001i'd like to call to order this special meeting of the governing board of the cave creek unified school district number 93. today's monday july 20th 2020 uh 1.2 roll call see that all members of the board are here and members of the executive leadership team are here do i have a motion for the formal adoption of the agenda so moved order the special meaning of the governing board second rich sorry i'm hearing some some uh feedback okay we have an a movement a second to approve is it uh presented remember brown aye busby i hatcher i i'm an i rich all right uh item one point four called fill out forms for call the public address agenda items all forms were to be in by 4 pm and will be read into the minutes by
002the board secretary item 1.5 would you know i mean the pledge allegiance at your own pace i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states and to the republic public demands one nation under god liberty item two public comments according to ars 38-431.01 h governing board members may not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during an open call to the public the only allowable responses a governing board member may make are number one board member may respond if there is direct criticism of the board member two board member may direct staff to look into a manner or three board member can ask to have this item placed on future agenda speakers need to be mindful of what they say when presenting to the board inappropriate comments could be considered slanderous we'll ask
003for comments that were turned into the board by a sec by to the board secretary by four o'clock p.m to be read in before each agenda item item three we have no presentations or reports so item 4.1 ccusd returning with excellence academic offerings in school logistics ms scotto do we have um items to be read yes we do president okay and before i start um for all of us that are on this call um while moscato is reading items or there is a presentation going on please mute your microphone because all of the paper um is quite loud and i know we're shifting papers around taking notes you can hear that and it's hard to hear whoever's speaking so um when moscato is reading um comments or if we have a presentation if you could
004mute and then unmute when we start the discussion so moscato whenever you're ready thank you president hill the first comment is from lauren trollpay from scottsdale arizona based on the information provided to parents on the ccusd website about option one face-to-face and option two aoe it has been made clear that classes such as ib dual enrollment and ap are not being offered in option 2. i believe that ccosd 93 not offering the de classes to the enrollment aoa students is discriminatory as parents we are making tough decisions for the health and safety of our children my children live in a household with an autoimmune deficiency member and need to attend the aoe as a given choice due to this disability not being able to register and attend de classes that they are currently enrolled in
005for the 2021 is unacceptable this is discriminatory and deemed completely unfair as we have no other choice in our situation my daughter is a senior this year and is enrolled to attend english 101 de and my son is a sophomore who was enrolled to attend pre-calculus de my children have been very successful in de classes in previous year and in fact my daughter completed her geology 102 course online at the end of last year pvcc fall 2020 courses are all online therefore the classes would be fundamentally online as it stands by not offering the classes in the aoe option you you're knowingly going against the anti-discrimination pledge that you have all taken cc usd 93 is encouraging in discrimination on the basis of a disability and not offering these courses in an equal opportunity to
006those students who attend the option 2 aoe program the governing board of beliefs clearly states that every student will have the opportunity to learn in a safe environment furthermore it also states maintain accountability to parents and students to ensure the highest level of curriculum by not offering an equal opportunity education in both options you are disregarding your goals and beliefs as well as your duty to serve our community i respectfully request that you implement the dual enrollment classes at minimum for our children in option 2 aoe program the children can easily take these classes online through pvcc and submit their course curriculum and grades to captive shadows in order to achieve this opportunity please do what is right for those who are forced to stay home during this pandemic the next comment is from shelly
007dunn of cave creek what is the exact protocol and procedure set in place for when students and or staff test positive for the virus you stated on the website children that may be exposed to this individual will be sent home for three days the children being sent home what can they do to be able to continue studies with their classroom after the third day children return and then ten days later another could test positive for the virus and children who might have been exposed or sent home again for another three days the cycle could continue and the children will be losing instructional time and get behind and suffer for not having the ability to participate with their class live online what happens if a teacher tests positive does the entire classroom go home are there
008substitutes in place are there enough substitutes to use that's the end of ms dunn's comment next comment is from nikki harrington of cave creek her concern ib students have been given no options they are required to be on campus if they cannot attend on campus then their hard work and rigor that they have earned will be lost and the benefits of the ib program will no longer be available affecting their future opportunities for earning the ib diploma in college and career options situation my daughter is an ib senior you are asking her to give up the last three years she has committed to her ib program that is years of rigorous academic work and the opportunity to earn her ib diploma which affects her opportunities of being accepted into colleges and her future she is
009unable to attend on campus due to our family taking care of our 80 year old mother and also having asthma and a family member being immune compromised she is not willing to give up her hard work and ib to attend the online academy that is not affiliated with cactus shadows high school and does not offer ib classes we also do not want to affect teachers and staff if ever we become contagious request i ask that you consider working with the ib students to give an alternate online option from the cactus shadows campus since they may not be able to offend physically some ideas may be working directly with the ib world organization with the ib teachers and the administration to work with alternative methods such as webcams and classrooms independent study canvas zoom to guide
010these ib students they are independent learners and can work on their own if guided by cactus shadows teachers staff and leaders they showed they can work independently already from their work when school was shut down from march to may 2020 we ask that you would be willing to work with ib parents to come up with solutions and help the teachers staff and faculty we support you that is the end of her comment next comment is from kristen pozen of scottsdale as our family makes a choice for the 2021 school year we are making it with more than our household in mind we have friends who are teachers and teachers who have become friends we are very concerned for their health and safety as well as that of the admin support staff bus drivers etc i
011am not confident that option two will keep anyone healthy and safe there are so many unknowns with the virus many time more time is needed to come up with better solutions my preference would be to wait until there is vaccine before anyone returns to school at a minimum wait until second semester to see how our state's cases have decreased my son is enrolled as a sophomore in honors and ap courses so he is not given a choice he must attend school on campus not only endangering himself school employees but then possibly our extended family we are blessed to have three sets of grandparents near us in scottsdale in phoenix we have been extremely careful and we we were early mask adopters as were they is it really worth it to risk lives masks on campus
012should be mandatory and the buses should be half full neither of these guidelines were listed in the document up for a vote tonight a robust online school offering to include honors ap and ip is the only choice we should be making considering at this time let another school district be the test case for now this will work and let's learn from that example thank you that is the end of her comment the next comment is from emily petty upon reviewing the recently announced district offerings for the 2021 school year i have suggestions about two alternatives i do understand that the district is under pressure from families with various points of view luckily as a nonpartisan school board you can rely on statistics and data to make your decision rather than politics public educators are trusted
013to provide our children with information that is unbiased and based in fact they bear a responsibility to also make administrative decisions based in fact rather than theory the research shows that children especially elementary age should physically be in school when possible but it also shows that there is little we know about how covid19 affects children as they have been mostly at home since march excuse me one moment many teachers are in high risk categories yet they are being deemed essential workers without being given any of the ppe or other accommodations that our other frontline workers require in order to do their job safely ccusd should follow the lead of other innovative school districts around the country by implementing the following measures delay the in-person start date for all district schools until local copit 19 numbers
014fall to a rate of no more than five percent positive cases for 14 days or more as recommended by the aap as you know arizona is still experiencing a percent of positive cases over 20 percent this indicates that the virus remains widespread and uncontrolled in the area an arbitrary opening date while better than august 17th is less helpful because data should dictate the safety of opening schools not a calendar prioritize in-person small group learning for students with ieps in grades case six this could be accomplished by implementing flexible learning pods with teachers and aides supervising small groups of students in tandem until full-time regular instruction is advised this model has been proposed in other districts around the country as research has shown the importance of in-person learning for children in special education and for early
015readers enable virtual synchronous learning for all students this can be accomplished by live streaming classes without having to hire more teachers unfortunately the online option that was chosen is subpar and it will encourage many families to leave the district to find a more robust online alternative for their kids the edmentum program does not offer the quality diverse curriculums or the caliber of instruction that ccusd teachers provide the lack of immersion programs electives and honors and apib de classes shows that admentum is clearly not a fair and equal choice for district families by installing webcams in each classroom student students can have the benefit of live teacher instruction when they are unable to attend in person especially when they will inevitably experience 14 day quarantine due to covet 19 exposure that was the end of time
016the next comment is from judy greene our rising seventh grader will need an instructional model not currently offered in ccusd's reopening plan specifically a live teacher-led interactive remote classroom i believe this is how your option number one is set to roll out if one were to select the return to brick and mortar eventually option we are appreciative of this format what we desire is the ability to continue in this remote yet live interactive and synchronous mode once and after campus is open and some elect to physically return to class the asynchronous online academy of excellence isn't a good fit for our learner and we are certain we will not be ready to send our child back to campus at the governor's behest will there be an opportunity to remain home yet benefit from live real-time
017interactive instruction at stms once campus reopen and some students physically return to campus and option number three thank you for immediately addressing our concern and providing an answer that's the end of her comment the next comment is from mark and erica popenhagen please explain to us in detail how a hybri hybrid model is too expensive to consider there are several ways to do a hybrid and i am certain that a creative yet effective model could be implemented safely in a cost-effective manner if a parent is exposed to or tests positive for covid19 their children are expected to self-quarantine for 14 days regardless of whether or not they test positive this could be very challenging for children of healthcare workers who may be exposed frequently the aoe program does not have enough teacher involvement for money
018children and seems to have been downplayed by many school staff what kind of learning opportunities will be available to these kids if the students can't simply bounce between in-person and the aoe because the programs are so different then there is a significant risk that these children's educations will suffer similarly the classroom are small and social distancing has been the keystone for controlling the virus while we understand that the students are mandated to wear masks masks are not suitable for social distancing both are important and have been found to be the most effective how is the district going to address this we do not understand why students cannot have temperatures taken when they arrive at school if we can test over a thousand employees at the hospital for which i work as they enter why can't
019we test a couple of hundred kids especially since we've been told that they will be staggered entry into the school why can it be why can it not be set up that a camera is focused on the teacher while she he teaches the lessons of the school that is then broadcast excuse me broadcast in real time to students so that they can have the benefit of the lesson as taught by their appointed teacher and all of the information that we have received from the district and from the our direct observations the teachers at ccusd are excellent children who opt to learn from home should be able to have full access to that excellence we have been told that we do not have the resources to do this in every classroom but the teachers all did
020this at the end of the last year from their computers so we know it can be done finally we beg the district to follow science and not emotions or budget when making decisions regarding the healthy and well-being of our students teachers staffs parents and community thank you so much that is the end of their comment next comment is from vlad malkin of scottsdale we would like to thank the board and the cactus shadows for working tirelessly in these trying times to charter the safest and most academically productive path forward during the covet pandemic that is the end of his comments the next comments are from jill willaby of cave creek what is the maximum class size for the high school will you be adding lunch periods in the high school and if not how will
021you meet the state requirements for group gatherings of less than 50 people will the high school close if a teacher or a staff member tests positive if so for how long if the academy of excellence is teaching a different curriculum than cactus shadows how can a student transition back to face to face after the first semester those are the end of her comments the next comments are from dr kathleen king thorius of cave creek dear superintendent burdick president hill and school board members i am writing as a parent of a ccusd elementary school student with public comments of appreciation and concern about the process and outcomes of ccusd's decision making regarding school reopening i acknowledge the complexity of this decision i miss rapid increase in cases of copin 19 and developments in state and federal
022guidance and mandates i greatly value the work of our educators and community members in what undoubtedly has been a painstaking process of making such consequential decisions particularly within a socio-politically charged context i respect deeply the tough decisions families and parents are making at this time as well as a public educator for over 20 years across k-21 settings in three states including arizona i appreciate what appears to be a particularly educational decision making process through the involvement of many district stakeholders in weighing available information i have particularly appreciated the communication of bms bmes pto president jessica spencer who has been a true liaison between families in the district she has both filled in gaps and so clarification and information that had not been provided through district communications particularly related to the equity implications for participating in
023special education and related services dual enrollment ap classes across access to technology and instruction for emergent english learners thank you to mr owsley who has provided detailed information to our families and continues to demonstrate a willingness for open communication at the same time i expected more transparent and timely reporting of the roles and information considered by the district along with the process utilized for the reopening committee to make the make and communicate decisions my concerns and related questions to the board and superintendent are as follows surveying ccusd families and staff was of utmost importance however the family survey was not designed to prove to prevent completing and submitting multiple times despite this reliable issue the instrument data analysis guided district decisions about return to school options i do not know if this was the same
024issue for the staff issue since i do not have access to that link but i assume the design was the same how many of the family's responses were repeat responses did the district track this information next families are in the position to choose between a face-to-face option and an online option that unenrolls their child from their public school the online option has been described in formal communications in ways that allude to district funding in educator and staff job security that is time on dr force's comment the next comment is from sean mcmillan of cave creek what is ccusd plan when children and or teachers staff get sent home due to covet exposure and or covet illness it seems like children teachers will consistently get sent home due to covet exposure and or covet illness therefore
025how will ccusd ensure consistent and effective learning for the students if a child is at home for 72 hours or 10 days as required by cdc and that occurs multiple times how will effective learning take place what needs to occur for the governor to shut down schools again once they get reopened what can the parents do to help besides follow cdc and ccusd guidelines besides not sending sick kids to school how can we assist in these unprecedented times what can we please do fundraise or make donations to the pto for covet-related related items please tell us please consider webcams at all schools classrooms so that once back brick and mortar return occurs but students get sick or don't feel safe returning they can still receive live instruction can parents help make this happen thank you
026so much and stay healthy [Music] that's the end of her comments next comment is from aaron boyd of scottsdale why is there not an option to continue online school not the virtual academy choice in conjunction with the in-person option as a third choice is is this a technology issue because live streaming equipment can be expensive or is this an educational decision or is it something else i feel the guidance being provided on how to handle masking social dish distancing hand washing etc needs to be much more detailed less vague less gray and consequences need to be clearly outlined for students who do not follow the provided instructions and how will you ensure this information is effectively communicated to parents and to students prior to schools physically reopening i have seen detailed manuals across the county
027that have already been distributed to parents not just a listing of facts on a website the instructions need to be clear concise and in accordance with medical professionals guidance and or cc cdc guidance for the safety of every person physically at the schools there can be no gray or room for personal interpretation in the instructions that is the end of her comment the next comment is from cynthia ray abraham of cave creek in regards to online school to transition in person my question is if we choose the option to return to traditional face-to-face schooling and then our child either one becomes ill with covid two has several severe seasonal allergies that makes their nose run sneeze and cough three sometimes gets low-grade fevers due to allergies non-contagious all of the above would require our child
028to stay home from school this would mean most likely for my child many more days would be missed from school than technically has allowed how would that be managed in regards to rules and also in regards to missing so much classwork would there be an option to do any work online on the days you cannot come due to things like this the scenarios above a zoom slash live or recorded video from the class an option there is likely to be many more absences than before how will this be managed so children do not fall behind thank you cynthia ray abraham that is the end of her comment next comment is from monica french of cave creek everyone knows that some parents have sent their kids to school in the past when they are sick or
029had fevers so if we aren't checking temps when kids enter school how will we know that isn't still happening what procedures will be in place to make sure infections are reported how will an exposure be handled if someone in my child's class is exposed will the whole class have to quarantine how will that work for learning and attendance records teachers already have so much on their plates how do we expect them now to make sure kids are properly wearing masks and also making sure class supplies door handles desks etc are cleaned and sanitized between use who was responsible for deciding our back to school programs i see keep seeing committees but why can't we as parents know who make up these committees why was the aoe offered to parents before it was ever approved by
030the board what are we doing to protect our teachers they come in contact with a hundred plus kids a day how are you keeping them safe that is the end of miss french's comments this is the final comment president hill it's from ashley flowers of scottsdale i would like to see the ccusd 93 consider allowing children to submit their antibody tests at some determined frequency to allow the child who have a coven 19 antibodies to attend school without masks similarly adults who also have had the antibody test would be allowed to volunteer in the school classroom once the schools are able to reopen for anyone who does not understand antibody testing antibody tests check your blood by looking for antibodies which may tell you if you had a past infection with the virus that causes
031covid19 antibodies are proteins that help fight off infections and can provide protection against getting that disease again immunity antibodies are disease specific for example measles antibodies will protect you from getting measles if you are exposed to it again but they won't protect you from getting mumps if you are exposed to mumps antibody tests for copin 19 are available through healthcare providers thank you for the opportunity to address the governing board during this ever-changing climate better that is the end of the comments for item 4.1 president hill thank you ms moscato uh item 4.1 presented by dr burdick and dr miller president hill governing board members and dr burdick um i'll go ahead and start since the return to school portion is listed first in the agenda item um i will assume that everyone has read
032this document and if not or if you have questions about that we're going to take the questions when we finish the entire item so i wanted to start off by just letting everyone know that we've had a return to school committee that consisted of parents teachers administration and staff and our committee work we've had nine meetings and we have stopped the committee work for this committee until after august 5th when school returns so that we can regroup and reassess and see where we are with what the governor is recommending what arizona department of education is recommending um and of course cdc so initially when we began our work the arizona department of education had sent four learning models that were potentials for schools and so we looked at all four of those models and we
033initially started a lot of work on the hybrid model and we actually had developed six potential models that might be used and what we did as a committee because this information was just to make a recommendation to the superintendent about what we were suggesting and um we voted or we did consensus and we landed on two models and even with the consensus everyone on the committee was we were landing on two models but everyone felt that the hybrid model was not good for kids and that is simply because of if we had when the arizona department of education said that and the governor said that we were going back to school we would have some kids going back to the classroom and alongside that model we would also have to have a hybrid and we're
034unable to run two models in a school building at one time so for instance at the elementary level if we did a hybrid we would have to designate a elementary school would be the hybrid model and then the other schools would potentially be the face-to-face models when everyone has to return and so we know that our parents are not going to want to displace their kids from one of their elementary schools to another elementary school at the middle school in high school for example if we ran those two models alongside each other um we would have to designate buildings at the middle school and high school to be the hybrid and then some buildings would be face to face and so we just determined based on that information we would make two recommendations but we
035don't we didn't feel like they were good recommendations then the governor came out with then his next um executive order and told us that we were going back to school on august 5th and we started looking at the two models of return distance learning plus face-to-face and then an aoi or an arizona online instruction school and prior to covid um this year we had determined that we were going to move forward with an online school and that was to capture students and parents that wanted an alternative from going to brick and mortar schools then we had covered 19. and so we picked up the pace did the application for the arizona online school and then the ade arizona department of education said you know what you don't have to get it approved because in this
036unprecedented time we're going to go ahead and allow you to have that school without the final approval so many schools in many districts did exactly what we did and they applied for an online school um so we will be getting this will be school number eight and um we move forward with that process so the committee work continued to move forward as we looked at face-to-face and distance and then the arizona online instruction our committee is are the committee is the committee that put out the surveys both to the parent parents and to the staff and i'd like to say thank you to one of our parents jenny at one of our elementary schools she is a researcher and she develops surveys as her profession and um so she has spent much time and effort
037developing the surveys and getting us the results and as you all know during all this time as we would have committee meetings and we put out our surveys everything continued to change so we also sent the question out to all the parents um which model would you choose once we got these two options out to our families um to date and we know that a lot of families wanted to wait until the board meeting this evening to make their decision we have about students in our school district uh to date we have 3090 responses and 2725 have elected for the distance learning and face-to-face and 365 have enrolled for the arizona online school which is the academy of excellence in cave creek so certainly we know that learning is going to look different i couldn't
038agree more with all the comments that i've heard here tonight and from parents in general about we have outstanding teachers and we are going to do a fantastic job with our distance learning and with our aoe so that's a little bit of the process um of how we got to option one and two and we feel very confident about both options um and our teachers ability to teach both options um so with that i think um i think that's all i have for that portion of this item dr burdick thank you thank you dr miller and uh president hill and governing board members and those out watching on youtube so the logistics committee um was deformed for the purpose of looking at the logistics of how it might look at brick and mortar school once
039we reopened and we were trying to make sure that we were doing ordering for materials and figuring out the very challenging reality of how we bring our students back to brick and mortar school without the ability to hire additional staff or have additional building space for additional school buses or additional school bus drivers but with the budget that we have and the committee makeup was 21 individuals total unlike the committee or team that dr miller had this one was of the people that do the work in the school district so we had eight directors that were part of it seven principals two nurses um and our executive leadership team we actually had um a total of eight meetings and then those were group meetings and then we had um actually eight subcommittees that also um
040had their many meetings with their subcommittee and those subcommittees were delivery of instruction clubs and athletics transportation communication ppe calendar and classroom scheduling non-essential visitors and child nutrition and health and wellness and so we had quite a few meetings we're meeting every week we are continuing to meet and we'll actually meet this week for our last scheduled meeting just checking on seeing what questions people on the committee have as well as any ordering issues we're having etc we started meeting in june and have continued to meet throughout the weeks through july you can see in the um documents that you have uh the logistics pieces that we have included for the board and the community this is a pretty version we've been working on it on an online document and adding to it and changing
041things for the entire month of june and july and um i want to mention and although this is really part of the academic piece that dr miller was talking about that we have heard so many folks that have said why can't you do something besides the aoe for the students that may need specialized classes and this might be um ibap dual enrollment um honors courses it might be some um specialized iep needs for our special education students it might be our immersion students in elementary and middle school and it might be for every classroom so we have started since last week with the high school looking at additional model that might meet these needs to continuing that discussion today and looking at pricings of webcams and a way that perhaps we can add a third
042option that might be a way for not only students and specialized programs but it might also be an ability for if a classroom or some students in a classroom do fall ill that they would be able to follow along in the brick and mortar classroom through a webcam and so again we have just started this looking at this option and all the logistics and budget it might take um but that is something that we did start last week and we'll continue to look into and we know we have some time we know the board will be looking at a possible extension tonight of the brook and mortar school start we also have been hearing rumors from um downtown in the governor's tower that there may be an additional executive order this week that may also
043extend the school time so with those things offered um i think that has been one of the most consistent questions including some of the comments that were read by mrs scotto tonight about a possible webcam option um the other thing that we've heard a lot about is what happens if a student gets covid or what happens as a staff member gets covet 19 how are you doing contact tracing how long will the school that student be out of school will the classroom be out of school will the school close many questions that we are still waiting for guidance from the maricopa county department of public health and we keep asking when the specific guidance will come out we have had two webinars in the last two weeks from them they have not gotten to those
044scenarios and questions yet so the information that you see in our guidance which has a scenario one and a scenario two are possible scenarios for that but we would immediately if we do have a case be contacting maricopa department of public health for their guidance if they have not given it to that point on what would be the best practice for our school we do know if there's an active case number one we shut down that classroom and after doing contact racing we may have to shut down other areas of the school depending on where the student or the class went it's easier for us to do it elementary since those students will be grouped together then it will be for us to do at middle although middle isn't teams still a little more aggregated
045but at high school the students will be changing classes and that will be much more difficult to be able to keep it contained so all of those things will be factors anytime there's an exposure or a case and we will have to look at many things it's not one of those things where we can give you a chart and say if this happens then this we will be looking at all the contact tracing where the students or the staff member may have been and then determining what with the guidance from the health department what is the best case for containing that exposure in our school with the scenario let's say that a classroom is shut down and let's say it's elementary we would then go back for that entire class to the distance learning model
046that we are starting with before going to brick and mortar and since they'll be the same students as well as the same teacher they will seamlessly move back into that until they can seamlessly move back into the classroom the challenge will be for how far that moves into how far into the school and um will we have to shut down a school or will it just be a number of classrooms so again they're very situational questions that at this time we do not have enough guidance from the health department um i do have um gina durbin who is uh covers our safety who is on this call as well and uh miss durbin is there anything more that you want to add to that or do you think i've got it covered dr burdick president
047hill members of the board no i believe you did exactly what we just actually heard from the webinar last thursday they are really aggressively working on this document there will be a lot of scenarios um they are actually working on an online reporting form for the nurses to use so that they can track and they had said on the webinar last thursday that really the last last resort would be to be to shut down a school so they really are not wanting to do that they are working with schools but aware of the situation that it could be something that could spread or there could be multiple people that may have contacted it but but dr bur you're correct in saying if we get a case we call them they are the ones that are
048going to guide us through the process thank you so at this time i'm sure the governing board members may have additional questions and dr miller and dr abrams and i and perhaps a few others on the call that have had work with developing the documents that are in the board packet we may call on them as well to respond to questions did you want me to go ahead and make the motion yes please president hill okay yes please so the administration would recommend that the governing board approve the ccusd returning with excellence academic offerings and school logistics document for the 2020 21 school year as presented so moved rich seca hatcher hey before we just start discussion which we're going to do um i know that these items all of them tonight are going to
049have we're all going to have a lot of questions so um we need to be mindful of allowing all i'm not gonna jump in and do an ordered list of who gets to go first but we do need to um make sure that all of us have a chance to get in some questions so with that in mind um i'm actually going to jump in first i'm going to use that bully flip it um i have two questions i might have more but i have two i just want to get out real fast uh oh i'm sorry three and then i think i may be able to sit back uh the first question is probably for well i don't know who um as far as aia is concerned because i am concerned um i have
050a high school student high school athlete for aia as i understand it if the student is in the both return to school when the school is open as well as the online excellence academy or what you know our name for it in my understanding correctly that the aia says that yes those students can participate in aia sanctions sports whether or not they're at cactus shadows or the academy the online um academy is that true that is true on president hill as long as um it's not a student who was out of district and just moved in and went on to that there are certain regulations for aia but um the students may the um online school those students may participate in their own school activities it could be for elementary in clubs etc as well
051and it's similar to our home school students who are allowed to participate in our clubs and our athletics but again they would have to be approved through aia rules to make sure there's not some reason um dependent on when they uh where they were the year prior etc that way right like transplant a transfer yes um a fast question is if we are able to do webcams that might change a lot of people that are wavering between the online academy and the in person is there a chance then if that is something you guys are waiting to look at are we able to extend you know the hard and fast you have to make a decision because that could be something that really changes some people's opinion would they be able to go back and
052say instead of doing the online they want to stay if possible with the synchronous webcam experience if that's something we offer as a third option is that something people are going to be able to go back and change their minds on since that wasn't an option given to them in this current uh in the current questions that we have out dr miller did you want to take that one or you want me to um president hill governing board members um well i guess the answer is yes that i'm in agreement that it would change some minds we have a couple of factors going on here one is our need to know for staffing i know that our teachers are really wanting to know what they'll be teaching will they be teaching option one or option
053two and we will have to staff for that um so that's a concern i would assume that if we are going able to move forward and i i know that we have to see are we even able to make the purchases um if all of these webcams are available we really think that we can move forward in this direction um so it's kind of like we need to know both can we do it and we also need to know it for staffing and so that our staff knows uh what they're going to be doing okay and my last question is um you guys mentioned it because we have no direction and i understand if elementary is easier to shut down and send home as a group if you have a high school student who's exposed
054something happens in english class does that mean that high school student now has to stay home from the other three classes because they've been exposed but they're moving around the school does that mean you've got you know students in and out at the high school level individually so you have a student that wanted to come back in person but is somehow like their plot their english class is exposed to someone so now those kids in that english class all have to stay home from not only their class but either their other three or five classes depending on what year they are now they're going what would they do if they have to stay out those number of dates because for a high school student to now be exposed but having to be out for 14
055days that's an awful that's a very difficult way to make up any work so how would that work for the high school students who can't you can't unless we're sending home a whole school with one kid getting sick i know we have no direction from the county but do we have a plan in place for if and when that happens because i'm going to assume it will i think on president hill what we are considering is if we're able to do the webcams that would allow seamless transition for any student but if there wasn't a student with covid or a staff member in a classroom that is probably we're expecting some type of guidance that may restrict that class for certain number of days but if they are in the distance learning to brick to
056mortar that class then seamlessly goes right back to the distance learning um and then with um contact racing that student we would be looking at every class that they went to that day and all the other students then that were exposed in that and that's the type of guidance we haven't received yet from the health department potentially it could be exposing you know exponential numbers of students if you had to trace all of their classes during the day and everywhere they went with the possibility that every student could have gone to different classes but um with that given no guidance at all what we have is what is in this document okay and so um that is what we've been given so far but we know that once schools start well we know they're saying
057next week on our webinar they should start being able to give us some um scenarios multiple scenarios that would answer these types of questions um we think that using the webcams and again we know we have uh very talented teachers and we know we can figure out a way to do the webcam option but that would allow if a student does get ill or a group of students or an exposure for the webcam option to allow students to be able to see their teacher and um go along with their class we're looking at having a second person in those classrooms to help with um chat questions and um being able to keep the webcams focused on the teacher um and all the logistics like that but again we just today got some numbers on costs
058and now we are looking at exactly what would that look like okay i know i didn't answer your question i don't think anyone has an answer yes i apologize um we keep asking too i have other questions but i might come back because i don't want to monopolize so do we have i'm sure we do so other board members with questions if maybe we can just like ask three and keep the others and after all five of us have gone come back around that might be the most equitable way to get questions answered so i've asked my three for the time being um someone else want to jump in with some i've got a bunch so i'll do three that's okay um three and then we'll we'll just kind of go around i think three
059is enough to kind of get our get our heads wrapped around a little and then let someone else ask and kind of get back uh you've already answered some of me all so that's good but before i ask my question i would like to thank everybody who's been involved the staff the parents everybody on that committee those committees i can't imagine uh the work that has gone into that so thank you very much um pre-k first grade maybe second grade many times they sit at tables and if they you have a class with 25 kids coming in in other words if most of those parents are choosing to have brick and mortar when it's okay when we start how are they in a social distance are they going to have desks rather than tables or
060are they going to continue to have those tables and i don't care who answers whoever wants to answer i think um well i can start and if dr miller wants to jump in that's fine or dr abrams but um we if we have our typical class sizes we are not able to social distance without getting additional funding for more teachers and more space i know um the national number for if we followed all the cdc guidelines was over a million dollars per school district um and so the reason we are asking everyone to wear a mask is because we are not going to be able to social distance when possible we've at we will ask teachers to arrange their classrooms as sparsely spread out as possible maybe taking out some of the furniture that they
061don't need you know many of us as teachers have a lot of things in our classrooms when we had a classroom so maybe there are some things that aren't needed in order to spread desks out but we don't have enough desks in the district now that we have been moving towards doing flexible seating many of our classrooms have moved to flexible seating and don't have desks the higher in grade level you get the more desks you have the lower in grade level the more flexible seating if you go through our classrooms so there are things we can do to mitigate that by having students at tables if possible face a certain direction we have talked about possible plexiglass although that's extremely costly but at minimum the students in a classroom unable to socially distance everyone
062would be wearing a mask okay thank you um if subs are unavailable in exposed classrooms if you have a teacher that tests positive for covet or thinks they have covet and is sent home uh and hopefully there's a sub that can come in if subs aren't available are they going to combine classes like would you combine one third grade class with another and let that other third grade teacher take both classes or how are they going to do that um so member hatcher i know that typically we do that when we don't have enough subs we combine classes although that would really overload the classroom but we were received very encouraging news today from ms lynch about the responses from substitutes ms lynch do you want to share some of that data i don't know
063if you have it with you i don't have the actual data in front of me i apologize about that but we had about 87 uh substitutes respond to our survey and over 65 said they were willing to either sub in the aoe or in face to face we only had one sub that said that they were not going to be returning in two subs that said that they would have to wait and see until second semester okay so with that that information um it tells us that once we get these folks trained which they of course we train our subs every year um we hope to have a seamless transition back and forth with um a classroom and not have to put two classrooms together yeah okay thank you um and then my third question
064moving into the platforms uh canvas how will parents and students be trained to use canvas will they have an online tutorial or will they have an online open house where the teachers explore yeah where the teachers explaining how canvas works uh president hill and member hatcher yes we have training for our teachers uh there's training for the parents and then the teachers will be working with the students on how to use canvas so initially um the students will get in through clever i believe will be the way that they get into the plat to the learning management system so yes there is training thank you okay that's used up for three at this point do we have another board member with questions one okay i'll ask another question then um for the online academy are
065those credits acceptable well those credits that they if a student is either for the full semester or and this is high school related for the full semester of the full year will those credits be accepted at at the very least in state universities are they is it accredited like the rest of our schools i know the sports thing is a very different discussion but as far as accreditation if if we have a student that goes online through the academy of excellence online are they going to be able to apply those credits to being accepted into our state in state schools and president hill um tom espy is here to he's going to give some guidance on that tom all president hell um members of the governing board thank you um yeah so the arizona board
066of regents covers the minimum requirements that uh the three in-state colleges require um to accept a freshman student and we we've looked up all theirs we contacted them they have a list of the core they call them core competencies and they have an entire list of ones that are already been accepted and that do not have to be shared with them they do not have to be approved already and it covers a lot of classes and it covers all the ones that are in that we've adopted for the um for the aoe and so those courses just are like algebra algebra 2 algebra 3 4 geometry calculus you know the basic class and it goes on to more than the basics it's a pretty pretty robust list of courses that they will accept where it
067really gets into question where people students might not get accepted as like the fourth year math because they're required to take four years of math rather than the three that's required for the diploma so sometimes if they take an obscure class that's not a normal typical class that's not on the list that's where that school would have to turn in that course to the arizona board of regents to get it approved but the list that they already have that's approved is very robust and all of the courses that we are offering and the aoe are included in that list so that it that is what they use to determine whether they'll be accepted and all those courses are in there okay and president hill also um we have asked that if parents are have a
068question about something that might be in their students uh typical schedule if they were coming back on brick and mortar but they have decided to go to the aoe they should touch base with miss umberger at the high school and go through those courses to make sure just to double check that everything they're taking would be transferable especially if they're a junior or senior to a institution that they're interested in applying to okay i guess my last question and we you guys kind of touched on it but um there has been a big concern about if we have the students that do online those that are um not always upperclassmen but you are looking a lot at juniors and seniors although freshman sophomores are in ap but the apib dual enrollment situation um particularly i
069would say for those seniors that are ib that are physically unable to come back um to in person is that where you guys are trying to make the webcams work because it it is worrisome that kids that have done something like that program that is very intensive are now not going to be able to finish it so is that where you're looking and hoping that the webcams can come into play so the kids can still have those more advanced courses that aren't currently offered in the online only academy president hill that is where we started the discussion last week trying to find an option for those students what we have to do is make sure that we are providing equal access for all students and so our discussions have grown today and but at minimum
070it was to help the students that have very specialized classes not only at the high school in those very high achieving areas but also in some of our elementary programs that parents have chosen at our schools um because um of our very special offerings for instance immersion and so try that's how our initial discussion of webcams started so we are looking into all those logistics and as i mentioned we just started that last thursday talked over the weekend had a meeting this morning and are continuing to try to develop that number one by finding the most cost effective options for webcams and um and if they're even available okay that's you are correct that's where we started okay um any other questions from board members i have a few questions um how will um how
071will we measure student achievement and address gaps in learning for both the brick and mortar option and the ao aoe president hill and member busby yeah it's hard to keep um aoi in aoe because separated because our aoe is an aoi so um the the courses um i i think probably tom could answer this question a little bit better for me or toya could you jump in there i'll let tom go first and see i'm needed first all right thank you member busby um so the the governor and his executive executive order has required us to give benchmark testing within six weeks of returning physically to school and so that's the minimum requirement however because we are not exactly sure when that might be we are actually planning on doing um benchmark testing for reading
072that we do every year is called dibbles reading for our our younger students we are planning to do that online um over zoom and we're going to set a schedule for that and get that done and then for the older students if we do get back right um [Music] right around the end by the end of the first quarter for sure that's when our regularly scheduled benchmark is that we take in school city and that's an ela and math benchmark that cover the standards for the first quarter and so that is what we are going to give to see to make sure that all of our distance learning everything we did the first few weeks of school that they've learned everything they needed to do for the first first quarter and that goes all the
073way up to 10th grade okay um our so how you didn't really well well our assessment tools going to be the same are you going to have the same tools and instruments for assessment for both online and in-person students yes okay um and then i is it correct to assume that we will be able to compare student learning and achievement for both groups yes yes okay okay that's my three for now i have a long list of questions so sorry i made it myself i'll i can go next i i really just uh one question uh in a comment i'll do the comment first uh i would also like to to thank the teachers staff the administration and the parents that served on these returning to school committees and the logistics committee their hard work
074and dedication to our students over the summer months is outstanding and to realize there was so many variables and there still is so many variables that we just don't know but their hard work gave us the groundwork to at least begin uh offering the best options we can for our students so i would just like to give them a big thank you for all their uh tireless work my my one question at the moment would be between the academy of excellence and at cactus shadows um the academy of excellence curriculum is going to be i'm assuming uh from what i've read is different from what's currently offered at cactus shadows um and i also saw that parents would not have the option to change back until possibly the semester break is that something that obviously
075we don't want to disrupt classes and students and class sizes but is there any plan i mean i don't it's an odd question um anywhere that the parents could look out and compare the two curriculums and say well if we're going to do the academy of excellence we think that will work for our students needs um president hill and member brown it's our recommendation that they don't go in and out of the two options um the edmontom that we have purchased um is almost mirrors exactly edge annuity they are two online programs um that the curriculum is built out in modules and so it's very student self-paced and and driven by them getting in and completing modules you complete a module and then you move to the next one however our classrooms are set up
076our teachers may assess their kids at the beginning of the week or whenever they need to assess them and say you know what our kids already know all of this we're going to move on to the next thing or they may say you know what our students they're not getting this concept we're going to take a couple of more days on it and when the students are in an online school they are in their own track they're not moving with a cohort um so they're on their own so could potentially could a student go in and out of one option or the other they absolutely could the reason that we gave the parameters of the nine weeks for elementary is because that is an elementary grading period and that seems like a good transition time
077and then um at the high school level the courses are for credit and so it would be very difficult for a student to be and say following along in an online course and then hop over into a classroom that's very teacher driven um [Music] and for them just to match up because they don't match up exactly both situations option one and option two follow the arizona state standards but they're not in sync with each other exactly and so um it i we just don't feel like from being an educator and making the best recommendation that we can for our students we don't feel that it would be good for students to go back and forth we really feel like they would be lost also just the dynamics of a classroom you know once a student
078has not been in with a group of kids for a certain amount of time they're gonna have a hard time jumping back in and we just have some natural times during the year that we get closure to and so for elementary it's every quarter and for middle and high school it's at the end of each semester so it's just our strong recommendation as educators that we we try to keep students in one track or the other so the uh for the high school so the academy of excellence it's almost like they would be transferring in almost from a different high school like we would take you know if they made that transfer at the semester break it would almost be like coming in from a different school exactly because the um academy of excellence is
079school number eight it is a completely separate school it is not part of the high school and um you know i tell a lot of people that once covet is over and we have our lives back somewhat to normal whenever that would be we still will have our academy of excellence but we want the majority we want our kids to come back to our schools and as soon as we can get school to be normal you know based on what's happening with covid19 our desire is not that kids stay in the online school because our feeling is they get a much better education when they're learning from our teachers a computer program just cannot replace a teacher agree with that and then one other question i guess this is more of just the equipment situation
080uh and i've had some it was discussed in some of the uh or mentioned in some of the parent comments that was read if the classroom has to go from a face-to-face to a distance learning we're back to using the chromebooks we're going to be handing out chromebooks and go through that process like we did back in march yes member brown we are the principals are already starting their plan for chromebook distribution uh because everybody beginning august 5th will be learning from afar no matter which option they've selected or if we're able to do the webcams as dr burdick was speaking of everybody will start with chromebooks so they're looking at distribution and accountability um and so we could potentially see a back and forth um if there are coven cases um or whatever the
081scenario might be once we start um with the online and then go to face-to-face will we try to collect those chromebooks or do you think we would let the students hang on to those in case we get the oh monday morning we need to go back to the online process for this classroom member brown we will always try to get them back to the classroom because once the students come back face to face um our principals and teachers want to return to personalized learning um as quickly as possible so we will need those in the classroom and also i think the chromebooks will help us with somewhat with the distancing so that teachers can work with smaller groups of students okay thank you very much thank you any other questions i well i have some
082more questions but let whoever else go first author jim again i'll make it easy i my questions have been answered already um i just want to say thank you to everyone who's been working so hard to come up with um just how to react to this fluid situation you've all been uh working hard on and being very proactive at coming up with these ideas and in order to make it as smooth as possible for the students so it's much appreciated thank you thank you and um president hill can i make just one comment that kind of relates to this we have one additional committee that is working but it's not um covered tonight in in this item because it's social emotional well-being and um gina durbin is facilitating that and it's how we look at
083the well-being of not only our students but our staff members and so i just want to mention that they are working and continue to work and they will be a great resource to staff and students in whatever form or program they come back to president hill um everyone's saying thank you to us we want to say thank you to you as well i think one thing that is that one thing that was driving our committee work is our objective was for to provide school and learning for 100 of our students and so i appreciate the fact that dr burdick wants us to look into the webcams we have had to continually pivot and change our plans and change again and um we want to meet the needs of a hundred percent of our kids and
084so we don't take it lightly when we hear that the community that certain families don't feel like we've provided for them because our goal is to reach 100 of the students um so we'll continue to do that um and we appreciate everyone's support and i even though some parents have said this doesn't work for me and this isn't gonna work everyone has been super supportive and we had one um comment uh from the initial parent survey and the parents said thank you so much for your work um we know that not 100 of the people are going to be happy with the decisions you make for the schools uh however we we want everyone to feel like we have an offering for their kid so that's that's been our goal all along in all three
085of these committees and gina durbin is um has led the social emotional committee and everybody's just come together and worked really hard so i appreciate everyone as well thank you beth did you have more questions yes i do my next sets of questions have to do with the platforms that we're being asked to approve tonight for listos um i notice it's for three and four um wait that i don't know dr burdick we haven't actually like talked about the other the platform discussion hasn't come up yet that is something you need to wait on that that's another board item okay that's 4.3 all right about that yet um okay well i've got i've got plenty of other questions other stuff um google classroom i know uh a lot of teachers uh have been trained on
086and are they able to still continue using google classroom or do they have to move into canvas only or do those two programs talk to one another um member hatcher we've had a lot of discussions about that and um we really felt like uh k-12 we needed to have a common learning platform and we also um have listened to parents and are the learning needs to be different for the fall it's new learning new standards and so nancy pratt has uh worked with us uh to select a learning management system and i think she can explain a little bit more however i think if they use google classroom it would have to be outside of canvas and we're asking everyone to use canvas for our learning management system nancy pratt did you want to add
087anything sure thank you president hill member hatcher um so the learning management system of canvas is pretty robust in that we are able to use multiple types of programs within the program it's kind of hard to explain but just imagine the shell of canvas so we we can assign we can use our google drive we can assign assignments just like we would if we were in google classroom except we're just not using the google classroom as the throughput to the assignment we're using canvas and you know we did that because just like dr miller said um the feedback from all fronts from teachers and from you know from parents um was that it does need to look different this fall and so um i was very grateful when we were looking at our options um
088because we had a couple different options but this is the best option it offers the most support for teachers um there are communities for canvas there are there there's training um for canvas there's so much offered um knowing that we were on the short time frame um we needed to have the most support that we possibly could for this for the teachers and so that's why we went with canvas and um it you know it's a loss for some folks who just put their heart and soul into into google classroom as we asked them to do and so we acknowledged that 150 and we just needed to make sure we had a um even a more robust system that also let us follow along with our google um our google train if you will and
089so we're able to use google just as much as we ever did before okay thank you um so devices uh i don't know that we have one-to-one devices yet and so for example uh if there's a family of three and the family has one device uh that a kid is able to get on what is it up to the family to allocate time between that one device between their three children or is the district going to try to provide two devices for those other two kits um member hatcher good question we've talked about that quite a bit um because in the uh spring when we were learning was asynchronous primarily um so we've talked about we don't have one-to-one devices but we also know that a lot of parents have known that this was coming
090and they have purchased some of their own devices and then we know some families may have three students and they have zero devices so when we spoke with principals we talked about first level is we make sure that every family that needs a device gets one and then the next level would be okay now the families that need two then we would get two out to them so that we make sure that with the devices that we have that every family that at least gets one at minimum and one thing that i learned from dr pratt today is that um canvas works well on phones and we know that a lot of people are going to be using their phones and a lot of students use their phones for all kinds of things including learning
091and so canvas works well on an iphone or another smartphone okay thank you and i and i think i have one more on my three um on the online learning option too uh if i'm understanding this correctly there's no immersion through the aol so how will sonoran trails immersion students participate in an immersion program will they have to will they be forced to choose the brick to mortar slash distance learning if they want to continue in immersion well if they want to continue an immersion currently that is option one um so there we don't have um we haven't been able to find anywhere that there's an online immersion program and so um but in line with what dr burdick is speaking about getting webcams if we are able to do that that will benefit all
092of our emerging students in k through 8. thank you janet did i have questions yes i have plenty of more questions um with the concern about social distancing when the classrooms are opened up what's the guidelines on class size in any given classroom president hill and member busby we will continue using our regular class size policy that we have now our classes have already been staffed if you will from last spring by that policy and if additional students come in just like we normally would and they go to the certain number we add a teacher's assistant and if they continue to grow we add another teacher if possible but and typically the teachers of those kids say just give me more aid time because they don't want to lose their kids so we will continue
093to use that however the aoe school which is an aoi will have different class size policies and i know that dr miller has been researching that with the other districts that already had an aoi on how that would look it would be a different class load if you will because the teachers won't actually be teaching but more facilitating and monitoring dr miller i don't know that you have those numbers yet um no we don't we don't have the those numbers yet okay can i get a little bit of clarification because there was um respon board questions that were asked regarding the material in this board book one of the questions had to do with class size and dr burdick your response was that we are in phase one how many phases do we have and
094what are what what's entailed in however many phases we have phase one is um the phase of covid19 and i don't remember the exact question of it being class size but we we still use our typical class size policy to load our classrooms up for clarification the question that was asked was what happens if the online class size decreases to the extent that face-to-face classes are done detrimentally impacted by large class sizes your response was we are still in phase one and so if we are unable to social distance everyone will have to wear face coverings we would continue to use our regular class size policy targets that we do now yes that is correct so phase one is the cdc phase one what what are the uh there's phase one how many phases are
095there um i believe there are three gina do you have the information for that um i don't right now but i'm i'll look it up on my computer and get right back to you on that okay i believe there are three i caroline was nodding do you have that information caroline i do know that there are three but but i would have to um research to get you exactly what they are yeah i know that right now with the number of cases we have i believe to get out of phase one you have to go a certain amount of time without um uh increasing cases in order to move to the next phase okay so to reiterate we are using our regular class size policy that is how we loaded our classes for um if
096we were typically starting school right now those may need to be amended a little bit because some of the teachers have requested the aoe for their teaching assignment and so as students move to the aoe or other students unfortunately may leave our district that may adjust the sizes of the classes but until we have the parent requests that are expanded to this wednesday we don't have the information to even know what that's going to look like we just know we would not go above our typical loading factors without using um the guidelines that are in that regulation so in other words if it starts with a loading factor and it increases to a certain number we have in the numbers that allow us to give a classroom an additional staff member a teacher's aide for
097so many hours and if it gets too high then we would say we're going to add another teacher for that grade level and that's what we do typically so so i just want to make sure i'm understanding what you're saying so let's say it's a third grade class an elementary school third grade class the average for that is 27 kids for example possibly so the thought process is we are staffing our enrolling up to 27 kids in that class and then we'll add another person if need be to spread out the kids if if it's necessary and we go over the number um okay well i don't have the chart right here let me look so um if third grade you're correct the target is 27 students if it would get to 30 students we
098give additional aid time to that classroom and all the third grade classrooms at that school it's good that we have a mechanism in place for additional hands to help in the classroom for aids or whatever but in this realm of this pandemic there's a concern about social distancing so putting 27 28 29 kids in a classroom i've been in elementary school classrooms in normal conditions it's a lot of kids in the classroom how are we going to ensure social distancing when we're going to approach opening our classrooms with normal class class sizes and so um president hill and member busby as we've said before and isn't in our plan we are not able to do the social distancing that the cdc requires with the amount of staffing and the budget that we have which is
099why we're requiring that in those situations where students cannot be more than six feet away from each other that they have to wear masks in their classrooms okay um which question asked next how are the social emotional learning competencies and standards going to be addressed for the k to three kids online so ms durbin i'll have you answer that one we're going to basically that the committee because the committee is made up of psychologists and parents and our counselors and our social worker as you may recall like in quarter four uh the counselors were available virtually to any student or family member um or staff member um they are going to continue to offer we're going to have like daily talking points um based on age appropriateness the group has come up with that so
100every day there's just going to be a a talking point there's going to also be kind of a checker check-in type of thing with students and staff just to kind of get a pulse of where they're at or if there's any concerns that either a student is having that a parent or that a teacher visibly sees or suspects or just wants some more information on um or a fellow staff member um they're also going to continue to offer um support groups um whether it be virtual well most likely if it's on face-to-face they'll do the face-to-face support groups um and if it's online it'll it's gonna have to be more of an individual because because of confidentiality but we are coming up with different um talking points and plans and things that each day there's
101going to be something that they're going to be addressed uh so students have a way of having that support for for their social emotional state i'm not quite sure if i answered your question well what i'm understanding and correct me if i'm i'm misinterpreting your words for the online students that um it's still evolving for the how you're going to address these standards it's not you don't have a written document that says you know this is our our blueprint for how we're doing this we have um things that we uh document that we've come up with we haven't finalized it on different things that we are offering as you know at the elementary level we've always used a second step program and they will continue to do that both at the elementary and middle school
102um so that program will will be something that will be continue to be taught through either the teacher or the counselors but we have guidelines of things that we want to make sure that we are providing opportunities and for every single student if this is a concern and just more like building the resiliency and building skills that we always have done whether it be a covered year or not so um as far as an online student that's 100 percent online they would um i'm not sure dr miller if what happens with that on a student that's taking the online um program academy but we they would always always have access to the the psychologists and the counselors for support if needed okay um how how are special ed services going to be accessed once school
103starts on august 5th because it's online or just it's distance learning as of august 5th so how are special ed services going to be accessed then um member buzzfeed we will have uh carrie aganjo will answer that question president hill governing board members and dr burdick thank you so all of our students with ieps will be getting their services provided those students as we start on august 5th will be getting their services services provided virtually over the spring we were able to do that whether through one-to-one instruction virtually in small group virtually our resource teachers would be checking in with our students during the general ed sessions or during one-to-one or small groups separately our paraprofessionals have also been supportive during those invite those general ed opportunities our classes that are for our students in
104our life skills or behavioral programs that are self-contained our teachers have been working more individually with our students virtually we are also reaching out to our families who have had more of a whose students have had more of a traditionally modified curriculum we will be reaching out to them and ensuring that their programs and their students our needs are addressed most likely through one-on-one face-to-face if appropriate for those students okay well that was my three questions so i don't want to jump on somebody else's time any other questions yes i'll piggyback on the sped uh question for kids who choose to remain at home uh how will pt and ot be delivered are they our ot teachers going to give the instruction and share strategies with the parents so the parents can reinforce that president
105hill and member hatcher yes it depends every single special education student has such an individualized program that it does depend on whether or not that student needs support for the tr the parent to have some training on how to assess those skills at home or how to implement those skills at home also the students can implement some activities that are provided by the ptnot this includes speech and all of our other related services providers as well there may be different videos that they would interact with it really is dependent on the individual student and the individual students availability ability to access the instruction okay uh thank you um gifted how are we meeting the needs of the gifted kids president hill member hatcher uh we are still in discussions about this and tom espy wears
106many many hats and so um i we're primarily talking about k through eight and so um tom if you'd like to talk about some of the strategies that you've been um talking about the program won't look the same um until we're kind of back to normal right so um president hill board members the uh third through eighth grade creative inquiry program has always been a hands-on program where the kids in third through sixth grade travel to sonoran trails to work together with kids from other schools so um that is definitely not happening obviously um and so instead what i've put and i've actually just updated the gifted creative inquiry website is the students will have an option to join a a optional online class for the entire year for creative inquiry in which the teacher
107will have a few different things for different grade levels but some small mini projects check-ins with the students we even have some opportunities for students to try some coding courses or graphic art courses online and it will all be on their own time so it's a it's an additional service that we're offering to parents and students that want to do that when they're done with their other work or want to add that on top just because they're interested in doing that and continuing that so we do have some options on our website that are totally online and they'll still be taught by the the gifted teacher or she will at least facilitate the ones that are pre-made courses um and so that is what has taken the place of the usual three through sixth grade
108creative inquiry the seventh and eighth graders that do creative inquiry choose that as an elective so they will do that um the same way that they um any of the other kids at sonoran trails are doing their classes they'll start if they choose option one they'll start online with the gifted teacher doing what she can online in anticipation to transitioning back into the classroom the students in seventh and eighth grade that want that are gifted that want to continue to do creative inquiry she will continue to post those lessons online and they will be able to do do that online as well okay thank you for the middle school kids and the high school kids that uh choose option two um do is there counseling provided academic counseling provided for them so that when they're
109in that in their set of programs they are making sure that the classes they need to have to go to high school the classes they need to have to graduate high school are the appropriate ones so they don't get off down a rabbit hole taking fun things that and delay graduation for example president hill member hatcher um yes actually lori umberger assistant principal at cactus shadows is going to help us with that um toya abrams has her principal certification and so dr abrams will be uh the principal of the academy and then she'll be working closely with um miss umberger um because she knows the courses of study that the kids should take and just depending on the numbers of students we may have to reach out to counselors at the high school but currently
110lori has offered to help any parents or students that need help with their course of study thank you that's my three for now any others uh yep i've got more um going back to the special ed once school starts august 5th how soon will ieps be reviewed well ieps are reviewed annually so as they come to their time limit to be reviewed for that year they will be held in compliance with the timelines if at any point a parent or a team feels that that student requires an addendum to an iep we will be scheduling that iep meeting and holding that okay um the scope of work for the classroom teacher and the aoe teachers is different um how is equity going to be addressed for these two for these teachers uh member busby uh
111great question uh that's what we were speaking about earlier about the class size expectation uh so for example um we've heard different um targets for the teachers in the aoi and so like a regular classroom teacher may have 30 students in their class i would say that an aoi teacher would have significantly more one primarily the aoi teachers do not have to plan the lessons all of the modules are built out so the planning component is no longer there so the aoi teachers will have more students than a typical classroom and we will be adding that number when we land on it we will be working with carolyn lynch and toyah abrams and other school districts to see what is a good loading factor for those classes and also for grade level bands okay um
112what are the accountability measures what accountability measures are in place for aoe teachers member busby the same accountability that is in place for our regular teachers of course a teacher evaluation document is going to look a little different but toy i know toya has been working on that piece too um so toy i don't know dr abram if you want to speak to that or not sure um president hill members of the board um and member busby just to address your question um with our the online program that we have created we are following the quality matters online standards that are put in place to measure quality online programs and so this is what we were guided to follow through the state board of education when we completed our arizona online instruction application for them
113and so in addition to following the standards put out through the quality matters program for online programs we're also just continuing with what we have already in ccusd for teacher evaluation tools and for just meeting the high quality instruction and just attentiveness to students and their personalized needs okay was that no that was my i've got another question here for both the distance learners and aoe students what is the plan for technical support is there dedicated times is there a helpline you know if the aoe student is working at their own pace how are they going to get whatever technical support they they need in order to access their their instruction um member busby so there's a variety of ways that students and parents can access support and different types of support that they need
114um so if it's um you know we're finding out what the chromebook needs are what the wi-fi needs are and if it's a technical issue like that um mr andrews department is awesome and they have their tech support line um dr pratt has her tech padre and so there are teachers at all of our schools that are trained up and will essentially be the experts there also at the middle school and high school there is a designated tech support person as well as the elementary schools have the computer lab folks that really support technology continually even when we're not in a covered situation so and then nancy pratt as always supports anybody in any of their needs so we really feel like we're covered uh with tech support and um just based on that question
115i know we're going to want to reach out to parents and particularly uh when we when we notice non-attendance and find out what the reasons would be for kids not getting online and not attending a class so i feel like we're covered with the tech support and we've got a lot of um high level uh trained people out there in at all of our campuses and at the district office so is there going to be stated times that the tech support line so to speak is available because the the aoe kids they're not necessarily going to be online from nine o'clock to three o'clock since they're working at their own pace so if whatever the scenario is if that student isn't online until four o'clock and then encounters a problem is there going to be
116some way that that student can access or have access to tactical support dr abram did you want to answer sure member busby yes so um the first recommendation with aoe is to have the student or the stakeholder involved in the learning whether it's the parent or whatever contact the teacher and so the the teachers will all be trained uh through edmentum and also with canvas because in um grades uh six through twelve they will also be using the edmentum courseware through canvas and so the initial request can be made for support through the teacher and so that will be considered part of the teacher's job to help students and families with technology and then also uh edmentum and canvas are all very responsive to tech support that's part of the deal that we have with
117them so just on our end in working with edmentum we've been testing out tech support and sending in requests and um checking to see what the response time is and so we do get response a very fast response to things that are things that are on their end that involve tech support but just going back to um what i initially started with is that really just the teacher is um the start of the support and and hoping that the teacher can help lead or guide the student or the family to the support that they need in the correct direction whether it's with uh the tech cadre who are also willing to help and and whatever else resource we have okay thank you that was my three so i don't want to i have more questions
118beth do you have more questions i think it's you and janet i'm i'm i'm done you need a meet beth yeah all right uh the executive order um one of the uh portions of the executive order is uh in regard to sanitation and it says quote it waives the requirements to be open during the time a school is closed by the order of arizona department of health services to sanitize unquote do they mean that if you have to shut down for example black mountain for two days because mr owsley's gone to every classroom and he winds up testing positive recovery does that mean that we're not required to tack two more days on to the back for black mountain they don't have to remain uh open two more days is that contained within the 180
119um so um president hill governing board members member hatcher we are hoping to stay within the 180 because by being able to seamlessly move back and forth with distance learning we could continue the education of that classroom so we would be meeting our requirements for the 180 days but it would be distance learning at that point okay okay so that's how we we would handle that um all right and then uh in the executive order they it states that we are to provide a place for students who do not have another place to go during the day does that mean starting august 5th kids who don't have a place to go like a five-year-old who might be home alone can come to school and somebody's gonna watch them so that is a great question member
120hatcher there have been a lot of discussions between the school attorneys and the school districts on that item that item was actually put in the previous executive order that pertained to schools and it was for hybrid models and so what the government governor was protecting was that if a school did a hybrid which means the kids are in school part of the time out of school part of the time that there is a requirement for on-site learning that would have to take place with the second executive order the interpretation was that um as soon as the governor allows schools to open which right now is on august 17th if we had decided to open physically on august 5th from the 5th to the 17th we would have been obligated to provide on-site learning but because
121the governor has said the schools are closed until the 17th we do not have to provide on-site learning um unless i know there's an item on the board tonight to possibly extend our closure until after labor day so if the board would choose to do that and the governor would not extend till after labor day this week from august 17th which is right now the official opening date until september 8th we would be obligated to add on-site learning or a type of daycare that allows the kids to still access their school work if the governor extends to the same date that our school district would choose to open we are no longer obligated to have that on-site learning i know that's very con fusing and the school districts have had many questions over that but
122i believe it's it is all dependent on the day the governor says we have to open until the day that our school district may have a different day during the gap we're required to have on-site learning did that just confuse you more or did i i understand what you're saying so let's let's say there's going to be a gap hopefully there you know maybe there won't be but okay uh let's say there's going to be a gap how would i'm thinking really elementary i can't imagine how it would be done in the elementary if you have k through six you have you know that's seven grade levels coming in first of all where are you going to put them who's going to teach that many grade levels it's and it's not teaching member hatcher it
123is they've suggested the governor suggested we bring in the boys and girls club it's not teaching it is somebody supervising on-site learning so there's no teaching going on and so the parents would have to recognize that really while the rest of the kids are getting their option one or option two their kids are being babysat essentially and sort of so if i can clarify what we would provide in the day and our principals are working on options for this and it could be that we combine a few elementary schools because we don't know how many parents would even ask for this so first we would have to have numbers second we'd have to look at what grade levels there were and third this is a way for us to utilize our classified staff as well
124that might be able to come in and supervise um perhaps and i am just throwing these options out there that we've discussed already there would have to be a way in a computer lab or with chromebook carts for the students to be able to access their school day with their teachers and their own earbuds okay we would have to provide a lunch we would have to give them uh when it is a recess time we'd have to give the kids some opportunity to get out and stretch and get some fresh air but it would be supervised by perhaps most likely classified staff because they would be getting their learning if they were in the option one online in a computer lab or with a chromebook with their earbuds in during their class time does that
125make sense yeah okay well i i hope that doesn't come to that uh and then my last one is uh for the executive order um have we submitted our district learning plan to the ade no we have not member hatcher we just got it on thursday it's 13 pages long and with the tiniest font i've ever seen and so um our teaching and learning department is on top of it they have the document and they will get it in by the due date okay thank you any other questions yep um does the enrollment in aoe count toward our 100-day count 100th day count mr leedy do you want to take that one let me unmute sorry i don't i brought this computer home and i realized that it doesn't have a camera on it so
126uh i'm incognito yeah um yes as far as the uh the enrollment as long as the students are enrolled in that program yes they will be counted uh for the adm for the 100th day but keep in mind through the the um the funding that the governor has set up for the safety net we'll get 98 percent of our uh prior year funding uh for for this current school year so but the the short answer is yes they it will count towards our district adm okay thank you um another question that i have on here what's the projected cost for webcams we um don't have any options right now we looked at one type of webcam that was a swivel cam which by the way they're not available um they're all out of stock but
127looking at that one that one was about 110 per um webcam and so if we um purchase them for all 275 of our teachers it was a little over 30 000 and i don't know with all that we've had to do today if dr pratt had any time to look at any others or if mr andrews did but again as i mentioned we had a meeting this morning and then this was not a day that i required anyone to do much except get ready for this board meeting i don't know dr pratt if you have any additional information at this time thank you dr verdict president hill governing board members i will say that um yes it's been a busy day um when we were talking this morning about the webcam situation and the opportunities
128that it certainly would offer us um i do know that um and mark anders can talk to this if if um if i say it wrong mark um but even last week we were we were looking at he was looking at different options and um trying to get a pre-order uh going and the availab availability like dr burdick just said i mean their webcams are back-ordered and all types of webcams are back ordered and so we're in the process um this week today and tomorrow um with looking at you know what what our options are through the channels that we can purchase and so i know mark has had that on top of mind as well with everything else he's been having to do and that's something that we will definitely be able to come
129back and share once we have more information okay so trying to wrap my head around all of this this hybrid kind of option to have the webcam so there's sort of for lack of a better way of saying it live streaming the classroom to the at-home distance learner that's uh at this point a pie in the sky possibility am i right so member busby i would not call it a pie in the sky possibility i call it one that we're actively looking into but as i mentioned we just started the discussion thursday friday we um the district offices closed we had the weekend and we've continued the discussion today we have until um whenever the governing board decides that we come back for um face-to-face classes right now we know it's august 17th um that
130gives us a month to get information and put this together right now it's not one of the plans on this item that we're discussing but i wanted to bring forward the fact that we are actively figuring this out and i do believe it will become an additional flexible option for our families it is not a hybrid however it would be more of a live streaming uh class okay was this rejected by the committees previously as an option is that why i wasn't looked into sooner or was it looked into uh remember rich the committee did not look at um webcams and live streaming at home for kids to be at home thank you the way the committee worked was off of the three or four scenarios that were provided in the return to school roadmap
131from the arizona department of education and so we use that as a guideline for all of our committee work uh the one thing that i might add we do have some webcams um in our computer labs and so i don't want to speak out of turn here but i would think that initially uh we're really looking at um what what solution can we provide for the high school students that were unable to provide um a learning option for them in the aoe and so you know we we need to see how many webcams we currently have and i know that mr andrews was probably last week he was he and dr pratt were actually um mimicking a class going on and she was the teacher and he was trying to figure out the webcam and
132we were using a logitech webcam and it had very high quality had a mic built into it so that wasn't part of the committee work however we have been looking into that and dr pratt mr andrews have been aggressively looking into when we can possibly order these thank you um dr burdick i had asked you at a different time about the dual enrollment and why it's not available for the aoe kids and you had indicated that the uh and i can't pronounce it it's not edmonton thank you um it's not compatible with pvcc's program correct so edmentum is a completely separate online curriculum so yes exactly okay so when a curriculum was being investigated for the high school ao for the high school aoe was there any consideration put into what would be compatible with
133pvcc dr abrams yes i can answer that member busby um so we did pilot and we did vet many different offerings out there for many different vendors we also researched every school district that i could think of i have a list of every school district and what they've used and what their offerings were and so um the partnerships with pvcc uh it takes time to make that and to create that partnership and and cactus shadows has that partnership for that dual enrollment because over time that's something that they have created and they have um developed that partnership we have not found an online school um that we've looked into that's similar regardless of if they're using edmentum ingenuity any of the other offerings out there um it's it's not that edmentum doesn't partner with pvcc
134because i i actually am talking to the contact person for them and so um it's something that can be done over time and um if it's something that you know we as a leadership team and and um the stakeholders want to do it's just not something that can be done with the way the school being so new and the way that the offerings are and the way that the partnership is developed with paradise valley community college is something that i know i personally need to learn more about but that takes time and those things um have there has to be more of a of a vetted piece from all of the parties involved to make that work okay now i this is where i need some help with dual enrollment because i know with cactus
135shadows dual enrollment in regular in the regular world the student will go over to the black fountain campus for english class or whatever class it is or they're enrolled in english 101 at cactus shadows so it's access one of two ways if knowing that the dual enrollment student actually goes over to pvcc to enroll in that english class i'm not understanding how that piece can't still fit in with this aoe program can i take a stab at that dr abrams so um member busby dual enrollment is when we partner with a university typically and for the community that may be listening we we partner with the community college we've done it with different community colleges over the years we then they have to approve our teacher on our campus to teach that dual enrollment class
136that's dual enrollment when they go to black mountain campus that's part of the early college class and that is taught by a pvcc instructor it's not dual enrollment it's a different program early college and then we also occasionally have had students classes approved to take from pvcc wherever it is but the dual enrollment the reason it would be a challenge right now with the new school the aoe is that pvcc would have to approve the teacher to teach it who's our teacher and so that is only right now happening at cactus shadows high school and so that is one of the courses that we're looking at to provide the webcam for so that if a student chooses not option one and not option two but this potential option three that they would be able to
137access a dual enrollment class taught by our teacher with the pvcc curriculum i don't know if that clarifies at all no i appreciate the clarification because there has in the past there has early college and dual enrollment have been used and not within the board but those terms have been used interchangeably in different settings and after a while it gets a little muddled and so thank you for the clarification um going back to questions or concerns that were brought up before about safety i've kind of gathered that some of our protocols are really not etched in stone yet because we're sitting and waiting to see what the state or the cdc is going to say before we open a classroom am i correct on that member i'm sorry member busby we will be waiting yes
138for that guidance but it would probably not be from the cdc it will be from the maricopa department of public health okay um is it reasonable to really um expect that parents will be taking their students temperatures before they leave home i mean we all know that kids have come to school with runny noses fevers whatever and they're dropped off they show up at school and whatever happens they're sent off they in the past they have been sent to school that way so what's to ensure that those students are going to have their temperature taken before they get to our campuses so that um member busby that is something we are going to be reiterating over and over and over again including to the students you're correct we cannot police that but we also know
139um if a bus driver notices a student that may be ill and tips off the school when they arrive at school as well they can call on their radio have somebody meet that bus when it gets to school as well as our teachers let's say it's pre pandemic know their students really well and can just just like we can as parents when we see one of our own children and we can tell that they're not feeling well that is something that teachers are very adept to noticing as well and so everybody is going to be on high alert to look and make sure that a student does not look ill or look different than they normally do when they are of optimal health students that do look ill or we do see signs will be
140immediately sent down to the health office i know that we we just cannot logistically let's say two thousand kids at the high school we cannot take two thousand temperatures prior to students moving into the school campus it'd be a little easier at desert sun academy which is our smallest campus but we believe that um we're doing it the way that we can logistically do it with the staff that we have and the budget that we have also we know many people are asymptomatic and do not even show uh signs of illness so and we we really don't have a way to mitigate for that as well so we're going to count on the honor system somebody mentioned earlier i can't remember who i apologize um that what about the kids that come i think it
141was one of the parent statements that mrs scotto read about students that may have allergies students with allergies that we know about our part are accounted for in the plans for what we look for in students and students with known allergies and sniffles that are at certain times of the year we would have that information about that student we would not be sending that student home unless there are additional um symptoms that that student would have that they typically don't have so we're going to have to trust that our parents are doing everything they can to make sure that not only their students stay safe but that our staff stays safe okay um until we have a you know uh hard and fast option three wha what really is the plan if uh an entire
142classroom is quarantined because somebody was exposed or is diagnosed which was covid19 so um remember buzzby as we mentioned earlier if it's an entire class in multiple cases that entire class is now going to be sent home and along with the teacher and would go to distance learning so if if the teacher has covid that teacher's then going to also be expected to run the classroom or run the distance learning not i mean if it would teach substitute okay okay um all right any other questions well i have a i have a whole bunch of them but it's it's we're getting into kind of later i have more also um well i am going to let you guys ask him because it's important but we are at the two hour mark on a one item
143so um i'm gonna suggest maybe try to find the ones that haven't been covered yet i mean if you feel it's really really important we need to ask again go ahead but we do need to start trying to wrap this up how are how are teachers being selected either for the in classroom slash distance learning and aoe is it voluntary or is there some other criteria member busby we have put out a survey a couple of questions to the teachers to ask about their interest and look at if they want to return to the option one or option two and um so we'll do the best based on which teachers of course if we have elementary students in the aoe we we need to have elementary teachers and middle school and so on um and
144then i know caroline lynch has uh looked at our transfer policy um so we will look at requests look at our needs and then make our decisions and then communicate with staff okay can i just ask one more question on before we get off this topic then go ahead okay uh the webcams if we're able to get webcams but not enough will we prioritize distribution of webcams based on ib or ap or whatever will there be some prioritization um remember hatcher unless dr burdick has an answer i kind of threw that out there uh we're at the beginning stages of this and so i would hate to commit to that's specifically what we're going to do i know that we have a high level of need yeah some of these classes at the high school
145that our aoe cannot at the current moment offer and so i know we're going to be looking at that and then just also other needs like we talked about earlier like with immersion um and so special needs students and things like that so i think we look at different areas and see first off we need to see how many webcams we currently have that are available because we have quite a few um and so but i hate to commit here right now when we don't have that plan built out i understood thank you also member hatcher one thing we've talked a little bit about this morning in our meeting was in multiple meetings was the possibility of could we even use a chromebook um and which also has a speaker in it and um that
146may as be a band-aid until we can actually purchase enough webcams or the logitech cameras with the speakers so we're talking about different options as well that might be possibilities until we get the equipment that we need we're being as flexible and as creative as we can well and i know that also remember hatcher that um dr pratt mr andrews have even looked at some ipads that would have that capability that could be on a stand until we can get everything that we need so we're looking at all possibilities for that um what what's in place you know god forbid somebody in the ccusd family passes away as a result of this covig 19. what's in place for support for students staff so member busby we hope that's not something we even have to tackle
147exactly we would follow the same protocol that we currently do when somebody passes away mrs durbin's department with one of her hats is with the counselors we have an entire protocol and send our counselors out and have access for the family as well as the students that might be affected and so this would not change any of our typical protocols for when there's a loss of life okay um i had somebody asked me this question which kind of it actually surprised me if a teacher gets sick and requires hospitalization well does the district's insurance cover all expenses revolving around coping 19 because apparently there have been some reports that there have been teachers in other jurisdictions that have ended up in the hospital and their insurance left them with hundreds of thousands of dollars bills
148i i'm going to defer this to mrs lynch but i will let you know that um i do not believe any of our insurance plans cover 100 of expenses there is typically a deductible and it's different for different plans but mrs lynch you're exactly right and members of the board so we do have a deductible but then there is an out of pocket maximum which the the individual would meet and then after that they would not have to um incur any more expenses that can be at the individual level or the family level it would be depending also on the the plan that they chose okay okay um all right i guess that's that'll that'll do it for now i guess okay are we good on questions i think before we vote um the last
149thing i want to say is especially because i know we have a lot of people watching that not only um i know the board has taken this very seriously i know everyone at the district level at the school level has taken this very seriously none of this is ideal the ideal situation is this never happened and we never had to even talk about this and i had no idea what this was so absent a time machine we are not going to be able to have an ideal situation because 2020 possibly 20 21 it's not ideal and it can't be so i'm hoping that everyone that is voting tonight that is watching and that has been a part of all these discussions understands and extends some grace to those who have had to make very tough
150decisions so our parents are making tough decisions to our leadership and to our board they're having to make decisions that i can pretty much guarantee none of us ever thought this was going to happen so i'm hoping that um everything we vote on tonight um it is not going to make everyone happy there is no way to do that that we're doing our best and that we're we're asking for some grace and understanding um in something that that none of us ever expected to be an issue in our district and hopefully we will never see this again um so with that i'm going to call the question right now we have um a motion to approve as presented and we have a second for that so um everyone unmute and we're gonna start voting member
151rich hi i'm an i member hatcher i remember busby um i am going to say no remember brown i will abstain at this time okay um it's 8 20 and we've been on this call for two hours and 20 minutes and we have four more items to go so i'm going to call a five minute hopefully less recess i'm suggesting all of us do not leave this this call but i would maybe mute yourself and turn off your camera for just a few minutes so you can get some water and kind of do what you need to do because i have a feeling we're going to be on for several more hours so just a very quick um if we can have it back on before 8 27 that's ideal but i'm gonna give us
152a few minutes just to make a real quick uh run to do what we need to do she needed to step out and so she won't be in the remainder of the meeting okay okay whoops okay so um is our board i think we're all back let me see uh i i don't see okay jim's back scott okay looks like everyone is back on all right item 4.2 recommendation to approve cave creek academy of excellent ccaoe online learning option uh ms scotto do we have a public comment on that we have one public comment president hill this is from karazhek of anthem arizona thank you for listening please delay the opening of face-to-face schooling for the first quarter delaying open to present a more thorough plan while also allowing for the hopeful decrease in covid
153the option between face-to-face learning and online school presented by ccusd and her comment cut off i apologize there's no way to follow cdc guidelines when reopening face to face the online program offer does not include in structure or peer interaction there is a template for home schooling it's discriminate discriminatory towards any family sink seeking to do this the community spread of coven 19 every student deserves an instructor and time it is clear that either the district receives more tax money per student that returns face to face and values those students more for another reason i am convinced that no parent of any committee is choosing the online option for their children please take time to reevaluate online learning while we remain closed please consider continuing utilizing ccusd and the classroom settings for those who choose
154the online option as well as for those choosing to stay out to the end of the quarter please clarify that students using aoe may participate in club sports and activities ccusd thank you for your time that is the end of her comment that is the end of the comments for item 4.2 okay thank you moscato uh presenting item 4.2 is dr miller mr sv and dr abrams president hill governing board members and dr burdick uh we don't have a long present excuse me presentation uh for this item uh this we've had a little bit of discussion already let me get some water and um so this is a new option currently for our school district um and this is school number eight in csusd so a little background is that um and and i think
155we heard it earlier but i'll go ahead and reiterate when students enroll in the aoe they are withdrawing from their school and then they will enroll in the online school um and much as any other online school and so one thing i've said is it's a little bit like a primavera and a lot of us have heard of primavera or other online options um it is brand new we just began uh preparing for this um at the end when we had the closure however we had been uh planning on writing the application and getting the school up and running for students when we don't have code this is not um a school that or any online school as i mentioned before you can't replace a teacher with a computer and we want our students to
156be face to face but this is one option uh that we are able to provide and we have to purchase edmentum as the um support and curriculum for this school i just wanted to say too when we were looking at edmonton um we were looking at purchasing edmentum for our high school prior to even talking about the online school we feel that it's a high quality product and so this cc usd's newly fully online learning school is has been called the cave creek academy of excellence and it will be the eighth school with its own ctds number and it will begin on august 5th 2020 for the uh 2020 21 school year and so i know many of you may have questions so i'll just go ahead and make the recommendation administration would recommend that
157the governing board approve ccusd's newly new fully online learning school the cave creek academy of excellence um as presented so moved second rich discussion and questions i'm asked for the same thing if we have i'm hoping we had a lot of questions answered in the first round but um let's keep them to three at a time and do some rotating around the five of us do we have any questions on um this is specifically about the online school can we ask questions about the programs themselves or just i think that follows it's just as long as it has to do with the school itself yeah okay i i've got some questions i don't have nearly as many questions as i did last time um on these programs um so can i start with listos um
158for spanish immersion grades three and four uh hold on back remember hatcher this is not that item that's item 53 4.3 this item is simply to approve the aoe that um dr miller introduced in the previous item i have zippo then i'll be quiet thank you okay do you have any questions about this item um i have one i think we answered it and i asked it and it it does happen to have with some questions are asked by parents but i just want to confirm that while a student might be enrolled that is in our school district that is in the ccaoe that they are able to participate in these sports that are at their at in the school district is that correct yes president hill they can participate in sports and clubs and
159activities okay that was my only question on this do we have any other questions okay so we have a motion in a second to approve uh this as presented remember brown yes remember busby hi amber hatcher i am an i member rich hi item 4.3 learning management systems lms online curriculum for school year 2020 um remember i mean moscato do we have any comments on that no comments on this item president hill okay so then item 4.3 will be presented by dr miller president hill governing board members and dr burdick uh this item is to is not just in relation to the closure um or the reopening of schools um it has to do with learning management systems and online curriculum that we also may not have been able to have approved at another board
160meeting um so the learning management system that we are purchasing um is canvas as we talked about earlier and um so this will be for all students in k through 2. the online curriculum uh that we are requesting for your approval is listos and member hatcher i know you're wanting to ask about that one um and lisa's is a spanish um language development program and it has an online component um and it is available in k through five however due to some budget constraints we are asking the purchase for grades three and four and then next year roll out other grades so this is for desert willow elementary school to enhance the spanish immersion program then edmentum as we mentioned is the online curriculum uh that we are purchasing for the academy of excellence and
161that has curriculum for k through 12. um edgenuity is an online curriculum for the high school that we use in e-learning lab for students who are in a track and they learn online all day and also for credit recovery and also for credit recovery in our summer school and we purchase an online curriculum like this every year at the high school so this is just edge annuity is a renewal brainpop is online curriculum for our k5 math resource adoption um our teachers have requested another online resource as well however we were just bringing this one tonight um and then listen wise and just like to mention that um brainpop was requested by our teachers that were on the committee also listen wise has been requested by sonoran trails ela teachers and it can be used
162in science and social studies and it is a program that provides three to six minutes of stories and it is primarily around listening comprehension and then manga high is online curriculum for middle school math and we've had imagine math for grades k through eight and um mr dolezal and the teachers at sonoran trails requested that we not purchase imagine math for seventh and eighth grade and so the teachers weighed in on two programs and they landed on magna high and so you can see below the funding source for all of these that canvas is a direct result of coven and will be covered by the karazak money lease dose is out of capital and we're just building on for our language programs edmentum is directly related to the covid and so that comes out of
163the cares act money edgenuity is a renewal out of capital brainpop is capital listen wise and manga high are out of capital and manga high can be considered like a renewal because it's in the place of the online math resource that we had at sonoran trail so administration would recommend that the governing board approve the learning management system and online curriculum for use in school year 2020 21 as presented oh well then i'll second okay janet were you were you the most yes yes you're the second okay um discussion um e-2020 was that just the name of the program or was that the uh curriculum at catholic church um that we had prior yeah that that was um we've always used edge annuity at the high school the the e-2020 or e-learning lab are kind
164of that was just the name for the program for for the class yeah okay um was edgenuity um in consideration for the aoe actually it was and also prior to this we were actively involved in changing from edgenuity to edmentum at the high school and um have been talking with high school staff and then with our department because we feel we feel like edmentum is a is a very good product and then we decided for the e-learning lab and for credit recovery since there's so much change going on right now that we wouldn't change that for the high school but we will be looking at on moving forward changing that for the high school for the following year for the e-learning lab okay so the ingenuity that's a a renewal cost that's on here and
165are the rest of them are all new expenses um well yes they are new expenses manga high i guess could be considered like a renewal because we would have used that money for imagine math we're just switching products but 200 000 of that is directly related to coven and what we're doing to help this situation okay okay beth do you have your question yeah you you answered my lease to a question so i don't need to bring that up but uh on the edmentum um i i went into all these programs as best i could to to look at them and um i noticed a variety of resources to include study island courseware ed options academy assessments and more and it looks like we are purchasing calvert for k-5 and courseware for six through twelve
166is that right yes okay are we will we will the kids have access to study island also or is that a separate purchase then within the program and also will we use the assessment piece in those programs or or is assessment coming through canvas so remember hatcher canvas is um kind of just a shell to house everything in um these for edmentum this is different than this particular purchase for edge annuity edgenuity in this situation is a site license so everybody has access to it edmentum can also be purchased as a site license however in this situation since kids will be in it potentially all year long it's sold as individual seats so i don't know if that answers so to answer your study island question all students in k5 will not have access to
167study island in edmonton that it only the students who are um actually the students that are in k5 have access to calvert right yeah okay so the schools you know a lot in many situations schools have purchased study island on their own and i think we still had had two schools where their ptos were paying for it and if you go way back you probably remember plato and that i think edmentum bought that out and so study island we've had for a long time the other piece i wanted to add about edmentum is the support and the professional development um is outstanding and um we we just feel like their response their product everything is outstanding and again just didn't want to change at the high school because of there's so much change that teachers
168are going through we wanted to leave that alone for this year um in the ingenuity i saw an ap placement section it made me wonder if our kids would have access to those classes um actually member hatcher the teachers have access to edge annuity and they can utilize videos and things like that because of the site license but they wouldn't put a student in a track for ap okay um on the the magna high uh is that a supplement or is that actually the math curriculum for the middle schoolers that's a supplement right and it goes hand in hand with the personalized learning and i believe the middle school teachers uh just felt like it suited uh the students needs a little bit better than imagine math okay and then i'm just commenting on the
169listing one uh when i went into that you could do little samples and i thought that was really good because it forces kids to focus because you're listening to the stories so you really have to pay attention um i know it's for listening comprehension which would translate to reading comprehension that it it also would help with focus issues i'm guessing so i i thought that looked really neat thank you yes and one another benefit of that is if students listen to particular stories uh mr dolezal has schooled me up on this and if you listen to particular stories say in seventh grade if a teacher was to have to use something from seventh grade say in eighth grade for a student that needed that the stories continually change they're updated all the time so the
170students aren't going to get the same information even if we had to level up or down with students that's good yeah thank you another question i i do have a question dr miller you had mentioned it's edge admentum that is a per seat charge was that correct so as this number could possibly change by some amount either up or down or is it at the beginning of the year we just have to pay this and if the enrollment goes down yes it could go up or down this purchase is actually for 500 seats and we have um 364 students that are signed up for the arizona online program and so yes it could potentially go up when we talked to the company about that they said if it goes up a little bit they're they're
171going to give us some grace on that so um but yes you're exactly right it could potentially go up and if we don't use all of the 500 seats they will carry forward to the next year so we'll still have the ability to use them well that's good roughly how much is it per seat so the just to be honest with everything all of the k5 providers um the vendors they kind of have school districts right now because generally speaking school districts aren't purchasing k5 and so this is about 450 a seat for students in k5 and 6 through it's about 70 a seat um so it's very pricey but if you look at other product uh for k through five it's very expensive because these companies um know that all the school districts need
172k through 5 product right now that's supply and demand that's right it's just it's it's amazing the the big difference in the price k to 5 is 450. and the other one's only 70 dollars yes okay thank you any other questions or comments on this item okay we have a motion to approve as presented remember rich oh make sure you guys add me hi uh i'm in i remember hatcher i remember busby hi server brown hi okay it's 8 49 i know we are not gonna be done with this meeting before nine so before we continue on with item 4.4 i need to um ask for a motion and a second to approve to continue this meeting past nine o'clock per our uh our board guidelines i'll make the motion to extend to whenever i'll
173second that okay uh all in favor member brown i item 4.4 recommendation for postponed cc usd's reopening date to the 2021 2020 2021 school year ms scotto we have comments i assume um and so um president hill um we have 29 comments to read and i know it sounded like um moscato was losing her voice in the first item so i have strong-armed her to give me half of the items so that um i will read the first half and then she can read the second half okay and just make sure this is with 29 um we're all going to want to mute so okay all right so um the first item is from aaron and chad gunderson from cave creek as a family we have had many discussions about what we felt would be
174best for our family and our community our first desire has always been to return to school because we love desert willow and the amazing staff and employees we were waiting to see what the district options were before we made our final decision and when they came out this week we were disheartened with the option of in-person schooling having a return date of in person as august 17th and the numbers of covet cases still as high as they are we feel like our hands are forced to choose the online option this would not be our first choice but we cannot put the teachers and staff we love and care about in harm's way above an education with an online option that is equally accredited we felt like the most reasonable option would be to have virtual
175learning until the first quarter and then re-evaluate and it seems our only current option is online at this point we hope that your decision making at the meeting today is with our communities health and mind and the confidence in your staff to teach our children from whatever platform is the safest for them because they have always and will always be amazing educators the next comment is from um david can tell me and he lives in cave creek dear board members and superintendent burdick i write to you as the father of a 12 year old daughter about to begin seventh grade at sonoran trails middle school i urge you not to delay in person classroom instruction beyond the scheduled august 17th reopening the district's youngsters lost a quarter of school last spring it will never be
176made up the online program helped but in no way was a substitute for in-person in classroom instruction a delay in reopening physical classrooms until september 8th means that they will lose another month of in-person and classroom instruction i appreciate the concerns of those who want further delay but neither science nor facts supports that position here's what the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine recently wrote yesterday july 15 2020 quote weighing the health risks of reopening k-12 schools in fall 2020 against the educational risks of providing no in-person instruction school districts should prioritize reopening schools full-time especially for grades k-5 and students with special needs according to a new report from the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine opening schools will benefit families beyond providing education including in supplying child care school services meals
177and other family supports without in-person instruction schools risk children falling behind academically and exacerbating educational inequities and then the links were provided thank you very much mr can tell me the next item is from julia anna manky from cave creek she is um obviously also dressing 4.4 i have two children at desert willow elementary school one is a fourth grader in spanish immersion and one is a sixth grader who will be doing seventh grade math i mention this because the specialized curriculum opportunities make ccusd exceptional my primary request is that the elementary schools in ccusd delay in-person schooling until quarter two and everyone start the same distance learning curriculum online on time on august 5th instead of the two current options of course based on covid case counts in phoenix the in-person learning may need
178to be delayed to quarter three when arizona hospitals being close to full we can't risk this experiment of opening schools without health care resources to back it up right now you are asking parents to choose between two widely unknown options but really you're asking us if we're okay with trying in-person schooling the answer is no not yet our daily case counts are too high please wait until we can safely send the majority of our students and staff safely back to school at that point there will still be parents that will not be comfortable and you can offer a oe if they haven't already started their own homeschooling curriculum i would also like to add that having two different curriculums and a variety of home schooling the already small district will be fragmented it will take
179the better part of a year similar to kindergarten to get all students in each grade back on track aoe needs to be a last option because it lacks teacher interaction and spanish immersion and advanced math thank you for your consideration i recognize the mammoth task ahead of you next is from nikki harrington of cave creek she had an earlier item but put two items on one um form so we are trying to honor her request to speak on both items for item 4.4 concern the august 17 2020 on campus start date is too soon to start back into the physical classroom covet cases are on the highest they have been in arizona and people are not wearing masks you as a board are not even meeting in person due to covet and risk situation all
180classrooms are too small for physical distancing kids will not wear masks full time no matter what age classrooms have weak ventilation and no sinks for washing hands teachers are most at risk when the most contact opportunities per day give parents more time to help with solutions on both sides supporting education and also figuring out options for their children request please move on campus start date to minimum at the end of first quarter october 2020 but preferably to the end of the first semester december 2020 and re-evaluate then next is from nikki heidemann from cave creek in person start date i have two daughters attending cactus shadows high school this year my oldest is in her last year with the ib program she feels she will not succeed unless she's doing face-to-face learning i feel arizona
181still is in too deep learn with covid19 we still have not hit our peak if we send our children back too soon we will be risking their health along with their teachers we were planning on having our freshman daughter do the online learning but after doing research i am not sure it's a very good option i understand this is a difficult situation but i am pleading with you to push back the reopening dates thank you for your consideration next is from jessica fitzwater from cave creek as a mother of a sped child i'm against the postponement of face-to-face reopening my child does not thrive in the online environment and deserves to have his iep needs met his class sizes are very small with only five to six students and i feel at ease sending him
182back he needs face-to-face speech therapy ot therapy and his peers to learn from he has already suffered and his opportunity to learn was taken away with the first round of closures he is only three and a half and at his prime time to catch up to his peers to grow his skills and to learn to communicate ccusd 93 states in their developmental school webpage preschool is an important step in your child's learning process and overall development every child is different and treated as a valued individual but our special needs children are not being given the opportunity to learn like the rest this is unacceptable as a parent i do not make this choice lightly i have considered his um and i apologize there is work there are words cut off and health he deserves the
183same chance to learn as his peers he deserves his um services provided in an effective way there are protocols the cdc has suggested to keep everyone that can be followed in a small class of students who not to mention only attend two hours a day four days a week furthermore according to essa every student succeeds act which includes our special education students like my son students receive ieps with finding which includes i'm sorry which binding document detailing the student's annual learning goals as well as the special service supports the school will provide to help him meet his goals without reopening schools it will be minimized to help meet online classes and holding him back from his true potential he would not be given every support he deserves and needs to succeed just as parents i'm
184going to suppose the word would look at the stay at home online only option my son should have the choice to go back to school the services and supports he needs to succeed like the rest of his peers postponing the services affects my son negatively four more weeks of missed face-to-face class may not seem like a lot but it is to my special ed child it is only fair he gets the same chance to excel like the rest of his peers withholding his option is discriminatory at best i urge you to consider children like him before deciding to postpone the start date once again and again i apologize to miss fitzwater the um items were cut off on the form so i tried to guess at what the words were that i couldn't see next
185is from chris fitzwater also from cave creek america is about freedom and choice but since this pandemic began we have put perceived safety over both we locked down stayed home and listened to the experts to ensure our children and loved ones were safe now that we have more data we can see the experts were dead wrong and even outright lied to the public remember when they said masks didn't work and were only for doctors and nurses they were lying so you wouldn't go by mass doctors needed but now they say they're telling the truth and mass are required to go everywhere and anywhere and everywhere we have been treated like children and i have had enough there are examples from across the u.s and countries around the world that show young children rarely spread the
186virus 22 european countries have reopened their schools and saw no significant increase in cases austria belgium denmark france germany and the netherlands all saw no spike when schools were open contact tracing studies in china iceland britain and the netherlands failed to find a single case of child to adult infection dr joshua scharfstein of johns hopkins said quote there is converging evidence that the coronavirus doesn't transmit among children like the flu and is a lower risk unquote i won't get into the recent news of private testing labs reporting 100 positive results when the actual rate was closer to 10 percent or how a positive result could come from another coronavirus like the common cold but still the experts think they know better so our family must continue to suffer this all comes down to the fatal
187idea that central planners have enough knowledge that they can tell over 300 million people what they can do these decisions should not be up to any group of people but to the individuals themselves this is what america was founded on each individual parent should have the choice to either keep their kids home for virtual learning or send them to school for in-person classes i urge you not only to make this decision for the children in ccusd 93 but to also set an example for the rest of the state that freedom is more important than perceived safety those who would give up liberties for safety deserve neither and will lose both benjamin franklin reopen the schools on town next is from jan steinle and she is in cave creek i urge you to reopen schools without
188delay all reports i've seen indicate numbers or percentage of ill children is so low as to be statistically insignificant and they are not spreading the virus significantly either i haven't heard of any science that would justify delaying the school's reopening reports from around the world confirm it is safe to reopen look at the data look at the statistics look at what other countries are reporting the negative emotional er mental health impacts on children and their families from school closings cannot be ignored or underestimated this subject along with the future of remote learning to meet the needs of so many is not covered enough schools need to reopen asap next is from catherine fay and she is in scottsdale dear dr burdick and governing board i am pleading with you not to approve postponing in person
189classroom any longer it is so unbelievably damaging to our kids and hurting our children not only is it necessary for their education but also for their social emotional mental and physical health keeping children out of the classrooms has been extremely detrimental to them per the state health department our case count for the zip codes and area feeding into our schools and community is extremely extremely low three tenths of a percent that is 0.3 percent since this has started in march look at the data science and trends for our community in the state there is no reason for us to keep moving the date when i told my daughter that the school board may want to push the in-person learning again she yelled out what no no no then my son looked up at me with
190tears in his eyes and said mom i hate this doesn't anybody understand what this is doing to us kids i replied back nobody i don't think they realize i sure hope they listen if unfortunately the board does choose to postpone then we will at least need the district fields and facilities open for community sports and athletics our kids require it at ducey's press conference last thursday dr chris said she'd seen the detriment done to our kids and they showed state numbers flattening out and going down in some cases this is good news for us please do the right thing for our most vulnerable the children no more no more postponement of in-person classroom learning and let fields and facilities be open for the sake of our cave creek children thank you next from christina scott
191of scottsdale as a parent of a third and eighth grader i feel strongly that school should begin on august 5th online with in-person school starting august 17th after the executive order ends my third grader normally receives special education resources daily and is on an iep online school does not work for kids in special education he is unable to do the online work independently and while i do my best to work with him i am not a teacher and can only do so much i am also trying to run my small business side by side with him as he works this is challenging he fell behind so much during fourth quarter online learning as he received no services in addition he has displayed substantial anxiety and stress from the abrupt ending to his year isolation from
192friends and lack of school community the virus is not likely to disappear anytime soon people are shopping traveling visiting with friends and playing sports with their teams there is no reason that school cannot occur with social distance and masks teachers are the most essential workers as they educate and mentor our children please consider that there are some students who have different circumstances and needs who will be negatively impacted by a decision to extend online learning beyond august 17 20. thank you this is from michelle williams from cave creek it is the responsibility of cave creek unified school district to provide educational instruction to students based on the information shared on the ccusd website and direct communication with dr burdick it has been made clear that ccusd is not offering any options besides all online and
193all in person furthermore there is no hard date said for set for in-person instruction to begin but rather only efforts to bump the in-person date out further based upon evidence of learning it is well proven that some students in fact i'm sorry in fact most cannot learn in an online format these students who require in-person instruction are only offered one option from ccusd with apparently the same class sizes ccusd has indicated that they're unwilling to offer a mixed or hybrid style of learning that so many other districts are offering this is not acceptable offering this style of learning does not require additional staff or additional training class sizes are 30 would be at most 15 with this model supporting both teachers and students safety and best interest other districts have achieved this model without hiring
194additional staff for example students 1-15 attend the class in person mondays and wednesdays and have assigned homework projects and study to complete tuesdays and thursdays students 16 to 30 attend the same class tuesdays and thursdays and have assigned homework projects and study to complete mondays and wednesdays if a hundred percent in-person instruction requires five lesson plans per week this hybrid model requires the same amount of lesson plans therefore there's no need for additional staff or money dedicated to accomplish this it only requires a district and teachers willing to do be creative and offer these options teachers are begging for this type of model to make class sizes smaller this along with teachers equipped with mass face shields all donated by parents hand washing and low precedence of adolescent covet cases will make school an extremely
195safe place place to be furthermore ccusd offered and held summer camps with a relative class size all summer so it is logical to believe that threshold in size is safe the bottom line is that ccusd not offering in-person instruction in a safe format is discriminatory to students who require not want in-person instruction to learn the cc usd governing board of beliefs states that every student will have the opportunity to learn in a safe environment i respectfully request that you implement a flexible schedule hybrid model of education for in-person instruction please do what is right for the students who can only learn in person thank you next is from vincent carlson of scottsdale at this time there has been little information other than when it is safe we will open our schools what makes this even
196more of a concern is the online school is not fully accredited and is a one-size-fits-all for each grade of elementary students making the choice for many families forcing them to attend the mixed environment or lose the ability to graduate with a diploma that colleges will accept if students are forced to go in-person classes to obtain their diploma with accreditation they and their families are exposed to another vector of infection that can affect students in all schools currently the governor has set august 17 at the date schools will open this while the state has one of the highest rates of infection in the nation our rate has surpassed new york at its peak in many areas the county will soon have a hundred thousand confirmed cases we close with fewer than a hundred cases per day
197we now have more than that per hour we are still waiting for guidance from the county and are being asked to make a decision based on incomplete information many schools with lower rates of infection in the nation have already closed for the year what criteria must be met to determine if it's safe to open our schools you cannot open with a clear plan when a student or teacher in an elementary class is showing signs of covet-19 infection where a class will be in six hours in the proximity of the individual what are the plans for the exposed students and staff next is in from angela thomas of chandler i am an experienced teacher and concerned parent who is new to the district if the meeting to determine the timeline for reopening schools to in-person instruction
198is being held remotely because it is not safe to meet in person then it is inappropriate to order teachers and students to return to the classroom at this time moreover with one of the lowest teacher pay scales in the metro area it will be difficult to retain quality teachers when other districts pay substantially more and provide their teachers with a safe work environment for example phoenix union has decided to remain online until after the first quarter other districts have chosen to listen to science and in place the health and well-being of their students their staff and their faculty at the forefront of their decisions now it is time to demonstrate that you value our lives it will require a great deal of sacrifice on the part of the community but such sacrifice will be necessary
199if the district hopes to continue the tradition of academic excellence a tradition that is due in no small part to our teachers next is from jennifer louis in cave creek dear governing board members and dr burdick it appears ccusd may be considering moving the in-person start date for resuming schools to in-person later in the year i beg you to stick to the original plan of resuming in person when governor ducey gets the green light you have provided two excellent options that meet the needs of students and teachers who medically need online and an in-person option for the rest of us it appears that the virtual face-to-face plan accounts for the ebb and flow of school closures should they be mandated by the governor ducey let's do what we know is best for kids and allow
200them on campus as soon as possible parents care about teachers and we do everything we can to follow safety rules to keep them safe too we need them on campus and hope they know we can do it together teachers work hard and i'm afraid by adding additional time to school closure that are not mandated by the state will ruin an already precarious relationship with our voting stakeholders i have yet to talk to a parent in the community who wants an even more delayed start for face-to-face brick and mortar instruction and i thank you for taking this portion of the community's needs into consideration in short please do not delay start times i beg you to continue with your original plan of offering two choices which meets the needs of all i look forward to sending
201my son back to school on august 17th jen louis cactus shadow's parent this is from martha stock from cave creek because of the kelvid 19 pandemic i feel it is important to keep children families and teachers safe by keeping schools closed until there is a treatment or vaccine online learning is an appropriate alternative this is from kevin diamond from cave creek postpone ccusd's reopening date to the 2020-2021 school year ccusd is obligated to ensure their students exceed state academic standards for the 2021 school year and meet parent expectations of delivering a world-class education and school experience this can only be done by starting in-person classrooms on the earliest date outlined by the state of arizona and adhere to state testing to ensure academic standards are met ccusd students already lost 25 percent of in-person teaching
202in 2020 due to the declining rate of new cases in arizona and low risk of adverse effects of covet 19 and school-age children the students cannot afford more limitations on their educational progress by delaying the opening date based on the ccusd published board's goals and beliefs the board shall maintain the current in-person class opening date of august 2020 in accordance with guidance from the state of arizona furthermore the board shall be an advocate with the state of arizona and cave creek community for opening in-person classes and support extracurricular activities on this date outlined below are the board's published goals and beliefs that support opening on august 17 2020 develop and deliver a curriculum instructional program and assessment process which exceeds state standards encourage participation in extracurricular and co-curricular opportunities such as athletics fine and performing
203arts vocation slash career preparation and community service our schools and students among content must continuously improve beyond government mandated standards our students will be provided a world-class education as a foundation for their contribution to society maintain accountability to parents and students to ensure the highest level of curriculum we will now transition to moscato the next comment is from terry tammy and aaron stiefel from cave creek for the kids wanting to return face to face what curriculum will they follow and who will teach those classes whether it be live online classroom teaching for course subjects during distance learning what is the difference in curriculum with academy of excellence and the curriculum for distance learning until allowed to go back face to face for distance learning students whether it be laptops provided for families for the duration
204we have an incoming freshman at cactus shadows what is the status of teachers there we understand there has been a teacher shortage attacked to shadows high school who is going to be teaching these students for all online learning teachers should be in their classroom teaching live other school districts are doing it and we should be too i believe these kids need to go back to school there is so much more just learning these kids need to be socialized and need to have a purpose in their day online does not provide that for them for free future board meetings it would be nice to see questions come in live for the board to have full transparency to us taxpayers the next comment is from patrick who of cave creek quote you either believe the science or
205not and quote there is virtually zero risk of children becoming seriously ill dr scott atlas i'm 66 a retired lawyer my twins start third grade at bmes i tested positive for covet antibodies twins symptomless mom and dad coven 19 recovered never really sick no fever our families on remarkable case should not be dismissed just for that facts stated are footnoted to experts below statistically 99.9 of coveted deaths are over age 24. 99.97 percent of covet deaths are over age 15. science says kids don't get seriously sick or not spreaders aap says it's extremely harmful to keep them closed kids have nearly zero risk from covid19 and rarely transmit to adults proven by data from all over the world closing schools denies science dr atlas stanford medical hoover institution world-renowned doctor scientist public health expert he's
206not wrong on his facts i've researched it no one disputes his fax statements many similar reports dr atlas quote everywhere in the western world has shown that children do not transmit significantly to adults even their own parents and quote kids are the opposite of super spreaders quote schools are essential businesses aren't they my concern is specifically the severe protocols to be imposed on the children scientifically unnecessary with undue suffering on grade schoolers parents predominantly want their kids in school and without overbearing impractical and likely unforeseeable health protocols extreme risk adverse parents have the option of online schooling families who want and need kids in class daily need a true choice that's to be contrasted with a false choice one so burdensome it makes kids suffer so unhappy and frustrated that we are compelled to remove
207them to homeschooling to it one herd immunity coronavirus coronavirus 19 is like the prior novel kovids notably none were included in any annual vaccines sars and mers have lessons however even if the drug companies never developed vaccinations funny how nobody gets sick from these past covids despite no vaccines an ncbi abstract footnoted below notes quote the lack of a vaccine for sars it was pointless to continue investing in a vaccine for a disease whose cases ceased to be reported end quote but why no more reported sars cases few on more recent mers it's the herd immunity per doctor atlas two covid not lethal for kids the consensus seems to be this covet is far less lethal reportedly a quarter the lethality of the annual flu for children under 18 the death rate is 0.4 for
208those under 70. the death rate is 0.01 for kids older than the age of 15. non-coveted mortality rate nationwide for kids is zero and that's time on mr hoog's comment next comment is from carl stock of cave creek reopening schools for on-site classroom instruction for the 2021 academic year would be crazy and irresponsible even when the proposed measures in place we can expect based on all available scientific evidence coronavirus will be transmitted in classroom students and teachers will become infected and some people students teachers family members will die as a result of these infections even with the best possible plan for distancing and personal protection anyone with classroom experience knows that you cannot expect the necessary level of compliance among students to avoid transmission teaching online presents a challenge but ccusd also has an opportunity
209to use the coming year to develop and refine this mode of teaching and learning the next comment is from mark and erica copenhagen thank you board members for taking the time to address our concerns we still have several unanswered questions we respectfully ask that ccusd push back in-person learning to after fall in october at the earliest to protect the health of the students teachers staff and parents arizona is still considered a coveted 19 hot spot and pushing back in-person learning will hopefully keep everyone safer finally we beg the district to follow science and not emotions or budget when making decisions regarding the health and well-being of our students teachers staff parents and community thank you so much the next comment is from dennis bentley of cave creek i'm sorry denise as the mother of three
210children at cactus shadows and a hospital worker i am urging the district to wait until october or later to return to face-to-face schooling my children are both asthmatic as am i i would not feel comfortable with them on the school bus i want a clear and outlined cleaning strategy provided before return as well thank you for your consideration of this pushback the next comment is from jill wallaby of cave creek our son is an incoming freshman and we have questions about the upcoming school year and we would like answered before we make a decision about online or face to face first i would like to say that you really should postpone the face-to-face start date for several months there are too many covet cases in arizona now for it to be a safe environment for
211students staff and teachers next comment is from kathleen roberson of phoenix i support postponing the reopening of ccusd schools for in-person instruction both as a parent and as a teacher online instruction is not ideal but it is the only safe option i would further urge the board to base their decision to reopen in-person instruction on some measurable target based on science rather than an arbitrary calendar date after quarter one for example schools should only reopen when teachers staff students and parents can be assured they will be safe this can only happen when community transmission has been curtailed and there are no new cases in arizona or when a vaccine is readily available the next comment is from heather mcgilvery of cave creek my husband and i have an incoming freshman and sophomore at cactus shadows
212and we would like to see the start of school push back until data is in place to show that it is safe for students staff and teachers to return to work we have chosen the face to face starting with distant learning option and are confident that the board will make the right decision to ensure that it is safe for reentry to face to face teaching and learning the next comment is from aaron boyd of scottsdale why is there such a rush to reconvene in person on august 17th when many school districts have already pushed their in-person start dates back to mid-september some even into mid-october the next comment is from linda peters of cave creek before our children can return safely to face-to-face learning it's important that the district ensure that certain protocols will be
213met if children cannot be spaced six feet apart in the classroom it is not safe for them return unless this protocol is met then face-to-face learning should be postponed until our numbers of infected in arizona are down the state requires restaurants to space table six feet apart and people have the choice of whether they want to go to a restaurant our children must go to school they have no choice for many of our children online learning is not an option please follow cdc protocols and make sure our children are safe if you cannot please postpone the face-to-face start of school the next comment is from monica monica french of cave creek there are businesses who are not allowing their employees back into the office work until december january because the risk of exposure is too
214high why do we think cramming 30 kids in a classroom is safe please consider keeping the distance learning not aoe and delaying the start of in-person school until kids and staff can safely return thank you next comment is from winnie sarah bia of cave creek there is still too much unknown what's known is that opening in person attendance too early could risk exposure as we have folks enter back into the petri dish known as schools regardless of whether you're public private or charter it's similar to throwing a covet party inviting people to show up and we wait to see who gets it and if it's as bad as they say if we look back on this 5 10 15 20 years from now and we're a blip in the history mark over covid what could
215we have done differently with the science-based information we have on hand not the political or financial information but science because this is all about our health and lives everything science related is asking the nation to slow down and not open during a surge even american pediatric association went back on their recommendation and followed this logic it would be in ccusd and arizona's best interest as we are still searching to delay in-person school start dates for the fall at a minimum through first quarter as shared by amy amy wright people testing positive for covid19 have been documented to be sick even after 60 days many people are sick for weeks get better still and then experience a rapid and sudden flare-up and get sick all over again a man in seattle was hospitalized for 62 days
216and while well enough to be released still has a long road of recovery ahead of them not to mention a million point one in medical bills mis-c multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed including the heart lungs kidney brain skin eyes or gastroenterolog organs children with mis-dust c may have a fever and various symptoms including abdominal pain vomiting diarrhea neck pain rash bloodshot eyes or feeling extra tired while rare it has caused deaths this disease has not been around for years it has basically been with us for only six months we know little about covid no one knows yet the long-term effects or how it what may present itself years down the road for people who have been exposed we literally quote do not know end quote
217what we do not know the more things we can all do to mitigate our risk of exposure the better off we all are in my opinion an opinion shared by medical science the notion that it's quote just a virus end quote and all we have to get it eventually is a careless lazy heartless stance the next comment is from elizabeth sandell for the safety of the students and staff i feel a start date of august 17th is premature and would support a start date after labor day or even october first thank you next comment and our final comment president hill is from colleen neese there are many families that strongly believe it is the best interest of our kids parents teachers and community as a whole to return to in-person school many of these families
218feel as if we have been silenced by the outspoken families that believe it is not safe to return to in-person school it is great that ccusd has created an online academy for those families for the many many families that have chosen the in-person option we want you to know that we believe returning to school on august 17th or soon thereafter is important those that disagree have the online academy option we cannot keep pushing back the in-person start date if august 17th doesn't happen after labor day is a good option continuously pushing back to october or november or later is not a good idea there are some questions i have about the differences between the online academy and distance learning what is the difference between the curriculum is one better than the other who are the
219teachers at each for distance learning how will the curriculum be delivered will there be a teacher providing instruction via live stream webcam in the spring there was no actual instruction and it fell completely on the parents to teach their kids i worked full time and this was extremely difficult i hope that there are teachers who will teach our children how will you and your ieps are ensure ieps are met my eighth grader has an iep and did not receive any of his services in the spring which by law are required will chromebooks be provided foreign language these classes need to be taught via video or in person handing out worksheets and other quizzes and expecting our kids to learn a language this way is unrealistic thank you for taking my comments and questions into consideration
220i look forward to getting our kids back in school and that concludes the comments for the site on president hill thank you moscato so presenter presenting item 4.4 is dr burdick thank you president hill governing board members um the administration is recommending postponing cc usd's reopening date for the 2020-2021 school year until september 8 2020 we would recommend that the board approve to postpone the reopening date until september 8th as some of our neighboring districts have already done so moved second rich okay um discussion i'm going to give a heads up on the discussion that once we vote i'm going to first some recommendations we have or the allowances we have before you vote each member will have two minutes to explain their vote so if you feel like you um once you do your
221vote you want to explain why you what vote you're making you're going to be given two minutes per person to vote but before we do that um we have a motion a second so it's time for discussion um i guess my first question is what i've seen some can you tell us what the surrounding districts in our area have done so far president hill at this point i know that paradise valley unified which is to our south directly and scottsdale unified which is to the um southeast of us have both postponed till september 8th deer valley which is on our west side has a postpone in to a date in october i don't have that exact date any questions um postponing till september 8th that's the opening of the classrooms or starting school period member
222busby that is a great question we are still starting on august 5th our plan that you approved is distance learning that the board approved is distance learning to face to face the face-to-face portion is what we're discussing right now currently it is august 17th per the executive order um but we are asking the board to postpone the face-to-face option to the day after labor day which is september 9th right september 8th i apologize next week i i understand that governor ducey is supposed to address the many school issues including his uh prior order about starting school on august 17th whether he's going to keep that in place or change it is there any consideration of waiting to see what governor ducey has to say um there have been each week an expectation that the governor
223may postpone the date um that has not happened we've heard the same rumor again this week that we heard the prior week and the week before i think the difficulty is if we do not make a firmer decision this evening and we've asked told our parents that they can wait until wednesday now to turn in their options we cannot start figuring out the staffing for both programs option one and option two and perhaps an option three which would go along with option one so we have tried to patiently wait to see what the governor is going to do we can continue that waiting game but at this point we feel like our families deserve a firm answer any other questions or comments i did have a question hang on i forgot what it was so
224come back to me i heard today that the governor was thinking about making an announcement this week about you know addressing the issue and uh i myself expect him to extend it until october which would be consistent with his extension of other executive orders that pertain to other parts of society um just to clarify there were several of those comments that were referencing the american academy of pediatrics and alluding to the academy wanting a delay on the start of school i'm looking at an article from the academy of pediatrics that was published three days ago and they're advocating for schools to open and they are also strongly advocating for safety measures to be adhered to in schools so that's just a clarification um regarding the what the american academy of pediatrics is advocating for any
225other discussion or questions or is everyone kind of holding out till they do their vote i'm getting that vibe are we ready to vote okay i'm great okay we have a motion and a second uh as presented which would be to postpone school until september 8th remember brown uh if you want to speak we have two minutes and i'll just keep a timer uh my vote will be no i think uh with what i have read and what other districts are doing both in state and out of state and i've referred also referred to the academy of pediatrics for their recommendations and especially with the k through six students that face to face is so important also that's important for our immersion and our iep need students that need that i also understand though the
226governor could come out tomorrow and say now that he's pushed the date back so i do understand that's out there but for this motion i will have to vote no okay uh remember busby i am going to vote no i am concerned about everybody's health and safety first and foremost so i want that to be made very very clear but at the same time i am also concerned about um education gaps that many of our students [Music] could sustain by not having in-person instruction our special ed kids depend on their classrooms and without having uh in-person class those those students sans lose a great deal we have as member brown mentioned immersion programs that will suffer we have worked very hard as a district to build up our immersion program and this can totally put
227it in the tank we have people are going to walmart they're going to the restaurants they're going all kinds of places there are more safety protocols in line for our classrooms than at any of the other public places that people have taken their children and if for this particular motion on voting now i'm waiting to see what the governor has to say in the coming days okay remember hatcher um i i type something that i'm going to read so that i keep myself on track um after tonight's vote half of the community will disagree with the outcome and more than likely be unhappy this controversial issue has pitted community against district against teachers and against one another a school board does not typically find itself making decisions which could deliberately place students and staff in
228harm's way but here we are parent reasons cited to return face to face are personal freedoms socialization needs of children too many distractions at home needs are better met in the classroom versus the home the online curriculum is not up to parent expectations and various studies which we have been sent making the case to open schools it's been suggested that we permit small groups of sped students and the younger students to return to a classroom sooner than the rest of the student body i understand your opinions and agree that a better education is obtained through live interaction with the teacher the reason to maintain distance learning is the personal health and safety of students and sometimes the staff is mentioned and i'm talking about from what we've just heard a school board member's charge is
229to make sure student achievement is accomplished with the resources available to the district the ccusd does a really good job of that those resources are primarily money the school buildings themselves and the employees in the situation we find ourselves in today all three components have been considered in the creation of the ccusd plan and how that plan is to be implemented the second and equally important factor which i must consider is student and staff health and safety this includes aids bus drivers food services employees custodians nurses and front office employees regarding academics if we don't have healthy teachers we will not have students receiving quality education the ripple effect of the possibility possibility of staff becoming ill is something i cannot ignore we have many parents and teachers afraid to put their children and for
230the employees their own lives at risk of contracting covid19 for me this is not a decision where i prioritize students over employees or employees over students i look at everyone as someone i have an obligation to protect we cannot foresee the future and quite possibly this is something we will be dealing with on and off for the remainder of the school year we need to be prepared for that teachers are flexible individuals and if need be they would shift to online instruction immediately if necessary parents should be prepared for that possibility too we hope that will not be necessary but we can't possibly know i believe we all want the same thing that is to see our students in class with their peers in front of a live teacher fortunately there's a compromise available students
231can be learning either in class if it's deemed safe and online in the interim they will still receive an education it may not be an ideal situation but these are not ideal times if we want school to open safely we all need to follow certain protocols both in school and in our private lives the sooner we get this under control the sooner we return to normal it takes all of us we are only as strong as the weakest link and with that i vote to approve the delay in opening okay um i know because i i've had contact with many people that after tonight i will have regardless of the decision i'm about to make i know i'm going to lose friends i'm going to lose colleagues because they're not going to agree with my
232decision and i'm okay with that because the decision i'm making is the one that i believe is for the best interest of our kids and our staff i do have a student that lost his spring sports season plus prom is going to be a senior and is going to lose a lot already has i know is going to lose so much and that eats at me every day i am angry with the county and with the state for not providing information to us i've looked at information that's been given and they keep saying we'll get it to you in the coming weeks and it's unacceptable our school boards are here to discuss curriculum and other items i'm not an epidemiologist i'm not an infectious disease specialist that's not a requirement to be a school board
233member or to lead a district we are being asked to make decisions that are beyond our scope of understanding and i looked to our governor into our county to provide guidance and they give us nothing arbitrary dates i don't know when it's going to be safe i don't see any difference between august 17th to august 19th to september 8th i don't see anything that the county has given us that gives us any confidence of what they believe is an appropriate time to go back and so saying all that and knowing the ramifications of my decision i have to approve to delay the opening until september 8th remember rich thank you president hill um i've i've uh evolved quite a bit over the last few months on this subject because i know i haven't uh been
234concerned about it as far as my own health is concerned and i know that it wasn't affecting the youthful portion of the population but as the rest of the nation has moved on as they've peaked in each state and moved on we're in the thick of it right now in arizona and uh i've really changed my mind about it i am extremely concerned about infecting the susceptible members of the population and you know the issue that if we have students come back to school that they uh will spread the uh infection on to uh those susceptible members of their families and others and i too wish we had more guidance from the state i fully expected the governor is uh going to extend until october is my personal belief anyway which would make this vote
235moved but we are voting today because we have to move on as a district and i vote in favor of extending it okay so vote is three to two to extend the closure date until september 8th item 4.5 recommendation to approve ccusd's resolution regarding cova 19 ms scotto do we have any public comments we have two public comments president hill the first is from mary hillika of cave creek do not approve agenda item 4.5 cc usd's resolution regarded code regarding covet 19. section 5 of the rev resolution authorizes the superintendent to temporarily suspend compliance with or implementation of board policies and administrative regulations during the covet 19 pandemic which specific policies and regulations would the resolution affect or would that apply to all of the board policies and administrative regulations no that's not a good
236idea and not the way that representation of the people by the governing board is designed to work the governing board should absolutely not approve this resolution resolution i apologize that's the end of her comment and the next comment is from heather mcgilvery of cave creek we also feel confident that dr burdick will make informed decisions should onsite learning need to be postponed in the event of a coveted outbreak and that is the end of those comments president hill thank you moscato and thank you for losing your voice for us tonight um so presentation of item 4.5 will be by dr burdick thank you president hill and governing board members um this is a recommendation to approve a resolution that is similar to the resolution that you approved last march um to follow the orders of
237the governor at that time as well as the legislature who also had legislation related to the schools closing and so this follows information and is more specific for where we are right now and um is something that was drafted by different school attorneys in the state and um different districts are looking at doing this one reason for doing it is so that as things change we aren't having to call emergency board meetings in order to do some things it talks about the development and revision of health and safety protocols allows allowing us to be flexible as more information is brought forward authorizes all schools to resume classroom instruction and related activities and resume other district functions if needed works with relevant governmental authorities to comply with all laws regulations orders and guidelines as the district
238resumes its operations and activities allows me to close a school in emergency situation or multiple schools or all schools on a temporary basis if needed to minimize the spread of covid19 at a school site building or in the community temporarily suspends compliance with or implementation of the same and needed to comply with different laws regulations orders and guidelines or to promote the health safety and welfare of the school community and for allows for execution of any further documentation to effectuate the resolution including but not limited to requisite notices required by the arizona department of education or legal authorities and the extent that any provision in the resolution conflicts with or is superseded by enacted federal or state legislation or local ordinance ordinances um what we have always done is when there is something that um
239if you go back to the last suspension if there's a um or not suspension but resolution last march it doesn't preclude me contacting all of the board saying what is going to be changed or then bringing it for action to the next governing board meeting but allows us to be flexible as things continue to change and so i would recommend that the um cc usd resolution regarding covet 19 is approved as presented oh everyone is so so moved okay have a second discussion um when the governor gets around to sharing some new information how is this resolution impacted so if he comes with a date that is um beyond the scope of our date which is now september 8th we have to comply with that um if he doesn't act the board has already approved
240that date if we get information eventually that shows that our families students and staff are being negatively impacted by the virus it would allow me after discussion with the board but not with board action to move forward with perhaps having to do some closures or temporary closures in order to clean up a building to stop the spread of the building etc so this would be if we have an emergency that if one of the schools we have something happen and we have to do something immediately because we can't send the schools back the kids the next day this would give you the authority to do that contacting us but we wouldn't have to post right because without this we would have to post that we're going to have a meeting for 24 hours and then
241discuss that and then that meantime we would not be able to do that sort of of immediate action is that what this is it this this could do that um there is also a policy in section i that allows me to close a school if there's an emergency but we are all districts at this point have no idea what lies ahead right and so um and nobody has returned to face-to-face school so we are looking at unprecedented situations that we may not even be able to anticipate which is kind of where we are right now um this allows the flexibility for me as always to still contact all board members as i usually do and if there are any changes or things that are going to impact the district but then to be able to
242move forward on doing anything that needs to be done for instance there might be some human resources policies that may need to be changed as things move forward and as we look at not needing as much staff we're hoping the governor will give us some direction on still being able to support all of our staff which we currently aren't planning on doing but we don't know what's going to come up and so this allows the flexibility with me informing the board to move forward with what needs to be done thanks any other questions or comments i i have a question it as i read through this i mean i consider this part of the day-to-day responsibilities of any district superintendent so i don't know i mean i i go back and i look at our
243board policy cba qualifications and duties of the superintendent and a lot of this is is in policy already i just don't understand why we have to declare a special resolution i mean if if anything would have happened say there's would have been a small fire at one of the facilities you have that authority to move students out of the building and close it while we clean up so that doesn't need a special resolution so i just don't understand why the um maybe a little excessive reach for giving you as much more leeway than is already in policy again it just allows for more flexibility this is something that school lawyers have put together and districts are many districts are bringing to their next um august meeting dear valley has already approved this buckeye has already
244approved this and it is something that would just allow the flexibility as a one did that you approved in march and you are correct member brown some of these things pieces of them i already have the authority to do um i just was bringing it in hoping that it would allow more flexibility for the district and um not having to bring certain things to the board and suspending some of the policy and regulation language if necessary again as i always do i would contact every board member and if necessary we would vote on whatever it is officially at the next meeting go ahead jim i was just going to say this is only related to cobit 19 it specifies that yes it's only during covet pandemic i'm sorry wait did janet did you have a
245question well i i i have a concern you know i understand that this is only regarding covid19 and this is an ever-changing field that we're looking at from day to day and from hour to hour it changes but you know for the sake of transparency and communication with our district giving such great flexibility to dr burdick eliminates you know it's one thing okay dr burdick's going to contact us but it eliminates the opportunity for the community to be involved with what's going on and that's a little bit concerning so that's remember hatcher wait you're muted remember hatcher you're muted okay am i good now yeah does this expire when um when covid is officially declared over or how do we know this when the expiration occurs um because it says the 20 20 21 school
246year okay 20 20 21 all right yeah so it's specific okay 2021 school year we certainly hope it's over in the 20 21 year right questions or comments okay we have a motion in a second to approve is presented remember rich all right i'm in i remember hatcher i remember busby no remember brown no uh item five we have no old business item six do i have a motion to adjourn so moved second uh motion to adjourn member brown i remember busby hi hatcher i am an i member rich hi okay this meeting is adjourned