don't."

195Anyway, what a nice thing. Growing our own. Growing our own. But they look younger than the kids. Yeah, they do, don't they? Yeah. Okay. 8.2 upcoming board events. Sure. Is there anything special on here that we need to attend? Yeah. You just want to be sure you put on your calendar promotion. Oh, yeah. Yeah. When is it? Scroll on down if you would, please. There you go. Oh, right there. May 20th. May 20th May 20th at the field house. I have my calendar. I put it on there. 8:30. Okay. Did we get this? Oh, thank you. May 2nd staff appreciation that Friday. And so Cass has been working hard to set get things nice for you guys. And uh it'll be at Coyote Canyon Cafeteria. What? And um what time is that for? 11:00 a.m.

196Okay. When's that? May 2nd. May 2nd. Okay. May 2nd is what? Friday. Friday. Perfect. May. Yep. Perfect day. I'm out of town all all week long when the promotion comes, but I'll try to make the second. Okay. And uh that will that's also teacher appreciation week. So, uh you know, it's a good it works. It's a good time. It's a good time to have staff appreciation. 11 a.m. Which time? May 2nd, 11th for staff appreciation. Yeah. 11. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Coyote. Item 8.3, date, time, location for future meeting. The next meeting we have on calendar is May 15. Anybody not be able to be there? I'm going to have to check to see if that's the day I have to have the revised budget in. I just now thought of that. Before that date or

197that day? I'll have to check. They're usually Oh, it has to be approved by the 15th and submitted by the 18th. Okay. So, we'll be okay. So, we will just be okay. Okay. Okie dokie. Thanks, Cass. Do I have a motion to adjourn this meeting? I make a motion we adjourn this meeting. Is there a second? Second the motion. All those in favor? I Melinda Sabraski. I Charlene Diaz. Hi Fred Rushton. Hi Barb Ziki. Hi Judy Reid. And I want to thank you. It's my first early meeting. You mean you're gonna be home before 10 o'clock? It's still a little longer than Yeah. Thank you, Cassie, for updating my book. Yes. Thank you, Cassie. Yes, indeed. I thought you had just had been lying to me. It's all because of you. Sorry. [Applause] [Music] Heat.

198Heat. [Music] I'm here to [Music] Hey, hey, hey.