BCSD Board Meeting 10/12/2023

001[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey those of you who are would you put your mics on [Music] please it's on I'm on you're going to growl tonight I called to order the workshop for Bullhead City School Board on Thursday October 12th 20 2023 at 5:30 p.m. roll call presentent Melinda sasy Charlene Diaz here Fred rushon here Myer ziki here Shaya Barnett here okay 1.3 update on the partnership with instructional empowerment and related data I've been waiting for this one I know you have been Madame President and board members it's my pleasure to introduce uh Kevin McDonald oh he did come yeah Kevin's here from instructional empowerment and he's the uh the team leader for the district and also one of the coaches for uh one or more of the sites and he's going

002to share some information with you about what's been going on and um and we uh we consider th those folks now part of our Bullhead City Bullhead City School District family they have they are embedded in our uh in our lives so Kevin's got good stuff to share Kevin I'm glad to see you're here because I asked if you would ever show up so we could meet you so yes thank you well I'm glad that I can be here with you guys uh school board members and also our honor guests it's a pleasure to be with you to be able to talk about our progress so today what I'm going to be sharing with you um is a comparative of when we came as a team from instructional empowerment and did our school comprehensive me

003back in Jan if you remember and we followed up with helping to support working on your fishbone and your school recruitment plan and um we use this one of the pieces of the school comprehensive needs assessment is our rigor appraisal diagnostic which is a very highly a research-based tool that we use to help to measure rigor in our tools we use that same tool in our rigor appraisals that we do for throughout the school year Kevin can because we have an audience tonight could you could you possibly explain what rigor is so that people would know oh great okay so when we speak about rigor we're talking about how rigorous the instruction is which is how uh how the how the teachers and the students work toward reaching those stfe standards so the rigor of

004the instruction is how challenging how uh the productive struggle that students experience uh how they are able to masteral Mastery of standards and our movement toward really attaining Mastery of our state standards and as we know our state assessments are all based on our state standards that's what our St St State assessments measure so riger really deals with our students in the classroom really engaging in text engaging in computation calculations that really help them to get to that Mastery quicker and be on that on level or above level does that make sense okay great thank you okay thank you all right so the rigor appraisal we did our first rigor appraisal at the end of August so if you go to the next slide um before I go into the next slide go into the

005rigor appraisal I just kind of want to briefly go over the things that we've done since we've started working again with the school district starting in July so go to the next slide and then we're going to jump into the the data of the rigor appraisal so just so you get an idea of the work that we've been doing with the schools here um the first thing we did is we had our designing and measuring implementation so one of the things that we really believe in is it's a systems approach to school-based change and part of that rigor appraisal helps to measure how those systems are reflected in the instruction within the classroom so we did our designing and measuring implementation at the in July which led to our model of instruction 101 which is

006a professional development we had two days of that with our teachers to help to get them the tools in their hand to in order to support them doing rigorous instruction with our students um our faculty coaches which each school has a faculty coach that works with their school have done coaching days with our instructional coaches uh using a look and learn tool which is a coaching tool that helps our teachers to get feedback and our teachers have really responded to being able to get that feedback on how is my instruction moving forward um and then also with that there's a model of instruction coaching tool which our instructional coaches and our principles and assistant principles get to utilize to help them to give those coaching points to our teachers then we had the rigor we

007have like I'm going to talk about now the rigor appraisal data we also have our school leadership coaches which uh I'm part of that team each school has a school leadership coach and we we visit classrooms using our classroom riger walk tool to gather Trend Trend data and help our schools to create an action board with a 45-day goal with our administrators and coaches so I encourage you whenever you do get an opportunity to get to our schools to and you engage with your principles and assistant principles to have them take you to where their action board is so you can see the different action steps that they're taking in their schools to help move them forward and keep their school focus on instruction and learning on their campus and then we also provide uh

008communities of practice with our principles and so we on this slide it says we have had one but in actuality we have had two since we've had I created this slide that we do once a month basically where the principles gather and they discuss what challenges they're having with implementation of the model of instruction and what can we do to create e eacy across our campuses um how can we generate that sense of urgency so that our teachers are making the instructional shifts that they need and then the last thing is we've also added support working with Gen lot to support our instructional coaches to how they can work together and collaborate to support teachers these are just a few things in addition to when we're here and we're visiting classes now let's go forward

009and talk about the data because that's where we get to see uh the numbers so our rigor appraisal next slide rigor appraisal is calculated through a consistency there's basic basically a 12-point scale that we have 25 questions so it's part in in part based upon what we see in the classroom but also what types of Works our schools are doing around data how are our teachers verifying for Learning and all of these measures and each of our five pillar scores are then averaged based on these 25 questions so let's go to the next next slide so let's do a comparison so when we did the initial School comprehensive need assessment which is the scna we did the rigor walk which is 10 classroom visits and we visited 10 classrooms in each of our five schools

010which would be 50 classrooms and then we did the same number of classes but not the same classes when we did our first scna here in um the fall so when we do the next scna uh sorry the next rigor appraisal sorry when we do next rigor appraisal we'll visit another 10 classes and those classes are randomly selected each each of our school leadership coaches randomly selects it because you want a trend data you want to capture that across the entire campuses okay so you can see the breakdown you can see how we try to hit a variety of different classes uh when we did the scna we included music and social studies and science classes uh but when we did the uh rigor appraisal um which is rd2 on here we focused mostly English

011L uh e Ela mathematics science and social studies okay let's go ahead and go to the next slide so let's look at a comparative of where we were in January and we didn't do very much of the coaching part from January it was just really consultative really focused around helping you guys to create your school Improvement plans but we've been hitting the road since August and since school has started to help to coach implementation so as you look here the there are five pillars that we have five pillar scores the first pillar score there on your left is the conditions for learning rigorous standards and so that's a measurement of how are the conditions in our school what's the environment like around which students can engage in rigorous instruction is the school welcoming is it

012friendly it is engaging do students feel like it's a safe environment now you see that from the first which is the blue column to the second column we had a slight drop on that area of our scores however take in mind when we did the uh scna that was in the midpoint of the school year so classrooms were much more established at that point and so now you're talking about the very beginning of the school year the end of August so that's going to be a little bit dropped when we do our second rigor appraisal we'll see that increase and continue to move up as we Implement our teams as our schools Implement our teaming now you look at the second uh second pillar score which is our standards-based student evidence you can see that

013we've already seen an increase from 3 to four now standards based student evidence refers to R our classrooms and our students engaging in standards aligned work so our teachers have done a great job of beginning to dig into standards and really begin to deepen their understanding of the state standards to make sure that the taxonomy level of what they are actually putting in front of the students is at the same taxonomy level or approaching the same taxonomy level as the actual State Standards that's a really big deal we use taxonomy Marzano's taxonomy scales as compared to what the state us just uses as a do and we have in the back of our a tool that we provide um is our crossw walk that compares the taxonomy level the do to the uh marzo taxonomy

014level so you already see an increase just in the little time from the beginning of the school year to the end of August compared to the beginning of the year the next thing that I'm super proud of is the activating student teams to achieve the standard so our model of instruction is truly built around students working in teams and collaborating having that actual academic discourse together is really one of the key powerful pieces to students really being able to attain to rigorous standards and rigorous learning you can see that we had a a large jump from 1.7 to 3.2 which really shows how much our teachers and our instructional staffs are really grabbing hold beginning that process of being able to understand and Implement in their classrooms that real rigorous learning with their students so

015we're activating student teams and we have an increase of 1.5 then we go to the next column which is where we have verifying learning to take action and that means are our teachers seeing what students are doing and adjusting their instruction during the lesson to make those instructional shifts to move student for learning forward in the classroom okay and you can also see an increase there we have a little bit of we have a little bit of decrease in tracking student progress toward the standards because it's August and our teachers are still getting to know their students at that point we've seen a lot of growth since that point um and I look forward to seeing what our rigor appraisal to comes into you have to know what the students are to be able to

016really help to track them and Implement those systems then the last one is um the average and you can see the average goes up from what we had at the school at the scna up to where it is now where it's at 3.6 so you do see that increase across the board where you see that overall we're making that progress toward having a more rigorous environment in our classrooms in our schools so let's go ahead and switch to the next slide so far any questions I don't know if I have time for questions but I'll keep going at the end I'll let give you time if you have questions to ask okay so here you have a breakdown of the average rigor appraisal scores and you can see the different schools and how they scored

017and you can see the different changes um across just give you a few seconds to look at that as it says in the bullet points Bullhead City Middle School saw the greatest change in walk average from January to August they have really begun to um do the work of really embracing those student teams in their classroom and really looking to embrace using those standards to drive the work and if you remember from our data before that's really great to see Bullhead Middle School really and those teachers really getting in deep into the work you can see that the average riger score has increased from 3.2 to 3.6 but the biggest thing the biggest celebration is that all five schools went up in activating student teams pillar okay and from our research and one of the

018things that we do is part of our agreement with the district is that we look at your Galileo data that you have that you collect and your state assessment data and we compare it to our rigor appraisal data and we know that when we where we have schools and we also we do this work across the country which you knew from when we first signed the contract and we first introduced ourselves we know that when we see an activation of teams the schools that have the most Improvement in the activating of student teams that's where we see the most growth most growth on their performance in state assessments especially in the area of ela because that discussion that rich discourse that they have their ability to really get into text is enables them to be

019more successful and a leing State Standards okay so that's really positive thing you can go to the next slide okay now this is another thing that's very powerful is the shift that we've seen in taxonomy level so if you're not familiar with Marzano taxonomy scales uh you have retrieval which is very similar to your do1 comprehension is very similar to do2 analysis do3 and then knowledge utilization is the for we're very big on the fact that we want to actually see students engaged with text every day that's our goal we should see students engaged with text all the way from our youngans all the way up to 8th grade and that's one of the key powerful levers so when we did the first scna 47% of our classrooms our students were sitting not engaging in

020text they were just sitting and hearing the teacher talk the whole time like I'm talking to you and the students are not actually engaged in doing the work the shift from that appraisal to the last appraisal in August to where only 16% of our classes walked there was no student work that's a huge shift so our students are getting text in hand they're getting math problems in hand and they're beginning to do much more of the work because you know he who does the work is the one that's doing the learning in the classroom right so if teacher is the one talking the teacher's gaining all the knowledge because they're really like going over these standards and the kids are just sitting back there but if the students are working then they're the ones that

021are doing the work you can see that that shift has mostly for the beginning of the year moves into retrieval but for the beginning of the year that's very common because a lot of our standards were right at the very beginning especially in our primary grades it's very much at that retrieval just the basic computation 60 to 70% of the state assessment questions are at that do level too on your state of assessment so we really want to see as we move forward us moving more into those comprehension as far as our taxonomy level of student works if our students are doing comprehension or higher work then they're working at the level of what they're going to be assessed at next slide so this breaks down and you can kind of see how that is

022spread across the schools as far as where we saw um the most student work on our first appraisal and where and the difference I mean look at that no student work column you can see how many classes I mean 30% was the the lowest at that first uh appraisal and now you look at the second um in August 02 20% only really 20% of our out of 10 classes um really having no student work in front of our students so that means the the teacher could have been teaching but the students were not engaged in text so you really see how our teachers are really beginning uh to to make that shift we have comprehension was observed in at least one of two uh in one at least one classroom at two schools and then

023we only had one classroom where we had analysis observed at Bullhead City Middle School in two classrooms but I know as we continue to plan and work in our plcs we're going to see more of that develop over the uh over the course of the school year next slide that's just a picture of some of our students engaging in uh teamw work discussing text you can see they're talking about it they're working together and that should be what you should see as characteristic of when you go into our schools is you should see students engaged talking working around text working around math problems and working together to really um to really tackle that rigorous learning and go ahead and go to the last slide which says thank you you have have any questions about the

024data that I just reviewed took up a lot of time that's was more than probably five minutes it's okay oh was absolutely can you go back to the Marano thing yes the page yes oh go forward oh right there there you go yes ma'am okay um Fred do you understand this stuff I believe I do okay I believe that uh you know looking at this that we can see comprehension if if I'm understanding this correctly com comprehension decreased decreased yes it decreased because analysis increased so we had Z percentage of analysis and now we have that TW 12% of comprehension is now really is split almost between comprehension and Analysis yes okay on the other hand the the retrieval if I'm understanding that correctly that's the students ability to recall and repeat and uh use

025the information they've been given in their work and then then of course the the decrease in the no student work I think that's that's really remarkable because uh to go from almost 50% to down to 16% uh that that's quite I think that that shows a lot of progress yeah so this is impressive and I think retri I'm sorry Fred I think uh you know I think that the longer we associate with instructional empowerment that the more seeing the benefits and uh we're we're really grateful to have you here helping us thank you thank you thank you yeah and retrieval is when we are asking students to basically just recall facts and dates you know in 1971 this happened you're just retrieving information or you're doing basic computation multiplication division you're just doing very basic

026facts comprehension requires me to synthesize information I have to comprehend what is the text trying to to get me to understand and or for math I have to read word problems and then I have to comprehend what is this problem asking me to do right so it's a higher taxonomy which means it's a higher rigor level because we're really wanting to engage our students in more tasks like that and so um even today I was at Bullhead City Middle School during plc's and I mean the the teachers brains were hurting because we just kept plugging away and like okay we've got to get to the deeper understanding of that learning Target so that they can really if the teachers are really able to understand what the students need to do with the standards then the

027students they'll be able to translate that into student work which is what we're looking at yeah thank you you're welcome any other questions I have some questions so looking at this taxonomy level we want to get up to the knowledge utilization obviously yes ma'am where is the state standards in comparison to this so I don't know how to put it into words like is most of what they're doing is it most at the comprehension level or is it mostly at the utilization so 60 to 70% of the questions on the state assessments are at do2 which is mostly comprehension it's not an ex we're not the Marzano scales are not an exact comparison or alignment we do have a tool that we we can make a copy for you where you can kind of compare

028and I have a deeper understanding of you know where it kind of goes across so our goal is to get to not more knowledge utilization it doesn't always lend itself because one of the things that we have to do is we don't want to exceed the content limit of our standards you guys remember you understand that so on the state assessment our standards are somewhat bracketed within how uh what that level of understanding of complexity it is and we want to really truly prepare our students to attain to that and then go beyond right that's where we really grow our proficiency Within in our school so if our students in our school by the end of this year if we see ourselves where 50 to 60% of what we're doing as far as the the

029uh taxonomy level of our student work is in that comprehension range that would leave us with about maybe 15 to 20% in retrieval and then another 15 to 20% in analysis or knowledge utilization then you're going to really see uh our hope would be that we would then see a lot of high performance on our St assessments right there's no guarantees right we just going to make sure our students are as best prepared as they can be but the understanding is that knowledge utilization in order for me to have NOS utilization it means that I have to have not only an understanding of the standards and the content I then have to utilize and apply that knowledge to a task and that's probably the harder part to get to is because the students really have

030to have Mastery of that standard and then take that Mastery and apply it to something different that that takes time that takes time that takes a lot of work a lot of planning a lot of really rich discussion amongst our PLC teams we'll get there we'll get there though and then my other question um why do you think Bullhead City Middle School is being so successful is there something they're doing differently or is there more effort on the teachers part or just just out of curiosity if you can put your finger on it well I would say so first of all I would say the leadership team in the back which most of them some of them are there the principal um they and Miss sharp and Miss SoDo put in some extra work over

031the summer without pay uh some of them did to really take the things that we talked about um working with the scna and I worked oneon-one with uh Miss with Miss Julie and also worked with her virtually on a lot of the concepts around the things that we will need to do for the fall so theyve put in a lot of extra work over the summer to really prepare their understanding so when they went into pre-planning they were ready to launch into they had a jump start we had a jump start if and I think also too like when we met when I met with them in the spring and we did the Deep dive of really trying to unpack the fishbone that faculty in my opinion has a lot of hunger now Desert Valley

032has just they've been doing the work for a while like Miss Cassie just really has been digging around and she already has that school in a place where they're very receptive um but she didn't get the extra time that we put into um the district put into the way that they structured the contract because you know you know where the data was for for Bullhead City and you knew that there needed to be some extra attention there right to help get that school to where it needs to be so um we put the extra time in we put in the extra work and we're starting to see those results okay any other questions um I Cass would you go back to that very first picture this one oh this one this one okay so one

033of the things that I want you all to understand is um uh when you go into our classrooms uh particularly the classrooms that are um really already moving in this direction this is the kind of thing you're going to see more of and less of teacher talk that doesn't mean that there won't be teacher talk we all know teachers have to teach but who does the learning and so you're going to see a lot more of this Kevin were you the one telling us about the kindergartener the kindergarten math thing that was Cara oh it was Cara do you remember that uh what she said or do you remember Jen yeah would you because this is an example so would you share that story about the kindergarteners so she was in um they were observing

034a kindergart clroom at Diamond back and they were using the math and the children were learning about the number eight so she had them on their Ms they had to figure out all the ways to get to represent eight so there were some children that were drawing circles or pass marks but then she had some that were drawing arrays or who were doing groups and that she had some that were even almost doing equations so without even knowing it some of those kindergarteners by introducing the number eight were already doing Simple multiplication addition problems and things like that so but that taught them that if they have this kind of U handle on the number eight do we really need to spend a whole day on just nine and a whole day on just 10

035probably not so it also help them to see you know the ability of the students and that may so much concentration on that basic and I think the other key part from that observation was excuse me um was the students the four students were at a different level of their understanding say of of the the number eight the concept of eight um but the one who the one of the students who really already kind of had that concept was teaching the other two or three in the group and um and so they were really as a team figuring out how can how many ways can we represent eight and then he was kind of and he's pulling them along you know so by the end of the lesson those kids in that group were someplace

036totally different than maybe the rest of the class was um uh and that's that's the exciting thing that um that we're going to see so obviously classrooms like this are going to be a little noisier than traditional classrooms um because we're going to have conversations going on and that kind of thing so um when you go to visit be ready to see some different things yeah and I mean I would just Echo the sentiment that if you when you're in the classroom a lot of times as teachers I might say it a hundred times to the students and they just don't get it but then when that peer says no what he's trying to get you to do is this and that's where that productive struggle in working together interdependently is where the students are

037able to help each other and they still have independent time we don't get rid of independent time there's still an independent time for the for the students to show their own Mastery but that teaming time really allows them to learn from each other and then help them to master the standards thank you thanks Kevin thank you Kevin thank you you're welc thank you very much so I have uh I have some other good news for you that's why the item says information about ie and other data um a week ago Jen received from um from one of the people that she works with at the state department the information relative to how our students grew in the subgroups where we had them in TSI or atsi in other words our groups that needed to make

038huge growth um uh uh for and I think we had what 12 12 Al together 12 12 or 13 altogether Cass if you'll put that other chart up please Jen had to tie me down because I wanted to start talking about this the day she gave it to me but we couldn't it was embargoed until I actually got the letter a superintendent got the letter saying woohoo look at your information so you can see here um our schools and the subgroups that they all had been identified as needing to make uh needing to make big changes and um uh those kinds of things so you want to move your cursor so that little oh it's jens's it's on the thing sorry it's a screenshot okay so um in the column that says school name I

039want you to notice how many are crossed off we're down to three so from that whole list of subgroups from uh fiscal uh from school year 22 to school year 23 uh We've made the growth necessary for those to no longer be in um TSI or atsi and so I then would call your attention to the two columns uh of uh fy22 and FY 23 points and then the growth so uh example for the Middle School um excuse me uh EF those are El students um at the at the Middle School uh in 22 they were they scor scored at 2.1 and in 23 they scored at 28.5 n now the Target to get out of TSI is was 22 points okay what does TSI stand for tar TG support and Improvement thank you thank

040you I'm sorry I didn't say that but look at their growth 26 and a half points wonderful okay um so you can look down the whole group and see that um uh the reason that we're that we only have three groups left an an improvement here um one of them is because the growth was only was only I'm sorry but I think 17.06 is pretty significant but it did not get us to the 22 the two with the N simply means that the number of students in that subgroup was too small to be um statistically um to have a statistically significant number and so that leaves them in uh that leaves them in TSI U but I would call your attention to uh how many of these were and the growth was in double digits

041and um so um this is we celebrated with the leadership team or the instructional team this week um called a special meeting a special virtual meeting to share these data with them and um and to C have a little bit of a celebration um now we recognize it's not where we want to be you know we being at 28.5 or being at 4431 um or pick any of those numbers is not necessarily our Target but this amount of growth in one year's time was significant and um certainly worth some celebration so um I wanted to be sure that you all saw this and um um would have an opportunity when you see any of our folks at our schools uh to give them a pat on the back because they they worked hard for these

042subgroups and there the subgroups are e um uh special ed um we have there's a group called Hispanic there's there's the group for um one of them has to do with low uh reduced free and reduced lunch and ie one and two and of course that's all of our students so you know it's kind of like well okay um and so these some of these groups overlap the students in the groups overlap so for instance two or more races um and I will tell you that's not a group that we would particularly Target because I don't know that any of our teachers pay any attention to that kind of thing it just says that they've been working hard to help all of our kids grow and and that group happened to grow a lot so

043um uh you know and as I say there is overlap you know there are kids who could be in multiples of these groups so um so Diamondback has uh has one target left and Fox Creek has two and um but nobody's going to rest on their Laurels because the target changes so the target for this year was to have a growth of 22 points the target is determined by what's going on Statewide so the target for next year might be 27 or it might be it might stay 22 who knows but the thing is we can't you know we're not just going to rest on this little celebration as being oh where we are where we want to be um it's a celebration of what growth our kids have done U but we're not going

044to back off so and if you have questions please address Jen thank you w that was quite a meeting um do I have a motion to adjourn our Workshop I make a motion we adjourn the workshop I'll second that motion all those in favor I'm Alinda sabraski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon i v preser ziki i Sheila Barnett okay I call to order the regular meeting of Bullhead City School Board on Thursday October 12 12 at 2023 it looks like 605 is it am I right I have 604 604 on the screen so all those are present I present Melinda saski Charlene Diaz here Fred rushon here Barb Zar ziki here Shila barnat present would you stand and say the Pledge with me I pled aliance to the flag of the United States of

045America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for [Music] all all citizens present um I hope you have signed in at in the back of the room so that we have a record thank you please print your name on the or on the attendance slip um we're in to call to the public at this time the public you don't need to read it remember oh yeah you guys did that for me okay and if you don't have any you really don't even have to have it read do we have any oh okay then we'll move on item 6 point or 2.6 adopt option of the agenda do I have a motion to adopt the agenda as presented I make a motion we adopt the agenda

046as presented I'll second that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I barbariki I Sheila Barnett it's interesting that that um we have taken off the donations here but when we were looking at the the papers online and I'm trying to find the the name of the music teacher Miss STK is that how you said Miss Durk was giving excuse me an award by the sun Watts education grant by a sun Watts education grant for $2,334 from mve Electric Cooperative and I know that they haven't got the money to us yet but I really was very proud of her for doing this so thank you very much MEC superintendence reports 2. eight Madame President and board members uh we have the usual board reports um student uh enrollment

047comparisons uh discipline and um facilities and um uh financial information uh if you have any questions about any of those I'd be happy answer um can you bring up the student discipline for me sure the you mean the cumulative yeah the the the summary there you go I I don't know how much you guys remember last year MH but this is phenomenal change um definitely is there a chance that next time you could put that up with this comparison absolutely because the people out there may not understand or may not remember how bad it was last year and how much this has improved sure would you be okay with um instead of doing like um by grade level just adding a line where the totals are for each school and compar just the totals for

048each you know that would be perfect that be okay all right we can do that be perfect um I just think that people don't realize it I mean we do because we can actually go back in the data but um this is very impressive and I um whoever is doing this needs to have a bunch of Kudos and I think it's important for you for everybody to recognize too that the more you engage students in the learning process and hold them you know that they're participating and that they're accountable for their own learning of behavior issues be tend to become less yeah very impressive thank you thank you Cassie um if you don't have other questions I have a couple of updates for you um first of all um uh Ethan back there is uh

049always interested in graphic things and uh came to me a month or so ago with a proposal that g our district doesn't have a banner maker and we could be uh we could be advertising good things about our district and you know promoting ourselves if we had uh if we had some way to do that an additional way to do it so convinced me to get us a a banner a big banner maker so this is his first sample just a sample of what it can do oops oh pretty cool yeah neat very nice so he you know he took all the logos and and and printed out one okay so uh he's working on a banner uh for the uh the the groundbreaking on Monday yeah um but um we you know that's that's

050kind of a new big event for us we've not done those kinds of things so we thought we needed to advertise that a bit so first of all this is our new Den Lo logo okay and we have produced chachki bags that we'll be given out and I know some of you won't be there on Monday so we have the district logo on one side the den logo on the other and then a flyer inside about the den project thank you Ethan thank you R thank you very much so this is what we're supposed to put the first rock in that's right how cool is that well thank you neat this is really neat so that's the first thing um uh secondly a little more serious um if you recall not too long ago you

051approved policy jcj which has to do with use of electronic devices particularly for taking photographs and videos on our campuses but just general use of them um once again that's been kind of an issue and so uh our sites have um stepped up enforcement of of some of those things um and we've been trying to inform uh and advise parents that we are taking that all very seriously and enforcing it um the main reason has to do with furpa and that's the federal law that has to do with protection of um uh personal information and and identity and so um we've we've been gently remind we've not so gently reminded kids necessarily but we've been gently reminding parents to please not say to your kids oh take out your phone and and uh record what's

052going on in your classroom um because that's a violation of furpa and and violates the rights of the other students in the class so we are we're enforcing that um and then the other thing I have for you is um that I've been selected to be uh on the council uh Western Regional Council for first things first for Mojave and laaz counties to fill out uh a term for someone who resigned and if you recall first things first is one of the funding streams that we have for uh our uh uh preschool and our uh Child Care Center so I'm I'm uh pleased to represent the district and to repres represent this part of Arizona on that Council congratulations job that's a good thing to have somebody with a ground ground experience feed on the

053ground yeah do does anybody have any questions for our superintendent okay then I'm going to move on to board member updates has anybody on the board done something that they'd like to talk about how many plac this month you quiet month it's been a quiet month well quiet in some ways but quiet okay all right moving on then [Music] um we are in the consent agenda and we let just hang in there for just a second let me get this oh here it is we received in the consent oh I should pull these first huh okay I'd like to I would like to pull the expense voucher from the consent and um I think this is the m thing isn't it yes okay that's well that was part of my financial report yeah but I

054need to that's okay does anybody else have anything that they'd like to talk about on the consent agenda lots of things happened at the schools yeah anybody want to talk about any of those okay then I need a motion to accept the consent agenda as posted except for the expense voucher which I have a question on which is 3.5 yes okay I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda um as as presented except for 3.5 is there a second all those in favor I'm Alinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I Barb Zuki I Sheila Barnett okay my question to about this is that we received in in part of your the M budget okay and then I receive a a voucher thing mhm how do these go to together okay so um

055uh the expense voucher um covers the things that we are spending for uh things okay you also get you also not salaries then it's no so you see I know I understand so so let me be a little more clear about that so when you look at this agenda item you have the expense vouchers and you have the payroll vouchers mhm okay okay so the payroll vouchers are um the actions that are taken for uh to pay salaries okay the expense vouchers include everything else so like benefits um uh facilities Transportation fuel uh uh things that we need to things that we need to purchase or services so I'll make that a little more clear so for instance um let's say we made a payment let's say we were making monthly payments to IE we're

056not but we don't do it that way but let's say that's what we're doing so part of what you would see in that expense voucher would be what would include whatever we paid uh you know for that monthly fee for that um uh in there I will tell you are because we monthly pay um utilities we pay uh the the lease on the leases on all of our xrox machines um uh the leases that we pay to operate our technology so many of those payments are broken down by month and and so you know we get an invoice and and we pay it or it's a it's a standing amount of money okay and then the so payroll is simply payroll and um uh and then the expenses are everything else is that a little

057clear clear so I guess I guess having trouble with today was putting these things together um okay so in Cas if you'll go back to the superintendent report and if you would pull up um uh m o please so that the people in the audience and maybe make it big enough that they might actually be able to read it there you go okay so um down on excuse me so for instance 6100 m MH okay so that's salaries so you can see that for the year our budget is 6,296 and this is out of M only this is not any of the grants this is only out of our maintenance and operations budget and you can see that um uh we've paid so far u a million and we have encumbered I think that's the

058label at the top because I can't see the top but let me see um yeah we have uh encumbered uh in line 61004 million in other words what we've done is we've said here's what we've committed to pay for salaries here here is the amount total amount of uh contracts and work agreements for all of our employees um and so that's encumbered it means that it's not just out there floating around it's it's already tied up it's not been paid yet but it's tied up and then you can see that we have um uh the um the total and then what the balance is okay so um and then benefits so that's 6200 and um and then those other things uh on down that list on down that list are those expense V vouchers okay

059so the expense vou basically is everything except 6,100 roughly okay okay all right and then when you see um so for instance tonight U we have three expense vouchers so um uh we we pay for the most part we pay expenses twice a month um just like we pay payroll twice a month but we also have some things that come in kind of at odd times and um you know and we don't want time limits or 30 days to go by between when they've sent us the invoice and we need to pay and and so there are times when we run an extra expense voucher to make sure that we're not uh being charged interest on things or that we're not um uh ruining our our uh credibility with some of our vendors okay yeah

060great question that's I just needed to have that somehow put my brain does anybody um have any other questions on that kind of stuff okay thank you thank you very much sure so do we we have to have a motion to accept the V vouchers then right yes you do I need a motion to uh ratify the vouchers then please I I make a motion that we ratify or accept the vouchers is there a second I'll second the that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rusher I barbariki I Sheila Barnett so I'll go to my first here we are now in Old business um policy or excuse me 4.1 policy G or HG staff meet and confer organizations uh Madam president oh we don't have our example there

061um this is the one that where we were making the change of U making sure we added technology to be represented in confer and uh and to uh you know to clean that up to make it match what we uh what we're really doing minor change but still representing another part of our we took out Transportation no transportation oh yes yeah uh no transportation is still represented in meet and confer um Food Service oh that was it Food Service yeah because we went to an outside Serv yes yes I remember uh do I have a motion to approve I'll make a motion that we approve policy HG staff meet and confer organizations is there a second I second two seconds all those in favor I'm Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz it's your turn I'm sorry

062sleeping the switch good evening uh hi Fred Rush hi barbar Zuki hi Sheila Barnett can can I make a motion that we turn the air conditioner down or up or off or something I'm freezing here sure thank you me too thank you Barb we have some have second from the audience it's interesting that 75 degrees is not the same from room to room no many keep we're now in Old business 5.1 we're going to convene into executive session consideration of student discipline pursuant to ARS 384 31.03 A2 discussion or consideration of Records exempt by law from public exp inspection including the receipt and discussion of information or testimony that's specifically required to be maintained as confidential by the state or federal law and AR ARS 15840 a 15 841b D and 845 843a and F

063through G regarding suspension or expulsion of pupils do I have a motion to that's an H not a g that was an H instead of a G oh shs let start over do I how about if I just start with 15843 a N FH regarding suspension and expulsion of pupils today has been a bad dyslexic day so don't be pushing your M do I have a a move do I have a motion to move into executive session I'll make a motion that we move to Executive session I second it all those in favor I'm Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I barbariki I Sheila Bernett okay we are in executive [Music] session [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] la [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

064[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] see [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Music] n [Music] e [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] he [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] n [Music] yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] la [Music] sh [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] he [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] sh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] see [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

065[Music] [Applause] [Music] convene into regular session please Madam president I make a motion that we reconvene into regular session I second that motion all those in favor I'm ainda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I BB ziki I Sheila Bernett okay item 8.1 policy CBI evaluation of superintendent revision first reading uh Madam president and board members uh a while back we made some changes in timelines and whatever relative to uh the evaluation for me and um we didn't follow that up by adjusting the policy so this is a recommended uh changes so that the policy matches what you all decided you wanted to do okay and it is first reading so no action tonight when I read this today it made sense to me it's exactly what we said so that was just changing

066the dates right yeah and then the the that last big part that's crossed out actually is a recommendation from um U because asba um changes in the state law led asba to change some things in this policy particularly that long section that's crossed off um and they had recommended some different dates um but I knew that you all wanted these dates instead so you'll notice that the C is also the copyright is also uh removed from uh the recommended uh revision for this so part of it it comes from the as from the state law and part of it is um based on your decisions okay okay we are not making any motion at this time policy CB evaluation of the superintendent this is just the Madam president and board This was um we found

067when we were looking at that policy Cassie and I found that the old uh evaluation instrument was still in our policy so um this is just substituting uh that new document that you all approved uh earlier and so once again making making the exhibit match practice okay okay we don't have and and you can approve this when it's an exhibit uh if you want to if we want to well I mean you don't have to wait for a second reading you can do this one on first reading it's an exhibit so regulations and Exhibits don't have to have second readings they can they can be approved immediately all right do I have a motion to approve policy uh cb- e evaluation of the superintendent I'll make a motion to approve policy exhibit cb- evaluation of

068superintendent I'll second that motion all those in favor I'm Alinda sabraski Charlene oh I sorry I was reading hi Fred rushon hi barbariki hi Sheila Bern must be catching FR R yes you did just trying to make me feel good item 8.3 retroactive approval of disposal of old assets Madam president and board members um you know that most months you have uh some of those items in the consent agenda for removal of old assets one of the things that uh we one of the things that needs to happen as we're wrapping up the financial report for the year uh is that those kinds of things need to be cleared and they need to be cleared before that AFR is presented to you so um um this is one of those uh like a couple of

069other things where we know it's going to be on a succeeding agenda for you to be aware of but uh requesting your approval for uh in this case retro active to the list that um had to be done before the AFR was completed if that's sufficiently confusing sometimes we have to take action because there are timelines that we have to meet meet and they don't match some of the other timelines and and board meeting dates is this the stuff we would normally put out in the shed we haven't built yet yeah but it's coming but yes some of this is yes yes soon soon do I have a motion to approve uh the retroactive disposal of old assets I make a motion to approve the retroactive uh disposal of old assets I'll second that motion

070all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon i b Zar ziki I Sheila Bernett item 8.4 annual financial report FY 23 Madam president and board members besides the budget that you approve for uh an upcoming year or a current year um the annual financial report is the other significant uh action that the board takes relative to the finan cial status of the of the school district so um excuse me our fiscal year is July 1st through June 30th and um and so um uh official business is completed but there are frequently outstanding invoices and those kinds of things and so uh we don't actually close the books uh until um uh the end of July so then that means that our financial uh folks in the business office then have

071to um make all you know look look at all those numbers make sure all the reports are in the right place make sure all of the coding is correct and all of those kinds of things um that we need to have done um to wrap up the year and then submit that final report to the uh to the uh state auditor General's office and to uh the Arizona Department of Education that then becomes the basis for the uh single audit um that is done each year by an outside uh outside company so um uh what you have in front of you is uh had in front of you or have in front of you is the summary of that AFR and um uh the documents to be signed relative to that wrapping up fiscal year

07223 can you show us the summary Cassie I will tell you this is a one-page summary of a document that's about 30 pages long and the numbers in red are are deficits right yes and um but you'll notice that that's Federal projects and so for instance our Esser uh Esser 3 um uh goes through September of next year okay and um and uh and then we also have one that's in red that I that is 691 it doesn't have a number next to it but it has to do with the sfob so uh they can approve projects for us that's the one that's um the building renewal Grant uh and so they there were projects they approved that we completed um for which we've not been reimbursed and so that that will get covered but

073it um uh in terms of you know wrapping up last year uh it it ends up in the red because they had not paid us yet any questions do I have a motion to approve the annual F financial report for school for the fiscal year of 2023 Madame President I make a motion that we approve the uh 2023 annual financial report summary that we just looked at is there a second I I seconded all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I barbariki I Sheila Bernett okay item 8.5 we're going to create some additional prepare professional par professional positions that's three PS right in a row for the remainder of FY or fiscal year 2024 Madam president and board members um uh we have big enrollments and we have need

074for uh some additional uh assistance in some classrooms and we have the grant funding uh to do this so it would these would be positions that would only exist until the end of this fiscal year one for one for title one at Desert Valley and one for uh the preschool program at Coyote Canyon and it's only for this fiscal year it's only to would be through June 30 actually it would be through through May 26th does it Val what was the other one the preschool Madam superintendent do you have uh applicants we we can't we cannot post the positions until you approve them I understand thank you do I have a motion to create these two new positions care professional positions for just school year 25 or 24 23 24 23 24 F year is

07524 I I'll make a motion that we create additional pair of professional positions for the remainder of fiscal year 24 I'll second that motion all those in favor I'm Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I barbariki I Sheila Bernett can you really find pit people who will only work for that long um yeah usually we can we don't usually have any problem uh partly because once folks get their foot in the door and other folks leave somewhere along the line then you know if they're good employees we're going to figure out how to how to keep them keep them good job item 8.6 Revis the classified salary schedule to comply with the change in minimum wage beginning uh January 1 24 Madame President and board members um based on the information that we

076had last spring uh I thought that the salary schedule that I had you approve for this current year uh was already at what the new minimum wage would be uh in January um well okay surprise surprise it wasn't uh and so um so we find ourselves in this position uh to to bring this up um I'm never willing to just increase uh step one box one sell one on the chart to meet that uh if we're going to if we're going to increase minimum wage then we need to do so across the board so um uh so you can see the entire everything on here has been uh every cell has been increased by 10 cents to reflect that because we had already increased uh uh above that be before why is number or line

077four or column four why is it highlighted uh because we want to uh we kind of want to emphasize bus driver positions in those uh those situations understand that any questions for our superintendent I need a motion then to revise the classified salary schedule to comply with the minimum wage beginning July or excuse me J January 1st 2024 Madame President I make a motion that we accept this revised uh classified salary schedule to apply to the change in the minimum wage effective 1124 I'll second that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rush I Bari I reading ahead change uh item 8.7 change principal secretary's positions from hourly to salary beginning 1st of January 2024 Madam president and board members um principal secretaries were uh on that salary schedule

078that you've seen have been on there um but we also have uh at least two of our principal secretaries who are already salaried um and their work schedules are such that um paying them hour hourly is just not the best thing so they had asked me to consider U moving all of them to salaried positions um and um and they made a good case for that and I think it was an appropriate thing to do and the timing works because we're making this change anyway so uh uh what I'd like to do is have them um then it becomes a a daily rate based on uh it's it's based on what that hourly rate would be that's on the salary schedule um but it becomes a daily rate and um uh and based on what

079the annual rate would be so when I come to you in the spring with the salary schedule so like the one you just looked at uh the teacher salary schedule the uh other professional salary schedule which is principes and coaches and those folks I will also have uh two more salary schedules for you to consider one for the secretaries and uh and then well several actually uh but actual uh salary schedules for a number of our classified folks who don't fall on that um that classified schedule so some folks who are already on Sal salary for instance uh James mcnut as the Director of of Technology um Mark Scott who's the director of facilities and uh our um our homeless coordinator and and those folks so that instead of it being an hourly we're paying

080them hourly it will be an annual salary so we're moving uh in that direction and then it won't matter what their work calendar looks like so for instance um site secretaries um their their work agreement is 19920 hourss a year the way the calendar works sometimes that's going to be 223 days like this year sometimes that might be 225 days so the daily rate would adjust based on the number of days but but the salary for the year would stay the same so you know or increase as as needed so uh this is a step toward what uh what we're going to be proposing for next year and this would then move them to would be the same based on the based on the same hourly rate they're paid right now but be paid by

081the day for the number of days left in their calendar for this year and um and actually for most of them working it out there's a very besides the 10 cents there's a very slight increase because I wanted to move to some round numbers so that we didn't have things like $3 36,42 you know so um that kind of thing it cleans it up always thought they should be cerated anyway yes do I have a motion to approve um putting the principal secretaries on salary as a salary position I make starting January 1st I make a motion we change the uh Principal Secret AR's uh position to a salary position beginning January 1st 2024 from hourly I'll second that motion all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I barbariki

082I shella Bernett okay we're this is item 8.8 asba policy advisory 748 to 762 there's a lot of them not as many as last last year that's true I think we had double this number last year um Madame President and board members these are uh recommended changes in policies based on uh legal changes that were made by the legislature during the last session and um uh when you look at them sometimes it's one or two sentences sometimes it's more than that and this year it seems to be pretty much just the one or two sentences and those kinds of things um and I've only put in front of you the ones that apply to our district uh for instance since there is one policy that change uh that the recomend has a recommended change um

083but it only applies to school districts with fewer than 600 students doesn't mean we so we don't need to change our policy the policy can stay the way it is so it's not on this list um so these are these are all based on changes in the state law and it is first reading so uh you have time to uh peruse them before next month okay good so we'll let that go item 8.9 discussion and possible action regarding a joint resolution expressing concern and disapproval regarding the recent uh executive director appointment process conducted by the Executive Board of the Arizona schools boards Association I ask that this be put on the agenda because originally I was part of it um I saw what was coming down and what how the vote was going and how

084the the room was divided and I basically said I can't do this so I immediately quit I immediately took my name off the list so I'm no longer um an executive board member but basically um this is explained just like it happened uh I came in and I talked talk to do Dr Stewart about about this and explain to her why I had taken my name from the the role and um I think that this is pretty much what I told you um this came to me from um these these 22 past presidents for the executive board then they have seen this happen and they they're concerned and I am concerned about where asba is headed Integrity To Me is everything is is one of the most important things honesty is one of the most

085important things you can do as a human you can make a lot of mistakes but at least if you're honest about the mistake it's okay you know we can get by it this is not an honest mistake um they've got proof that this guy did not have this does not have this degree and he needs that degree to be for that position yeah he doesn't have the credentials or anything that he said he did um Madam president I'm not sure that he has to have a degree to be the executive director I'm not sure I don't know what was in the job description or in the qualifications the J he had to have a degree okay for this he didn't have to have a degree for his prior okay so but I think part of

086the point here is whether if that you know whether that was was listed as one of the qualifications or not I think from my reading of the letter from the 22 presidents is the fact that that he uh did not tell the truth yeah the real issue is the false is the dishonesty yeah yeah and his story changed several times and so what what the 22 presidents past presidents did is they came up with a um um resolution yeah a joint resolution there it is joint resolution thank you uh concerning this and so excuse me what I'd like to do what I'd like to propose is that we um basically approve of this and take action on it and and then send it to the appropriate people would that mean we're basically doing the same

087thing we're just just writing our own we're we're supporting Pima County and other places have done this for the same reason right um honesty out there in front um and that's what this is U Madam president if I might add um part of part of what is said in the letter that came to you all um is the fact that the 22 former presidents have have gone to the Constitution and bylaws of asba and it authorizes in in with certain stipulations that the membership of asba because of course the asba is literally owned by the districts that uh that are members you know it's a client membership thing um and that the bylaws allow for the membership to call for a special meeting to discuss these things with a certain number uh of of of

088um member districts making that request so this resolution uh came to you as a board um to say you know will you be one of the client members who uh who support having this special meeting that's really what the resolution boils down to and I say that partly to help the audience and the public understand what it is you all are considering not that you don't understand but I think the public you know probably wonders what is this all about Cass can you go up to the top so we can make a motion I'm just to make sure yeah so basically we're just adopting it so I make a motion to adopt the joint resolution expressing concern and disapproval regarding the recent executive director appointment process conducted by the executive board of the Arizona school

089boards Association I second it all those in favor I Melinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rush I barbariki I Shila Barnett okay thank you for that 8.10 governing board self survey we were all given a copy of this and one of us failed to read her email but we won't mention any names Charlene what can I say but she she uh basically has indicated to us that she AG she's in agreement with basically what's going um Can the people see this can you show you I we don't have it loaded up oh we don't okay no [Music] um can we give a copy of these to that's your choice would you guys like to see this can you pull it up you can pull it up oh okay even though we didn't have if

090you'd like yeah I think people need to see that we we we' figured out where we need to go from here this was a survey that went out um via email and there were like 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 questions that we had to answer and um first question was this one and obviously we all kind of agreed that we we try do everything as professionally as possible and the next one is still um that's very much professionalism yeah I think I think we don't get into hot water until we get to I wouldn't even call it hot water then no no keep going keep going there here's our first one um next PA the efforts basically I think that we're

091taking care of this starting tomorrow because we have um would you like to explain what we're going what's happening tomorrow well tomorrow is the second uh meeting of um a fairly large committee 20 28 or 29 folks uh school district and Community folks uh for strategic planning so uh in June uh that group met to uh uh first of all celebrate some things some points of some points of Pride and then areas of need uh to be addressed by the district and uh tomorrow's meeting will uh involve that same group of folks um then prioritizing identifying the the areas of need that that you know that they really feel need to be addressed uh and prioritizing them and then writing smart goals uh for two or three in each of those areas if if that's

092what they choose to do so it'll break into small into subcommittees to to be addressing those kinds of things and then after we've done all that stuff stuff and then you have a plan then we have a plan we're going to publish that plan yes absolutely publish the plan and um just that process helps with this item for you agreed so I think that I think we are working on that yes definitely um can you go on back down to the one there you go here's here's one this is big in red yeah um we do have a problem with with learning new names and learning about new personnel and we always see lists of people and we always see that kind of thing I'm just wondering and this a a possible solution what would

093happen if Dr Stewart were to invite the new hires to meet with us for five or 10 minutes before a board meeting just to shake hands MH so we at least look them in the eye and say okay welcome name to a face um and then when maybe when we pass them in the grocery store they'll recognize us or we'll recognize them and we'll be able to say something was that would would you think that would be a start to to correcting this yes defitely because we don't get and when we get out into school sometimes I've noticed that we wear a hat we wear a Schoolboard hat and people are nice to us they're kind to us but um you don't really get to know them where a 10-minute session of shaking hands might

094be just what we need MH and I think there's just I was one of the ones who said we needed Improvement and it's more my for myself as a member of the board not necessarily the board of myself going out to the schools and actually meeting the people and actually looking them in the eye hey we're here for you and this is why I'm doing this kind I'm one of the red people I'm one of the red people and I cuz I basically and I get out to the schools but I still don't know enough people Unfortunately they change which makes it hard but but you think it's a possibility absolutely yeah I think that would be really nice now another uh possible idea is when they have an all district professional development day that

095we are able to come to the meeting and meet the teachers at that time too and stuff come during the the morning breakfast type area or time you know and make sure that we get the M&M so that they always get you got it okay I can do that thank you for that suggestion Barb can you go to the next H there we go we I I feel that we get these periodic re reports but somebody doesn't well we get the reports but the periodic visitations to the schools I think that's that that was a part that threw it off us because we do get the reports all the time but we never get out and really visit the schools and stuff so that was personal thing for me I need I need to do

096that so Dr Stewart Carolyn um was actually doing this a little bit when she was asking people to come in and do reports yeah cuz I can remember saying tell me a story tell me a story and that's that's basically I think what she was doing here we might want to continue that oh absolutely and what you had in Workshop tonight is even though I didn't know what you all had done here but that's part of it is you need to know as a board you need to have some information about what what it is we're doing to get to the place we want to be and that was one reason that I asked Kevin to come um you know you didn't need to hear his information from me you needed to hear it from

097him because it's you know his his good stuff so I anticipate asking him uh to come back after that next riger walk um and and show you what the chart looks like then those charts look like after you know a few more months so I think that's but I also appreciate Dr Sheila's comment about you know that you recognize that this is not something you're asking the schools to do or principals or teachers or me to do this is something you're recognizing for yourself and and I will tell you that our employees um uh will appreciate um that uhu that self-reflection from you now Dr Stuart how could we um like Kevin brought up you know come over go over and observe a walkthrough the principles just calling the principles inste arrange it with arrange

098it with the princip princi and we can go that was my next question yeah arrange with the principal okay um they're doing they're doing walks a lot on you know on their own not just when IE is here although I is here a lot but um uh you know it's part of their part of their growth to be out doing those things themselves and um uh yeah just arrange with them okay thank you okay any other suggestions on that one M getting into school is okay it's just getting your behind in in the car and getting there yes um again this goes back to tomorrow yeah uh we have several Community people and of you know in positions in the community um and there they are going to be talking somewhat about the well part

099of it is the instructional program absolutely because it's on that it's on that list do we we have any other way that the the community can talk to us other than email that we get in this case um each each site has a site Council and so those are parents who are U you know who are meeting at least quarterly uh with the with the principal and some of the teachers and and part of that discussion part of that is the opportunity for principles to be sharing with parents and and with community members uh what those programs are um and um so so some of your feeling of responsibility about that actually kind of devolves to the to the site level um uh you know because for you all to be able to even you

100could be asking parents and community members for lots of input but I don't know how comfortable you would feel if they said well talk about the social studies Comm uh social studies instructional program at uh at the middle school at sixth grade level um I will tell you even I would have difficulty doing that without a little homework U because really you're talking about the expectation that you would be able to answer questions about literally every subject we teach at every grade level so um I think maybe in this case instructional program might Focus Less on the curriculum and more on what you were hearing from uh what you were hearing from Kevin tonight which is about how we how we teach students and I think also the goal that you all have that we're

101working on which is the grading is we're really going to need your support and your um uh explanation and and your um growing knowledge once that revised grading system is presented to you for approval for you to be able to knowledgeably speak about that to the public because grades abcdf has been ingrained in in all of us for you know over 100 years and to be making some some changes in that even minor changes in that um requires some selling if you will um certainly some explanation and and why and those kinds of things so that's going to be a really important piece for you as a board and as board members to be able to uh reach out to families okay uh the next one is Community Information we talk about this almost at

102every meeting yeah uh and you know just explaining the the voucher thing to me tonight should have helped anybody who was listening to understand that that they do are connected and that how they work um I don't know how we would inform the community about that stuff if they weren't listening or at a meeting well we certainly could do some workshops I there was a very well-written letter to the editor recently about uh you know poor salaries and and those things and specifically mentioned our district um and uh the letter was very well written and the information in it was accurate as far as it went um but it also pointed out that um there's a real need for what I've called to you when when I've presented things to you all in the past

103U school Finance 101 and you know some understanding that um because the the person for instance in that letter said you know the board determines the budget and and determines how it gets spent which is the truth except that you don't really determine the budget um uh the state says here's your pot of money you know here's what you get period and uh and then what you and I do is we decide okay how can we get the most how can we get the most bang out of that out of the Bucks in that bucket and um uh so you know sometimes helping people understand um maybe at some point offering a offering a you know a town hall for Budget relative to how budgeting Works um and and not making it boring but helping

104people understand so uh if you recall in one of our conversations not too many months ago uh where I where I showed you a chart that showed the difference in uh the spending in different school districts where districts like ours just can we just man we do what we need to do with m& with the with the state money and the you know the tax money and our grants but that there are districts that have four times that amount of money that they can that they can budget and use for things because they can do overrides they can pass override tax overrides in their Community or bonds or those kinds of things uh Lance sent in his daily um uh daily news items to uh Jen and me today an article 45 of the 58

105school districts in Maricopa County have at least one override in place because they are property Rich districts and their voters support those and and so overrides can be used for things like increased salary schedules um you know for those things that are not fixed costs or they can use them for capital projects um uh we have we have another Plumbing project at the middle school that has to be done has to be done um Mark estimates it's going to be 50,000 okay now in the scheme of in the scheme of our combined M and capital budgets of roughly million 50,000 doesn't sound like a lot U but it's not necessarily been budgeted right you know it's it's not like 6 months ago I knew that we were going to have to have this $50,000 project

106and it's not the kind of thing that we can submit to sfob it's because the campus is old old okay it's 50 years old and uh um and so we can anticipate that those things are going to start happening in you know particularly the older the facility is so in that article that Lance shared today a couple of those districts were talking about they're asking for a second override okay they already have one in place they're having on the ballot a second override for capital capital projects and why are they having to do that well because sfob doesn't have the money and to you know to to help them fix things so that's just an example and it's the kind of thing that the general public doesn't know um and and and they don't probably

107don't know never mind can't don't think about the fact that we are not a property Rich District it would be highly unlikely that we could pass an override um which is one reason we don't even try um uh you know if if you if you have a pretty good idea going in that it would be 7030 no kind of difficult to justify doing that to waste the money and time to do it so U so you know uh but that's helpful for people to know um so you know that's just one example and it just happened to be an article today and um of course it's the kind of article that Ruffles my feathers because I you know I keep thinking but we have kids in need and and not that those districts don't have

108kids in needs don't get me wrong but that you know that there's only so much we can do well maybe we should look at the Town Hall then so you know I can I can still remember the one we did back a couple of years ago where you did the marbles and stuff and I mean that that just brought it to life where people could you know having been in education for all my for 40 years plus you know now it it brought it to life cuz you know I've heard about the MOs and I I I knew there was restricted budgets but watching you do the marble thing it really brought it to life so that you know the audience and the general public could see exactly what we're going through and stuff and

109I think it help would help thanks Barb for that I I appreciate it those marbles are sitting on my table they're they're there ready for me to use anytime somebody comes in to talk to me about these things um um but um but the real message there is you all don't get to decide how many marbles are in that are in that bucket we just get to help you figure out where to put the marbles exactly how to how to you know how to how to use those marbles but um and and I think that's a I think that's a critical piece too okay maybe a town H [Music] um some of our priorities yeah here you go more qualified teachers I think every all three of these list the more qualified teachers certified teachers

110more staff how to keep the staff how to um I think that we're all there and we have talked about low test scores and what was the other one um no go back up there Cassy thank you um greatting system you we've talked about that lack of community involvement and leading to negative Community statements thoughts Etc that was me I our community and this goes back to to them being informed about funding and whatnot probably going to get in trouble for saying this but they don't come to the meetings where are they but yet they have all these negative comments on Facebook and negative comments of people just oh you're on the School Board where are they so that's what I mean by that there's there's no Community involvement but yet they want to complain

111so I don't know how we fix that the town hall I think would be a really great first step but we can't fix things we can't explain things to them or show them things if they're not here so the lack of the community involvement even parental involvement concerns me you you know when my kids were growing up this place would have been full and we only had about 1 1200 kids in the school from K to 12 and it would have been full and we don't have that here and we have how many students 22 200,000 yeah maybe if we got Fred to dress up in a funny hat or something a red notse I just had a carnival theme I've got all kinds of really cool cost so um you've got you got a

112real point I think Fred inviting some of your friends to come is a good way too the more people the more people who come and learn things and go out and say things yes uh somebody used the example uh the the metaphor for me the other day and said it's like the ants you know one ant goes and finds the food source and then takes that information back and then brings the ants so it's kind of like that you know if if each one bring one then when those folks go out they're more informed and and um you know can can share the information the proper correct information yes that's my biggest thing I did and obviously have learned so much in the last six months to a year but people aren't people are people

113are that's what they are but if there was some way like to offer them that incentive to come and help us we we want the help as much as as they're complaining about things we want them to come complain to us so we know how to fix it yeah or we at least have an idea of the needs that they're seeing that we might not see I don't have children in school anymore right and I'm in a whole totally different state than where I went you know my kids went to school come tell us and I think the flip side of that Sheila is is um that they find out that maybe what they think is a problem isn't you know they share with us what they what they think are problems and if they

114are then we can work on things we can't fix things we don't know about right exactly you we can't fix things we don't know are broken the flip side of that is is letting them know that some of the things that they think are broken maybe maybe are not broken or aren't are like the whole state funding thing A lot of people do not realize that whole state funding thing and they think that we're withholding funding for these kids we just don't have it we're not withholding it right okay um going down a little bit listing any weakness I think that when we bring something to our superintendent it gets fixed yes one way or another or explained yeah you know most definitely so thank you for doing that significant things oh my gosh trans

115who who put this one in transactions with the cities I did yeah I had forgotten completely about that thank you Fred that was thank Dr Stewart yeah right um we I hope the city doesn't realize how much we won um don't tell them yeah no we haven't signed the papers yet uh I I think that you know we we added the den project we've added a a child child care center um we've changed the carpeting out we've fixed the plumbing we've done all sorts of stuff to make things safer and I appreciate that and the the school district is really trying to to do the right thing and I think that we're part of that so absolutely be um you're giving yourself some pets on the back um is this something that would be good

116to publish somewhere that's up to you how do you guys feel about it doing what publishing it letting people know that we do a self evaluation that we we actually talk about things that need to be done it could go on the web page there's a there's a governing board web page mhm I think that might I think it' be a great idea I don't think yeah and there wouldn't be any expense involved that's right we definitely didn't say 100% for everything we at least tried to be as honest with ourselves as we could make we can make that happen and make sure that you mentioned that Charlene didn't turn how about how about she gets a chance to add her her add hers before Cassie sends it off to the web page I think

117that's not fun okay yeah that's probably the best thing to do okay if I can find the email you want to resend that to me [Laughter] Cass okay let me make sure I'm on the right thing um 9.1 future topics do we have anything that we'd like to have on the agenda for next time or in the future maybe just coming up with ideas of everything that we discussed in the survey maybe just revisiting now that we kind of know what we think maybe coming up with some ideas of how we can improve ourselves if we don't if we don't have um a real important thing to do in the workshop that might be just sitting here and brainstorming a brainstorm Workshop would be good thank you cila that's a good idea ah oh my

118gosh upcoming board events well our next meeting is November 9 is everybody going to be able to be here no I will not be able to be what's November 9th you won't I'm going to be up in page quitting my little finger anybody else not going to be here no I'm good I'll be here I'm looking Barb you could call in if you wanted to be at the meeting I'll be busy making a pen cushion at that time okay I'm good all right so we'll have a quorum so we we're good for November 9th okay um I guess that's we have a ground breaking tomorrow or noay Monday Monday ground breaking on Monday Monday at 1:00 and it's up by where you live great yes it's um uh yeah you turn off Silver Creek on

119Corona Vista there by the uh by the dentist office okay okay if you know where just before diamond in son yes okay Lance said a really nice email you want to look at the map I printed it out there's a map I'm a map person and we have and we have uh we have actually cast tried to contact all of the owners of the vacant Lots nearby for parking actually had a nice conversation with uh one owner and then Larry tforce owns a vacant lot on Corona Vista that's about about the same distance from our property and and people can park there as well because there really is not room to park on the street and um and the property is not particularly accessible by cars we we have a clear enough place to have

120the tent and they have the groundbreaking but there's not really a good way to to drive up on the property yet okay so yeah so a a block block and a half walk comfy shoes tennis shoes yeah yeah that looks good no 9.3 we set the time in place it's here um and then I you should have also gotten information about the asba uh annual conference uh if you want to look over the agenda and if not Cass can send it to you to see if it's something that you're interested in so to attend okay I have a h choir concert those two yeah we both do or all three of us do excuse me there's another one down there that is is true that's what is the dates yes I'm 7th of December that's

121our Christmas I guess I'm not going I was thinking about going but I guess not no you're for those nice oh I already have it on my calendar so you must have somewhere known that we were doing that what voices of the river no the conference no you your two voices I told you I have to do everything six months to a year in advance so when I know there's something there I just block it off good for you well you can go and then report back to us I probably could yeah I don't see any reason why I can't planning and zoning is that night are you going to Planning and Zoning that night no she's singing in the choir too that night so we may have to let them know how a time

122there might not be a quum for that um anything else for the good of the order okay can I have a a motion to adjourn this meeting I make a motion we adjourn the meeting I'll second that motion all those in favor I'm Alinda saski I Charlene Diaz I Fred rushon I Barb ziki I Sheila Barnett we are [Music] adjourned [Music]