001It was a workout. >> Just jump up. entry. Sorry. >> Don't say I do that on Tuesday. I'm like I'd rather do it. So after >> and just meet outside my office and you'll see this outside. It was fun. It was so great. >> The parents are coming. >> We got a 3D printer. >> That was already We went in a couple days. I usually do that. Well, when I was like having, >> hey, you're about to kill me, but I'm taking tomorrow off to And I was like, um, I can't take all >> by yourself. And he's like, no, it's a Christmas. >> So that means like his wife's also a teacher. >> I don't know. >> I know. I texted her and she's like, "Are you gonna be going this weekend?" And I
002was like, "Well, Joe, >> he's got power." >> Well, it depends. You either get nice or you get >> seriously. >> It could be a Julie situation. What's that? >> Her day for just came to me and said he's got to take six weeks off. >> On these I put this Oh, you didn't know that. He just he went to a doctor today. >> I forget the word against Today just won't end. I'm sorry. >> I do. I did. >> No, I hear it. So, I'm sorry. >> Good evening all. Welcome to tonight's meeting. If you are able, would you please stand with me? I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >>
003Thank you. Great. Moving right along. Item number four is adoption of tonight's agenda. If I get a motion to adopt tonight's agenda. >> I'll make a motion to adopt agenda. >> And a second. >> I'll second. >> Thank you. All in favor? I. Number five is call of the public. Move on then. Item number six is our information and discussion items 6A superintendence report. I haven't >> Julie Billy. Do we have student council coming? >> I saw Leah walking through the gym when I came down here. So, I don't know. >> Okay. I'll go ahead and get started then because otherwise I'd have had her go ahead page here. So, I wanted to of course there wasn't a whole lot of stuff going on since we've been like out of school have design since the
004last meeting. But a couple of things that I know Marcia, you went to the ASBA winter conference. Anything in particular you wanted to share with us? >> Most of the all the sessions I went to basically talked about supporting our kids and how important support is to our kids. Um they say that they see a big difference in children support home. Um we splities and anything else. But um if they get that support, it it really their grades their grades are higher, their self-esteem is higher, everything works together for those kids. So that was the big thing and the one speaker that we had at one of the sessions, he just amazed me. He had been through a broken home and his life was really tough and decided they didn't turn things around. It just
005brought tears to eyes. So anyway, um I just want to say, you know, how the support of teachers are a big part of our kids' lives, but we get the parents and the teachers working together really. So, um I asked the administrators and directors not to include their goals this time since they're so busy working on budget things. So, if you have any questions, um the goals have been in the packet and the updates all the way along. If you have any questions or want some information before our February meeting, I would encourage you just to reach straight out to that director or to that administrator for some updates. I know that um you know we did a benchmark testing before we went to break and I reviewed all of our read paper reading scores
006to see how kids are doing whether they're on track reported all that we have to report that to the department of ed so we were able to do that as well so um we are in the process of rolling out a new parent notification system we've been using a system called square and at the end of January we will roll off parent square and roll to our edo. Does it have a different name other than that? >> So, and we will be getting information out to board, staff, parents about the app and how to receive the notifications. We're doing this for a few reasons. Number one's cost savings because it's part of our we can integrate it with our new website. So Cheyenne and Austin, who's joined us back there now, he's smiling. They're in
007charge of it. So Austin is in charge of a lot of our parent notification stuff. Cheyenne, of course, the website and parent notification. Um, one of the things that we know and that you'll see tonight when Marty presents, um, we have some new social media guidance for, um, employees in our new, um, recommended, you know, policy manual from the trust. We worked hard with the trust and with our attorney to get that exactly where it needs to be um, as far as meet, you know, information in the law. But also, this is um a good if we're offering a communication system and a way to um communicate back and forth with parents. This is the official approved one from the school district, the one that we're rolling out. And so, of course, it's going to
008be that's the one you need to be using when you're communicating with parents, especially. And one of the benefits of that is we can see all the traffic. So, we know what was said. we know what kind of messages go out, that sort of thing, too. So, um, we're doing some things inside the district to tighten up some of the ways that we communicate with parents and to make sure that we have some really good effective ways common. It's okay. A common a common piece of information that parents and all everyone likes to receive of course is when we have a weather related message. So anyway, we're working on um the messaging for that. Cheyenne and Austin are very close on. They're importing staff information right now so we can have a smooth transition. So
009it's been good. We're working on ways to save money and more effectively and safely provide communication platforms. >> Awesome. >> So, um the second issue of Cougar News will be in your regular mailboxes um sometime um late January or first week of February. So, the second edition of that um the first edition was super well received. So, we're looking forward to that. And then um I would like to know if at I put information in for the normal sequence of events regarding um expenditure recommendations for next year. So that is listed and then um I'd like to know do we want to and we can hash it out the end of the meeting but do we want to have a budget work session at all prior to our February meeting? and you'll kind of know
010that after you hear stuff tonight whether you feel like you want that. Um and then and I gave some possible dates for that. So um we have a meeting um as you just to refresh everybody's memory um school facilities board condemn 12 uh 10 classrooms at the high school and are building a new building for us and we have a meeting with the architect a week from Wednesdays staff and and folk to kind of get more of their input. I've already provided a lot of that to the architect about what kinds of things they want to see in that building. So, and then I started listing for you as we look forward to next year because it's January so it is next year. But one is um graduation which is May 20th at 7 at
011Finley. Our strategic planning day is Thursday May 28th at Grace and all staff orientation kickoff will be Thursday July 30th at Grace. So we have those dates solidified for you as well. Any questions? >> What day of the week is May 20th? Just Wednesday. Wednesday. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. >> Yep. >> We have a have had a non Wednesday. >> That's kind of our designated day with Finley. So like Ember Riddle has a day, Yavapai has a day, Bradshaw has a day, we have a day. So stick to our >> for sure. All right. Item 6B1 is financial report for December 31st. Mr. Woodston. >> Yes. President Thomas, members of the board, administration and staff, uh guests and employees, and anyone else that's here. A quick uh quick look at our December 31st
012uh financial picture. I've been doing a lot of research. We're going to hear about this at the February meeting and trying to rewrite past annual financial reports that could sweeten or I guess increase our positive cash flow and decrease some of our expenses and I've been working on that since July actually and you'll hear more about that in February. We will revise the budget for the second time February meeting. So stand by a quick look at page one of your financial report information there. Uh our budget for our capital fund right now right around 19,200,000 expenses year to date 9.8 million. That's that's right around the 50% level of our budget. We want to make that better as the year goes by and we've got some plans to do that. Uh I'd like to focus
013on one number there on that front page. If you can turn to a budget summary, it's to the right. It says budget balance and there's a 662,000 in parentheses there, 662 873. I'd like to discuss five things that that's comprised of. There's a few little smaller ones, but the main five and we have funds uh like 855 fund. That's if you want to look at the cash later on, we've got that on the cash report. Uh 855 fund starts the year with zero cash. The other funds I'm going to talk about also start the year with zero cash. They don't have enough revenue from year to year to put any expense in there. As the year goes by, including the 855 funds for Medicare, medical insurance buy up. So if we're an employee that buys
014like I do health insurance for my spouse, that's my cost. So as I do that, those funds accumulate in this 855 fund. And as time goes by, we can then move the transfer of the expense from our operating fund that paid for those insurance premiums into the 855. That's usually $400,000. So that really helps. Then M expenses tumble by that $400. Other funds that are in there are uh we have a special ed grant for high-cost students that's been around 70,000 a year. Uh we've got our afterchool program at Del Rio campus, the CASAB, and we've got a couple preschool funds and we've also got a couple gaming funds that bring in about 150,000 a year and 2024. So none of those funds have enough cash flow or revenue at any given time to put
015expense in, but as a year goes by, uh we can move that expense. So that's what the 662. Last year we moved over 800,000 of M expenses into these other funds. U any any question on how that works? We just call them cash short funds. But if we leave the expense in our M fund, that's no good because it's not an M expense. Uh we've got to accumulate those revenues before we can put the expense. We see our capital budget 883,000 spent 2024. There's about 220,000 unspent there, which is about 25% of the budget unspent. Adjacent w 650,000. We know we want to put more in there. We're going to start working projects. We might have expense there for this year in addition to the 584,000, but we're not sure. We still got to get
016some bids out and just do some timing issues there with our with our facilities director. If we if we do that uh we'll probably be getting bids in February, March for something like this. I would imagine, Mr. Chair, as time goes by, see just when we want to do that. So, and that's adjacent ways that does primarily fire lanes and things like that that we need upgraded. Uh a quick look at as we go further along here, pending cash for de for November, if we go to the third page there in the report, 7.4 million. pending cash in December 6.3 million. So down about 1.1 million. There's one fund that's responsible for that and that's our 691 fund. That's this fund from the state that is improving all of our facilities. So we received $979,000
017from them about the 28th of December after we wrote our last checks for our vendors. So that's why there's uh cash that's gone down as you can see about that 6.2 million and it it crossed actually in the month of November. It was just sitting there. It wasn't really cash. We were just the custodians of it for a while. It's just a pass through. So don't get too concerned about the cash balance million there based on timing of those revenues. And then as we take a look at uh just the cash itself, the very last part of my presentation here December, if you take a look at that fund 691, it's towards the back there uh back page. You can see the increase the 1,ion588 and then the 1,588 you spent and the 30,000 left
018over. Those were also November. So sometimes it takes us a while. There's so many ways when we submit invoices to the state that they can reject them. Sometimes they'll notoriize it. The vendor or the architect will notoriize the invoice and the architect stamp for the notary will be on top of the general contractor's signature. So we submit it. Three weeks later, school facilities board rejects it. So there's not much we can do when we have revenues that we we receive. That's great. Everything's been processed. But when we have invoices that are processed, sometimes it takes an extra three to four to five to six to seven weeks, especially when we find unforeseen conditions that result in a change order and an amendment. They have to be approved by seven people at the state of the
019board. We had one for 320,000 at Heritage Middle School a year and a half ago. We've had over 500,000 at the high school. Just unforeseen conditions that they run into that take more time. spring break. Can you give us a quick update, Mr. Sheriff, on what's happening at the high school based on electrical problems for the high school for spring break for PBLO mechanical >> over here? >> Yeah, real quick. They're ran into some electrical issues. >> Yeah, the bus control and the main building has was basically installed improperly from the from day one. >> When Pleblo Mechanical went in to do the work, they realized they can't actually shut that down. there's still power feeding out that that has to get corrected. The SFB did fund it, but it's time appropriate. So, they're coming
020in on March 16th, I think, is the day it's set up for them to kill power to the which will actually shut down all of our internet, everything districtwide for it's about two-day event. >> And my understanding is it's got to be done during that time. You say, why couldn't they do it during a Friday? Because once they're it won't work because they've got to have two days, they've got to have another day for a really high level tester to >> Well, it's it's multiple parties involved. You've got PBLO, you've got the APS, you've got multiple parties that can come in to do that has to be this town has to sign off on it. It there's so many avenues that that's why we're picking that day to do it because it's going to be
021if anything goes wrong, we still got more days of the week to go into. >> Thank you. So it's that's the quickest we can do it is over spring break. >> Will that interfere with any basketball or anything else that might >> there's nothing can run basically. >> Thank you. I got an interesting email and a phone call last week from the auditor general and some of you might have sent an email for me to you explaining what uh what the auditor general wanted to discuss or present or uh engage us with. It's I get a lot of these these comments I can make. U and we like the auditor general because they're there to give us a a chart of accounts that when we make our expenses and every expense that we do has
02220 different numbers. We like their chart of accounts. We like it when we know what they're going to change in those chart of accounts. We like it when they give us reports that say your financial condition is pristine or admirable. We like those reports. So there's reports coming out now. They do it every January of every year. I've given you a copy on page two here of the one that's a year old. I'll just go through. We got four pages here. Four or five pages. So I'll just I'll just summarize this. This is the email I got last Friday from the auditor. Hey John, this is from Chris Bochure. He's been there about 14 years. Uh he worked as a car salesman. Whenever I talk to Chris Bochure, we always talk about the best car
023to buy and where and when to get it. but now he's a CPA and he works for the auditor general. As we mentioned our December data confirmation, we will be publishing our annual school district financial risk analysis results later this month. And I got that on Friday, January 9th. Although your district was not identified among the highest risk districts for our school district risk analysis, our review says it is approaching the high-risisk category. So I guess that means you're on a high diving board and you're at rung seven. And if you go to rung 10, if any high divers are in here, you know, you can probably do a triple back flip, but you might break your neck if you go spring 11. I'm not sure what that, but uh so we don't want to
024go any higher on the risk analysis. We want to go lower, get out of this category. So this is something that's going to result in a phone call to me. I probably discussed this with superintendent Heidi right here. We don't need to do a corrective action plan saying these nine elements I'm going to show you here's how we're going to move down the ladder on those risk analysis but we need to discuss it a discussion. So if we turn to page two here's the nine items that they look at and they give us a score based on financial results from the 25 year and what they see so far in the 26 year. First one, change in weighted student count. And they put a four-year change to the right. And our should have a little
025red circle on it. The things that I've circled there. And we're negative4% year-toear. And I went over this with superintendent from the 23 year. I think we've gone down 12% 4% a year for 2223 to 2324 to 2425 to 2526. So we're we're in a bit of a decline there. So that's easy to document. That's the first one. Then they do one budget limit reserve. What's the unspent budget in our operating fund and that's not in the red category. The first one is in the red category for weighted discounts. Then we look at budget limit reserve for capital. That's a number two red. Then we go down. I'll just go through these real quick. One in the middle. Financial position general fund operating margin. This is an interesting one. You see the 1.1 and then
026the negative from the 23-year. This is interesting and I'll just kind of try to do this with my hands. I'm not from France but I can feel that. So if our budget last year was 19 million even and it wasn't. It was 19.6. But if it was 19 million even and we spent 18 million8. So about 1% wasn't spent. You'd think well why would they put a 1% in here? What they care about is how we got to that$ 18 million. And it's defined this operating margin as not including the 850,000 we dropped in from capital not including the 900,000 we brought forward from the M from the prior year none of that carried forward just new year revenue so if your new year revenue the way they define it and I put that at
027the bottom of the page I'll just read that for operating margin this measure shows that percent of district general fund revenues so those transfers in aren't really revenues they carry forward isn't really revenues not spent in the year. So if we spent 18.8 million like we did last year and we brought in revenues of seven of 18.6 that's how they're getting that really tight amount because it's not including some of those carryovers transfers in. So they're saying our operating margin should be higher. And then we go go down to the last red one and we know we've been doing this but we just had reasons to do it. The last red one's on the lower left. Capital monies redirected to operations. So, our capital budget's been between 1.3 and 1.7 million for the last couple
028years, and we can leave it there and use it for capital items. Our capital budget is so under pressure this year, our maintenance director came to me today, said, "Can we buy a $3,000 cement mixture by hand?" And I I had back up and hit the wall. And when I bounced off the wall back to talk to him, I said, "Well, I'm going to do what we can. It might take a few funds to find that $3,000 because capital, as we've gone over with our staff and our directors and our principal, is pretty much spent for the year. We have debt service. We have other obligations. So, we're we're going to find that 3,000 for this sector because the Office of Civil Rights came by and wrote up the high school. I guess we're not
029having access to some ADA ramps and sidewalks. So, we better get our sidewalks fixed. So, we'll do that. So there's the there's the the last sentence. Then a district with below average operating reserves exposes itself to higher financial risk each time spending exceeds its revenues negative. So ours has been really close to the negative operating but we've been able to do that the last few years. Transfer money from M into capital to save it and do things with it and then money back from capital to M. And when we do that when we support M when capital funds the state says well why are you doing that? why you need to pay teacher salaries and staff salaries and insurance out of your capital fund with the transfer. Well, you've had several reasons to do that.
030So, that's page two. Page three, if you want to take a look, this is this is going back to the end of the 24 year. So, the end of the 24 was June June 30th of 2024. Uh auditors were here about August 7th of 2024. about September 1st of 2024, I get a letter from our auditors and they tell me, "Uh, we've got a a problem here." And I I knew about it, but I wasn't expecting a letter that soon. Uh, why did your instruction, if you look at that third page, you got it. Why did your instructional expenses jump from the 23 year of 13.5 million to the 24 year of 14.8 million when your student count went down a hundred? And I scratched my head for a while. I said, "Well, you know,
031I can tell you why." And you just take a look down at the bottom of the page, my little notes there. We did a couple things in the 24 year to really increase expenses. Uh that 1.3 million, 1,324,943. We had a priority to do certified staff stipens. That was over 400,000. We hired several people, but new staff hires over 500,000. And then we built $900,000 from district funds uh for staff housing projects. So right there is 1.8 million and then down below that you see the the student account the 23 year 22 2253 2253 24 year 2170 uh 25 year last year 2049 and this year right on 1949. So we've been dropping 300 students over that four-year period. So I wrote back and said we had priorities to do these projects and do staff
032stipens and hire more more staff. This year just ended June of of 25 we got some of those expenditures back kind of maybe I'm not sure what the best word is normalized or try to connect we try to connect our expenditures to a number of staff and a number of students and students generate it staff so many costs going against that but we try to keep them in line any any questions or observations >> I just uh I'm just looking at this we're just saying we had the increase in the certified staff stipens, the new staff hires quite a few and operation expenses for the staff housing. I mean, is that that was more is that more student related or is it looks like it's a lot of staff related expenses even though the number
033of students went down. Am I am I am I accurate there? >> Oh, okay. Thank you. That's >> that's kind of a kind of a distinction right there. These costs were more staff related >> a bit more staff related than student related. It seems like to me >> I think I think what you're also applying maybe uh might might be are we providing more AP classes in the high school that increase these costs or are we providing other services for students or or what exactly is going on? I can say part of that in addition to these hires were our special ed I guess you could say our special ed program itself during these time periods 23 year was 2.6 6 million. 24 year was 2.1 million. 25 year was 2.7. So that's exponentially not
034even mentioned because we don't have a special ed line here for those costs. That's also just marching and marching and marching on over 300,000 increase a year. So that's also happening. At the same time, our student health is going down. So we're in we're there. Any comments on that? >> No. when we um that was something that had occurred at the end of the 24 fiscal year and um that was something I inherited. Um and because of that we made significant cuts last spring coming into this year. um some of the expenses that John mentioned um that we have been outsourcing like special education services from providers that were contracted providers rather than employees. It's a significantly higher expense. Um we folded them in um as employees to save money on those things as well
035to help offset some of those escalating special ed costs. Um there had been a rather than saving money when we had the opportunity to a couple of years ago um it was spent on teacher stipens onetime teacher stipens and you know and I would say it's a it's a twofold issue right so like we worked really hard to reduce spending though we increased some employees coming into this year um but the other part of that was I think when the board agreed to those recommendations that I think nobody could have predicted what the ESA impact would be over last year and this year as well. Um you know there was a little bit of a hint of that. Um but that's where we were >> because there for a few years even though we weren't
036blowing we also weren't necessarily losing >> correct >> and then Bam, we just got lost. >> And and truthfully, you know, I mean, hindsight's always 2020 vision, right? Um but a couple of years ago, that outgoing recommendation probably should have been denied. So, we had a larger account to sit on down to, you know, rainy day, right? Um but that's a situation that we find ourselves in now. And you know later on in the meeting um you'll hear from me the things that the staff are you know have brought forth as ways to curtail that. We know that um special education costs will only continue to escalate and as John pointed out, we have in the my 18th year in the district, um our special education student population is doubled. And part of it, it's
037not over identification here inside the district. There's changing needs that students have, changing needs that um people in the community bring their students with some very very profound needs, whether they're medical or um you know, intellectual disabilities or whatever it may be. Um, and that's something that as we talk to staff about, um, we are with the ESA process, we're losing general education students, gaining special education students. So, it's skewing the percentage in the district as well. So, before like when I came to the district, we were sitting like 11 and a halfish percent of our student population receive special services. now like 23 or 24% does part of that's because our gened population has dropped. It's not that just gened stayed here instead went here. It was kind of this horrible sort of teeter
038totter thing too. So while we had some decisions you know couple three four years ago that are impacting where we are today there are some other factors as well. >> It sounds like budget cuts and everything >> and and what you know John and Heidi and I visited today of course we visited when we saw the thing from the auditor general last week too is that I do not even know and I don't John probably didn't think to ask the question because I mean you're like uh okay you got the email right um how many other districts in the state are also receiving the same email And I have got to believe it is more than 50% of the districts in the state. Um when you when you do listen to the news and see
039and and you know one of the things we talked about is this approaching high-risisk isn't really like a category. And so it's and we talked today about the possibility of these letters and creating this designation as a political tool because the auditor general needs to be able to talk to the legislature, needs to be able to talk to the governor about the impact of the ESAs. And so what better way to talk about it than to have a like new phrasiology that's like yes, they're not here, but they're approaching. So it's, you know, it's like not an official category. like a warning status, but then they can say, you know, we've designated x number of districts or whatever. And so in that next meeting that John has with um auditor general, that's one of the
040things that I'll be curious to have John inquire about is how many of our peers find themselves in this very similar situation. And you know, I'll be honest with you, I was surprised last week when I turned the news on and saw that PIO will be voting to close schools um this month as well, too. And and they typically have been a district that has experienced explosive growth, especially in that far northwest bound. And to think that that they're facing that situation as well, tells you it's not isolated to, you know, rural districts, but it's truthfully impacting everybody. So it's it it is a very untenable situation. Um and we have to you know the things that we've talked about admin team director team we've talked about openly with staff is that um we have
041to do things not only to protect the district for next year but to keep setting us up for what may be coming as well and and making decisions now. um with the idea that it will create opportunities for us to make sound decisions moving forward about. So rather than just like okay we have to adjust right now for what's in front of us. Yes, we're doing that but we're also trying to apply a lot of forethought over the next couple of years. And you know, and I'll be honest, I remember in a board meeting, Annie asked the question, should we be doing this when we gave the stipens to teaching staff? And um and it was a good question because in hindsight, the answer probably no because we would have had an extra half a
042million bucks we were sitting on. I >> was going to say the only good thing we kept teachers probably would have left the district too. >> It's hard to say. It really is because we have typical turnover every year anyway. I It's really hard to say. Um and truthfully, given the opportunity to put, you know, money in staff pockets, I'm all for it. Not have predicted the cliff that everybody would be facing at school. It's most you know, there's that. >> Schools is really working on lobby. Just >> sorry just just a point of clarification for my edification. Um when you talk about what percent of our peer schools what does peer schools mean? Is that just rural schools or is that >> really I was referring to other regular geographically bound districts because um
043charter schools are really our peers. They're not geography bound. Um and so schools that are geographically bound >> about 250 of those in Arizona. >> One more just a comment. The question is kind of a question I actually got from someone at the auditor general's office a prediction of how many other districts are in this big category called approaches. Um, and I did chat with Christopher Trouick last year at this time and his his definition of the term approaches high-risisk was that the district might be those of you that were really watching or involved in public ed back in 2007 know that seven school districts were placed into receiverhip in 2007. >> And he recalled those school districts and said, "When you're in that position, it's like you're leaving the shore." I had a couple
044of examples to bring up, but I'll just popped into my mind. Share it. When you're leaving the shore where there's six inches of shore ice and you proceed to the best ice fishing pole where there's three inches of good ice, uh, and you hear the ice creek and you see your dog fall through over here, you probably better turn around and go back where it's six inches. And he said it's it's a warning. This category is a warning. These categories, these these financial risk, these nine measures should alarm, alert, unify, inform, and direct your behaviors so you don't continue to the really good ice fishing hole and fall through. Now you're food for the walley instead of, you know, your >> good things like our student count. >> And that's that's one thing Chris stressed.
045There's so many things that are in these categories that you can't control, but you can control your staffing. You can control how many people in the district are eligible for health insurance. You can control how many people in the district pay for their own or their spouses. Uh you can control how many students are in a classroom, but there's a lot of things you can't control and that's exactly so kind of stress. >> I would I would like you to tell everyone what the back >> story. Yeah, I don't want to say too much. I see Ed was really impressed with my walleye story. So >> I really like to say what does that mean to you? >> Oh okay. It says at some point the path financial wellness is to accept >> I'm not
046going through. This was this was an actual real life experience I had first year university up in Utah and I'm up there and it's almost dark and I have this feeling I should turn around and look up the ski hill. So I did and here's this item that's sticking like this and I get back up there. It takes me 20 minutes. If you've ever tried to go up a hill with downhill skis it's pretty hard to just climb a hill for maybe 300 yards. But I got there and here's this guy. His head's buried in 18 inches of snow. His skis broken. was picking up and I pulled him up and slapped him around. He wasn't breathing and threw him on my back and took him down to the medic and they got him breathing
047again and it was pretty cold and they labeled that experience. He proceeded into dangerous terrain at high speed. So I don't know if there's a directional correlation with what happened here with our student count reduction, but if we if we go into darkness at high speed and no one saw him, that was the thing. The artic were there. The Polaris were there. They didn't see this guy. They didn't see the because there wasn't much of them to see. There was just a broken ski. But I turned around. I don't know why. And so I'm inv. But it's it's hard to say that there's any school district that doesn't proceed into darkness because exactly of the student issue. So we don't know when we open the doors in July exactly what our student account, therefore our
048revenue is going to be in the next year. So I guess it's kind of like living with this this poor guy. He's heading down into a shootute. There's trees and rocks and he's going to survive it. And I don't know the guy I saved, I don't know if he could have. They said he probably have to do that if we're in public because we don't even know our budget till February of the next year. But what can we do? I guess that's what we when we talk later about some of the recommendations that staff are making. I had asked John to build a budget projection based on the average of the 4% student decline that we've experienced over the last three years. So John built um basically a revenue projection and then we looked at
049okay what do we need to do to make that revenue projection um because realizing that to fully make it and draw nothing from capital would be a really dramatic shift. Um, so to diminish what we're pulling from capital because truthfully we can. Um, like we're we're operating in a way that's allowable. Um, but to diminish that to put the district over the course of the next two years in far better financial position and better financial stability than we've been experiencing. So John went ahead and built that built that out. We know the minimum that we need to um trim from our expenditures going into the next fiscal year based on that 4%. Um we have some recommendations to trim more than the bare minimum um to give us some legal room for other maybe increased
050expenses whether it's um the need to support like we are bumping really close to minimum wage on all our class like salaries things like that to give some raises to accommodate bumps in um Arizona state minimum wage and things like that um and to um we projected a potential increase in our insurance while we're still shopping for cheaper insurance options and things like that. So, we try to create enough wiggle room um and bring recommendations forward that exceed the minimum trim that we need to do to allow for that. So, that's where we are. >> Mr. Livingston, before is everyone good for that? Before we go on to student financial reports analogies. >> Okay. I was just going to ask if we could go ahead and do student council. >> Leah, go ahead and come
051on up. >> It's behind you. >> Thank you. >> You don't need it. So, this last month, uh, each class level within student council participated in the angel tree program that's organized by Closet. Um, this initiative was very successful and a lot of our students enjoyed that and some of them even gave some of their own money. So, that was great. Uh, we also participated in the shop with a cop event. So, it was mostly the cheer team, but some of the student council members did come with us. So, if you're not familiar with that, it's hosted by the local police departments mostly in the Prescuit area, but they provide money to children um to shop at Walmart. And each of them usually receives around $300 to purchase clothing and gifts for themselves and their
052families usually. And then we also had our hoop coming this past week which was enjoyable for those who did participate in two weeks now. We have 12 student council members who are attending that three-day state convention in Gilbert. Um so we're super excited for that and have started preparing our costumes for the three days. We also have our blood drive coming up on January 27th. So, we're just starting to prepare for that. Does anybody have any questions? >> Thank you so much. We'll see you next time. >> All right. With that, we'll go on to item 62, student. >> Great. Well, some really good news. Uh, the high school archery club has $1,200 worth of revenues and $40 worth of expenses. So, I need to interview the adviser for the high school archery club and
053see how they're making that work. We like those numbers. Another new program. I see high school pickle ball is now on this field activity. So, we'll be interested to see if they join maybe with the town facilities. We hear there might be some new facilities coming in. We have a champion pickle ball player. That's really all I have. >> Item 7A is our consent agenda. >> No one wants to pull anything off that imitate a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. >> I'll make a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. All in favor? I you. Fantastic. Item 8A report. >> Madame President, board members, Miss Daniels, and everybody else. Um, we have on our personnel report for uh January. We have one new certified employee, two new classified employees, 13 resignations, five retirements, one termination,
054one certified change, 10 classified changes, three coaches, and five extra duty employees. I don't have any time sheets to report this time this month. >> 13 resignations. That's a lot. Um, and we've got I was looking over some of the resation letters. We've got a lot of people that have been with the district for a long time that are retiring, which is odd. I mean, >> I actually added up how many people have been here longer than I have. Um, there are I think 17 now. That's all. >> Really? >> Larry's one of them in the room. Julie, Brandy, Eric. >> Well, Julie's gonna be here for like ever. So, >> Amen. Julie, Brandon, Eric, and Jenny >> have all been here longer than I have. >> We're gonna make sure those sidewalks are wheelchair
055accessory. >> Fantastic. All right. So, this is an action item for discussion. So, how many of those people do we have to um fill those positions for? Can we keep some of them? um a a good portion and we'll talk be talking about that later. Uh we do not have to fill, but we do need a couple positions um that we do need to fill for next year because they're leaving um like a science position and some other things that we're working on. But just thought I would ask No, that's a great question because Yeah, this is an action item. You can have a motion to approve. >> Um, I will make the motion for the approval. What What am I approving? >> So, I'll make a motion to approve the personnel report. >> Second.
056Thank you. All in favor? I >> I >> Thank you. Item 8A, I'm sorry, 8B is a high school registar secretary to job descriptions. >> Yes. So um part of my um job is to update all the job descriptions and look at salary schedules. But on this particular one um we um we're updating the high school registar administrative assistant position. I just updated it with more current information. It was very generic. Um it hadn't been revised in like five years. And additionally, we're requesting that this position um uh transition from a 12 month to an 11-month position for doing the >> it's for the high school when they do the transcripts and the reason for going down to an 11. Oh, that the new person that that is taking the place of our registar who
057is um retiring has requested that she believes that she can do it all in 11 months and we are willing in order to save some money to see if that comes to fruition and she's very capable so I think it could be done. >> One of the big reasons is to like it's been two years I think since we went to parchment. >> Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. So we used to process all the transcripts by hand for transcript requests and we started purchasing a service that like other high schools, colleges and universities use. So anybody who's ever graduated from CBHS within reason can't go online and just order them themselves. So like we don't have to and a lot of our summer time that whole month was kind of devoted to transcript stuff. So now
058we have an automated system. So that makes it helpful too. I save it up. I save the register a lot of time. >> The only time that they can is like I'm legit. I probably get two letters a year. I went to school at the Chino Valley School in 1954 and can you verify that? I'm like tell me who your teacher was and then I'm like if they can name somebody or I'll say tell me where you lived and if they say oh road whatever I'm like yeah that's a road here. I'll verify you. I don't know if you went here or not. All right. Once again, action item. I'll make the motion for the approval of the high school register administrative assistant job description from 12 month. >> I'll second. >> All in favor?
059>> I I item 8 C teacher rental policy updates and late adjustment for school year 2627 this. So what we're requesting is an extension of our rental agreements for staff members who are currently occupying our teach. Um, our policy GCBDA and regulation G CBDA-R said it was two years, but we want to go ahead and extend extend it to May 31st, 2027. Um, in order to provide housing stapility because rent is very expensive everywhere and also minimize any d disruption for our current personnel. Um and this request is supported by our hiring projections that we will not be hiring very any people or anybody from um out of the country. Um and so we don't expect a high demand for housing for new recruits. If we do, we will have a few spots open. Um
060and we also are looking at a rate adjustment from increasing our rent starting July 1 um from 550 to 650 a month. And then also we would like to expand our housing eligibility to local police and fire department employees under this arrangement. We would um contract directly with these departments through some type of like are is our housing over there. Is it full right now? >> Yes. Right now it's full. >> I think 650 is fair. >> Yeah. So we have teachers saying they live through the summer. We always do every year. >> They live there year round. >> Okay. Yeah, that's what I would. >> Yeah. >> The other thing is I want to point out John talked about the $900,000 price tag. Um at the current rate that we collect rent, it will
061take us 20 years to break even on that $900,000 expenditure that the district took on. um we only collect right now about a little bit less than twothirds um in rent of what it costs us to pay the bill, pay our mortgage, basically pay our loan off every year. So, this isn't going to close the gap entirely, but it's going to help. >> Okay. >> Um because a 20-year break even is a big ouch to there right now. >> They're there. Um once you approve it, I will be um sending in an email. I've already discussed it with a few of them. We have mentioned about increasing the rate of um the rentals um at every meeting that Cindy, myself, or Shelley attended to let them know nobody is um scoffing it. A couple people
062said it's still cheaper than anywhere else. >> Um so >> it's probably in their contract somewhere about a rate increase. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. They get a new They'll get a new lease. we'll give them a new lease and um so nobody's um planning or um they were they were all relieved that we would extend it a a year if you guys approve that. >> I I have kind of a a small question on this. Do do teachers give preference >> priority even if we're opening it up to like the police and whatever the teacher >> Oh yeah, we would we would make sure that that was that anybody we hired for next year would would have preference over it or anybody that would come to me and say they needed to um if
063there was housing available. Yes, they would have preference >> and we're looking at the law enforcement simply because we want to ensure the houses are full. That's why >> and and having our out of country teachers leave that we could have some vacancies. >> Yes, we could. >> Yeah. >> And we can't we need every dime we can get. >> Yeah. >> Sounds like teachers that are there are happy. >> Yes. The teachers are there are happy. So yeah, there has there will be a bill introduced in this legislative session to allow districts that are closing schools to retrofit the empty schools to become teacher housing. >> I saw that. >> And there's a lot of buzz right now about what if you have to evict somebody, what do you do? Blah blah blah. So
064I had an inquiry today about, you know, have we ever had to evict a teacher? No. No. No. So, we're actually going to send a copy of the contract that we use that will become hopefully helpful to them in this legislative session. >> Yeah. >> Action item. I'll make a motion for the approval to extend the rental agreements for staff through May 31st, 2027, increase the monthly rental rate to 650, and authorize CBUSD to enter the into housing contracts with local police and fire departments for their employees. >> I'll second all in favor. Thank you. >> Item nine, a adoption of I Ready My Path intervention materials for grades 3 to five. Yes. All right. Do you want to come up with me? >> Yes. >> Hello, ladies, madame president, members of the board. So,
065there's two items on here. I'm going to kind of talk about it together. Okay. So, I'm going to come close to I have nothing to hold on to. >> Thank you so much. Okay. >> You shall receive. >> The ladies are happy now. >> Um, okay. So, we've been going through the math adoption process for K8 since last year. Um and so after piloting the two programs, the K8 teachers have and administration have decided that one thing that they want to keep and this is at Del Rio. They want to keep um to adopt the my path intervention that goes with one of the curriculums I Ready. Okay. It's a intervention supplement piece and Del Rio is very happy with it and would like to continue would like to adopt that for one year. He
066really should be in different order. So I really wanted to talk about this one first. Okay. So after piloting I Ready and Amplify um the ratings for both of those programs came back as good for the money that these companies are asking for this material. Good is not what we want. >> We want excellent. We want that this material is going to fulfill everything we need in a classroom. and nei none of the schools could give us that but they felt that these were going to be very sufficient and give us what we need in our math curriculum. So the recommendation is that we stay with McGraill the program we currently use for one year. It has been um it is a new addition. The new addition is um called Arizona Reveal Math at um
0672027. I my recommendation to the board to the administrators and to the teachers was let's stay with McGra Hill for a year look at see what their changes have been made and come meet back together with Eric their new curriculum director in December >> and decide >> are the changes in McGra Hill what they say they are because the things that teachers were concerned about McGra Hill were spiraling and also um the order in when they were presenting the materials. Now, McGra Hills, this new addition has been rewritten to match Arizona's math standards. And they say they have taken all of the comments from districts around the state and have revamped it and it's supposed to be a better program. It will save us a lot of money if our teachers love it and it
068fulfills what they need. Now real liked the my path intervention piece. It is computer-based. They are about one to one. Would you say Ed? About one to one. You would need to be one to one to in order to use the my path. >> Tell them what that means. >> Um every student has a computer in front of them at all times if they need it. Where our del our tech students they are not one to one. I believe you have about six to seven in a classroom. computers. So that intervention piece is not worth spending the money for practice but it is worth the money for do and they feel like it is giving the students the intervention that they need closing gaps that they are seeing in students education with the map. So
069my recommendation we have to do one one adoption at a time. So my recommendation is that we adopt my path intervention piece for Del Rio for one year. We'll look at it again in this next spring and decide if that's something they want to continue. I Ready has been very generous and they have given Del Rio access to it for the rest of this year for free which was very kind of them. So I recommend that we adopt this with Del Rio >> for one year ladies. >> So we'll do two separate motions here. The first one from 9A would be the um motion to approve the adoption of by ready my path assessment and intervention programs to possibility six. So that's going to be our first motion. Member I will make the motion for
070the approval. The recommendation is to approve adoption of I Ready My Path Assessment in the intervention programs for grades three through five with a possibility of adding grade six. >> I'll second. >> Very good. Gabrielle will be very happy. >> Okay. >> Now, Rio was very happy. >> They're all very happy. So now um we need to adopt McGra Hill the new addition for one year and then we'll look at it and that will give them three companies to look at back in at the end of December 1st of January 2027 to decide if they want to stay with Mcra Hill. I doubt they'll want to do another pilot ladies to be honest with you or if they want to adopt one of the other ones. But I I think it's worth looking at and
071using McGra Hill for another year. >> McGra Hills has met the needs of the children. >> It has so far. It was missing a couple of things which um that's why we went out to pilot went out and looked at all those curriculums and chose to to pilot um because it was missing a few things but McGra Hill says they have addressed those issues. Okay. >> In their new addition. So, I'm curious to see if K8's going to be happy with those changes. >> Yeah. So, my recommendation is we adopt it for one year. And Beverly, thank you. Beverly was on our meeting, our call. So, that was good that she was there >> to hear what um had to be said. So, >> all right. I'll make the motion for the recommendation is to
072approve staying with the current McGraill curriculum for one more year. I'll second. Thank you. All in favor? >> I I >> ladies, thank you. Very good choice. Thank you. >> Item 10 A is going to be a discussion item only. Our fiscal year 27. >> Okay. So, I wanted to start with a few caveats. Um, this attachment was a confidential attachment and um, all the information provided in here was to allow us to be able to have accurate numbers. And as we talk through some of the things, um, I want to caution us that, um, this that we're presenting this to tonight just for some questions and some discussion. Um tomorrow um should it be necessary, we'll have directors and administrators visiting with some specific staff. Um but this isn't anything that we would vote
073on until next month and then >> confidential the all the little detail but we'll talk about the broad categories openly. >> Okay. So, and then I have for you should we should it become necessary to have a formal reduction in force um for employees or positions. I have guidance for you from our attorney. So, you have time to look that over to understand what that would be. But as Marca pointed out this evening, um, as a result of, you know, going on the road around all the schools and talking about the situation that we're in, um, we've been working pretty hard to encourage people if you know that you aren't going to be returning for the next school year for whatever reason, whether you're retiring or moving away or whatever, need to care for an
074aging parent, that we would kindly ask that you let us know sooner. than later because we would hate to have to drift someone only to learn later that you aren't coming back and we wouldn't we could have given that person the job or whatever. So um and the staff has been um very professional and very responsive in that in that situation. So um you'll see by department or by school um what we're what we have been looking at. Now, one thing that I wanted to point out is that we have had a hiring freeze since the beginning of August. So, unless a position was like super duper mission critical, we have not filled it. And I think um John, we met what last week and I think we counted up nine that we have frozen.
075And what that will do is because we haven't filled them, it helps preserve some carryover going into next year, which is, you know, every like every penny saved, right? Um so you'll see on the top um the very first department is facilities. And I'd like you to note that the first two positions on there um actually have already been addressed and were frozen. So we had a retirement last week. We had a resignation right before break. Um the third one on that list is something that will either be taken care of through just normal attrition or if necessary could be a rip. Um Chris is going to be obtaining his forklift trainer certification. That will save the district $5,000. And um the when you see on there for mats that will save 2500 bucks like
076all the mats that we have in front of every door. Um, that's only because the first year we have to buy mats. Every year after that, the savings will be more like $12,000 than $2,500. So, I understand that other agencies, other government agencies are also considering similar moves. Um, and Chris also submitted a very long list of other ways that he can help the district save money. We met and talked through some of those today. um which will be things like um adjusting our thermostats significantly for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So, even if someone comes in to work, they better bundle up. So, things like that. So, we're working on that. Chris is working with the manufacturer of our thermostatic controls in order to find out how to individually program specific areas or specific thermostats,
077things like that. and he asked me I'm like dude this is nothing new man um many years ago same thing and if I came in on the weekend I fully expected to sweat or freeze depending on the time of year so um so al together what Chris has um brought forth just in savings that we know are like tangible like energy savings that are a little bit hard to predict um Chris has presented $188,000 in recommended um spending reductions for next year. So, in transportation, both of those have already been taken care of by current resignations and the positions are frozen. Um I will be having a discussion tomorrow um with Humble. I reached out to both Prescat and Humble because they have much larger shops than we do. Um we had two mechanics. We
078currently have one um and some of our larger repairs if we have to send them to Phoenix, it's expensive and then it takes literally forever to get a bus back. Um but Humbult believes um Prescuit cannot accommodate us because they already serve Kirkland and Skull Valley as well. Humbult believes they can accommodate some of our larger repairs for us. So it's even though like you still have to make the repairs, right? We have a lot of people that can do at transpose simple uh mechanical things on buses and are certified too, but some of the bigger things like transmissions. Um I think we'll be able to sub out to Humbult, which is still much cheaper than subbing out to a diesel shop or you know something like that. So um I've got that one in
079the works. So those are already that's a fullear savings on there, but we'll have realized 50% of that savings just this year alone as well. So, transportation brought forth $113,929 in savings. Um, the district office, um, the first recommendation is the position that we froze when it was vacated. Um, and we will not be filling that. We've shuffled people around in the DO. Um Cheyenne shuffled into that position and John um graciously uh moved one of his employees from the back to the front counter because we have to have somebody on the front counter and she has assumed um additional responsibilities at no extra incurred cost for the district. So we were able to do that and then we have been this year in order to save money because our health insurance went up 2%
080this year and our health insurance is the second largest expenditure in our budget beyond payroll. So we pay $1.6 million for 200 employees. Those are our premiums. And so, um, we because we jumped from a $2,500 deductible to a $5,000 deductible in order to, um, continue to offer health insurance. Um, we have been contributing to employees health savings accounts. Um, we are recommending that we curtail the district's contribution. Employees still could contribute, but the district would stop contributing. And that saves 350,000 alone. Um, which would help offset any potential savings. Like so if health insurance was up 10% which is kind of the minimum a lot of times that's still $166,000 increase next year. So there are some things like when I say that we were doing some things to try to offset potential increases.
081This would be one of them. So, the district office is offering up a little over $400,000, $410,000 in savings to our budget for next year. Um, kudos to CBHS. Um, CBHS has made the um largest recommendation of any school for savings projections. And um what I wanted to note on here is that we have um you can already see we have a retirement, a resignation, a retirement, a retirement, somebody going to the open position that Heidi just described as going to 11 months. And then we have one potential riff which is a part-time employee. Today that part-time employee, we had two science resignations actually and today that part-time employee was offered one of those because we need to fill one of the science. That part-time employee was offered that position and has three weeks to
082respond or we'll look for someone else for it. So that could also be taken care of just through um by a transfer. So um CBHS has brought forth um $343,700 in savings um information technology which is Larry's department um the transfer we have an IT specialist who is um part-time IT part-time edtech right now um Larry has graciously offered to go down that halftime IT part this way we can fully fund that IT specialist grants and that IT specialist now would be edtech and can assume responsibility for curriculum instruction as well as well suited to do that and all of that can be covered by grant funding and the employees in the room and has agreed to that move. I'm gonna call him the curriculum commander. Wow, good job. Um, and then we have another
083potential riff that you see um is marked with asterisks. I would like to point out that those asterisks um represent positions that the department is requesting only would be a cut of last resort because it would be a hardship. Um and so with all of those it would be um a 168 savings recommended from it HMS. This is our big one at HMS. So in this one will and you might be wondering what in the heck are we supposed to vote on next month? Well, the two things that you would have to vote on would be any rips that would be necessary and you would have to vote on this recommendation um which would be that we um that the whole fifth grade gets retained at Del Rio next year but that they'll be sixth
084graders. And so in the past when we've made grade level adjustments in the district, we had moved a grade level to HMS that was um greeted very lukewarmly in the community. Um this time we're requesting to go the other direction and have Del Rio become a grade three through sixth grade school. Now I want to point out that we're late in the game compared to our neighboring districts for this. Um Humble moved sixth grade back to their elementary schools a couple years ago. And um about four years ago, Prescuit did the great shuffle when they closed Miller Valley and sold it for a measly million bucks. And um when they closed Washington School, they went to kind of a very unusual configuration, which is preschool at the district office. Um kindergarten through fourth grade at
085two campuses, fifth and sixth grade at one, seventh and eighth grade at a different one, and 9th through 12. So, we're kind of late in the game compared to what some neighboring districts have done with this. And you may ask why this shift? Well, for two reasons. Um, when we had the same enrollment before in the 910 school year, we were able to close twothirds of the campus at Territorial. even though we have the same number of students now, we have like 13 special education classrooms that we didn't have then. So closing like squishing everybody back into like one grade level at tech and all that like that's not doable anymore. So we had to look across the whole district ideally where could we recommend completely shuttering classrooms that would have the biggest financial impact
086and Heritage is it because it's pods. So Chris can cut the heating and cooling. He can cut the water to you know that pod and like literally lock the doors um for all kinds of cost savings. The other thing is if we go down one grade level at HMS, our projected enrollment for seventh and eighth grade at HMS next year is like 321 kids. That's it, which means we do not need two administrators. So, we have a huge administrative savings. Not huge, but over um sorry, Marty. Um, but it would allow us to we have a vacant administrative position at the district office. So, it allow us to reassign the administrator um who's well equipped to be reassigned to that position and go down to one administrator at HMS and a part-time dean of students.
087I think that's very doable. Um, so we have a savings, an administrative salary savings because we would go down a whole grade level. We can go down a support position in the office as well. Don't need as many support. If you're down a third of your kids and 30 staff, then you can go down office staff as well. Um, you had a termination in December. Um, and we have not filled that. our uh language learner teacher has already resigned effective at the end of the year and we can share a half position there with CBHS and because of of course again the changes in configuration we have two um paraprofessional staff that truthfully we wouldn't pro we wouldn't really need to riff they're functioning as long-term subs in those classrooms so the savings brought forth
088from HMS is $294,922 $2. I'd like to point out that's not the administrative salary. Um at at Del Rio, um we have a third grade teacher who has already resigned the roll up from second to third. We can accommodate it in five like the numbers. Second grade has five classrooms. We only need five third grade teachers. We currently have six. So that's easy. That teacher is um has already put in a retirement. Um we have a position that Ed would like to retain um should he be able to and then you can see a paraprofessional position as well. Um Del Rio is recommending 124,647 in savings special education. Um I will quote Dr. of her debt here. Right now, we're driving a Cadillac with these services and we need to be driving a Pinto. And
089I told her, "Nobody knows what that is anymore." And she's going to have to update her analogy >> or Volkswagen, right? >> So, or some whatever is like dingy nowadays. Um so you could see a recommendation there that is $78,589 in savings at territorial. Um one of the recommendations that staff has heard is that we will not be retaining our foreign workforce. Um it's number one in order to have foreign workers we have to certify that we've been unable to obtain American workers. Also, our foreign workforce costs us more per employee. We have fees that we have to pay for having foreign workers. So, we actually, this is what you see as salary alone, not those extra fees. Those extra fees add up to 30,000 more, which I should have accounted for, but did not.
090Um, so our foreign teachers were notified at the end of November that we would not be renewing um the agreement with the company that we buy them from. Um and so they could one had already um resigned because her visa was expiring anyway. Um we have one who is in the process of obtaining um resident alien status. Most people know that more comfortably by the term green card. Um should she be able to obtain that prior to contracts being issued, we could retain her because then she's a resident alien. um if she does not then that position would still be a foreign worker and would be um eliminated. Um and as it stands um the kindergarten position because we had such low kinder enrollment this year um we truthfully probably should have eliminated in August
091and did not. We just because you don't know how many kindergarters are going to walk through the door so you kind of wait it out. Um we had a resignation. You'll see the third thing down on that list is one that um Brandy Brandy would like to retain. >> I would like to keep >> and um we I I will tell you I am like going every which way to Sunday to try to figure out how to pay for that one. Um we have a a reassignment positions. We had a voluntary request for reduction in hours and um a voluntary reassignment request. So the what you see from territorial is $390,891 in savings. So all of these things together come to $2.1 million in recommendations if we took everything that's on the list. If we
092remove the things with the asterisk that people would like to retain, we're sitting at 1.9 million in cuts. And here are some other things that we're doing to save money. So, one is um we got a grant last week for $46,000 for early childhood ed. So, that'll kick 46,000 more into our coffers. Not having to pay the fees to the company for foreign workers kicks another 30k in. Um we have um should um the governor and the legislature cough up money for the Arizona Rural Nurses Grant again, will apply for an RN position for a building where we currently only have a health aid. um because then we save the health aid pay because the grant would pay for an RN and I feel pretty positive about that. Um Katherine Verer who is our lead
093RN for the district is well acquainted with lobby. She's active member of like Arizona cow growers and so she has already spent time I sent her in and sicked her on a few legislators um a couple months ago and so she's already been lobbying for that renewal of the Arizona rural school nurses grant. So, these are the things we have. This is what I would call the first and it's pretty stinking solid. Um, list of recommendations, but we also know like I'm already toying with I think I've come up with another 100K in savings since I submitted this for the packet a week ago. Um, but then that helps us be able to retain some of those positions that we'd like to retain. Um, these are some potential cost increases. the you can see the
094health insurance cost. Um if we give the same value of raises going into next year that we gave this year just to help offset normal cost of living and things that people experiences. I I would not say that our raises are overly generous. I would say they're, you know, sort of minimal. Um, but administrators and directors feel that because the people who will still be here will have some increased workload that it's a it's a way to acknowledge and to to kind of shore up and encourage the people who would still be here. So, when you see that 1.9 million and you whack 341,000 off that, we are still above what we need to cut. So, we're in we're still in a good spot. So, with all these recommendations, with these projected increases, we we
095still we can do these things now before we bring those final recommendations. Like, we'll bring the sixth grade one. You'll have to vote on that. I'm not sure that you'll have to vote on any riffs. Um, but those would be the two things you would vote on in February. and then we would take a really, really hard look at this again before we brought contracts to you in March. So, that's where we're sitting. Um, and my big question really is, do you want a couple weeks to absorb this and then have just sort of a budget work session or is it self-explanatory enough? >> I speak first. Um, first off, I know that this like I'm so appreciative of everybody because this isn't an easy thing. I know. And this isn't an easy thing as
096a board member. No. >> And this is not an easy thing for a mom that's going to have a sixth grader either. >> I'm so sorry. >> Seems like Brandy raises when I have a kid to have her in preschool. Now we're keeping. Um, I guess I have a couple questions. Honestly, like I was really hoping that when we got to this meeting, you guys were going to change your mind about the Del Rio. I mean, of course, I understand it, right? But do we have room with Del Rio to accommodate keeping them there? >> We do. In fact, we have the way the campus is built hodge podge over decades. Um, we have a a building unto itself on the back side of the north side of campus that will accommodate um, sixth grade
097with his own restroom. So, >> and how many sixth grade teachers would we have? >> Four sixth grade classes. >> Fourth grade. And >> plus plus like a special ed. I mean, but four sixth grade classes. >> Okay. And then my other qu which those are teachers that we already have at Delo or they will be moving down. They would be coming from HMS. >> Okay. Um and then it's going to be like Del Rio is right now. You're just going to have one teacher. >> Um >> we're out like moving classrooms, right? >> To be determined they'll be moving. It looks like they'll be moving um at the halfway point. So they would have one teacher who would teach um and again still working on scheduling. And I I can't definitively 100% answer that
098question, but we'll have one teacher who's teaching um ELA and social studies and then another teacher who would be teaching math and science. >> Okay. And then my other question, what about like dances and sports like stuff that sixth graders get to do? Where are we still going to be able to do sports? >> The sports program will continue with Heritage and right now we do five through eight for certain sports and we will continue that. Our athletic director will still manage that. Absolutely. Dances are only seventh and eighth >> and dances are only >> seventh and eighth anyway. >> And right now we have fifth graders who graciously go over to the middle school to participate in a few sports, not all, but a few. And sixth graders still have the opportunity to >>
099and I was just going to say and band. We're working with Miss Stampinger and Dr. Moody to have that the sixth graders come over and receive band if they would like that as well. >> It's just a hop and a skip. There's a nice paved uh little sidewalk on the bus lane in the back. So there's not like they're not in front of the school. >> Question. So will the sixth graders that are interested be able to participate in the middle school spelling next year? >> Rio has a spelling. >> The spelling bee is actually K8. Delo's not doing >> I would like to challenge >> Del Rio. >> I know which kidnapp we're talking about. >> So yes, to be fair >> at one point. >> So we could we don't have to. He
100could do his own. But yes, we absolutely would accommodate as needed. >> Dr. How how do you build on this? How do you think? >> Uh there are kids and and whatever they need and is best for the district, we can do it. We have the room to do it. Um it would be a relatively seamless transition in that um obviously teachers coming over and and but um they're already our kids and we know them and they know us and they kind of know our routines and schedules and their schedule will be a little bit different than they have now. >> Um but completely doable. >> We have a question about safety for the children. >> What aspect? Well, I understand like at the um middle school, this is special needs children, you know, and
101some of them are a little bit more aggressive and maybe the teachers aren't getting the proper support or whatever for them. Is this going to help with the safety of the students? So, I should be asking you that, Kier. >> Yeah. I mean, we I guess both of us could I mean, those kids who have issues that cause them to be more volatile um tend to be in situations, classrooms with teachers that have paras and are built for that to react to them appropriately. That's not going to change. Um they are that the way our campus is set up is the sixth graders would be at one end of campus and then progressively our fifth graders, fourth graders and third graders in the main building. And so the that kind of older kid versus younger
102kid safety issue really is not going to be that big of an issue. And the way we're looking at the schedule right now, it doesn't look like um sixth grade and third grade recess will ever really overlap. Yeah. >> Yeah. That's what I was going to ask. Do you because or as of right now, third, fourth, fifth is all pretty separate as of right now, right? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. >> And we have a couple fourth graders who do a couple things with fifth grade just because their academic prowess, that sort of thing. But um and then we have some special ed self-contained classrooms that have students who have earned their way out and are in some regular ed classes, but that's based on their grade levels, not necessarily anything else. So, um I
103don't I don't foresee any huge safety issues that are well foreseeable. And to be clear, the sixth graders are not coming down to Del Rio. >> We're keeping fifth graders into sixth grade >> at Del Rio. So the children are already going to be familiar >> with their surroundings and their school and their teachers and their everything else >> to see the positive part of this. >> Maybe the sixth graders away from the eighth graders might be a good thing. What's the difference between sixth and eighth compared to third and sixth? >> There's a huge difference. >> Yeah. When I was in school, it was junior high and we went to elementary, sixth grade, and junior high was seventh, 8th, and n high school was 10th, 11th, 12th. So, uh, are they what's going on
104with a lot of our children, especially the eighth graders, they're ready for high school and that influence will go on goes on to the sixth graders. Being a middle school teacher, I'm seeing that. So, you know, I'm thinking it it's not a bad thing. It could be more of a positive. For some of our young charges, it will help with their ability to mature. >> They don't need to grow up so fast. >> No. All right. This was just a discussion item and I think we have really great discussion. Is there anything else that we want to >> do aside? I think it's all pretty self >> and truthfully anyone in the room, any director, anyone on the admin team, John, Heidi, myself, any of us can answer any questions because we started working on
105this in October. Um, kind of seeing the writing on the wall and are all pretty equally versed in where we are with that. This what you see is genuinely a collective effort by a phenomenal leadership team. >> They have done they have done an amazing job forward. >> Thank you Dr. Moody for being willing to take the sixth graders. >> Exactly. Mara, >> I'm just going to tell everybody that Mara, >> you did it for the glory. >> Fantastic. Item 11 A is the first reading of chapter 4 of our new policy. I got to follow that. >> Good evening, madam president, members of the board. Superintendent Daniels. Um, tonight I'm bringing chapter 4 employment protocols uh for our first reading. The chapter lays out our employment policies including hiring, assignments, evaluations, discipline, and discrimination.
106I work closely with Heidi and Shelly to make sure that we got this aligned. Um it is written at a governance level level. Um and it aligns currently with Arizona law. Uh this is for discussion and feedback only. We will bring it for a second reading next month. Uh at a point where we hope the board may consider adopting it into the trust policy manual. Um, Daniels, I think we had a little confusion on the social media policy. So, I'm gonna um talk about that for a second. So, the social media policy, to be honest, we want to make sure we got it right. >> So, we brought it to >> It's not in there. >> Oh, it's not. >> So, um, okay. >> So, we can put it on for first read as a
107standalone. We did send it for additional attorney review last week. >> We did send it to Yeah. for legal. >> That's the one I was really curious about. Right. >> Marty, can you send that out to the board? >> Yes, I can send it out. >> Yeah. Uh, with that, uh, there's also administrative regulation that goes with the social media policy that provides more like practical guidance like day-to-day, um, guidance. Uh, it kind of gives examples on what that looks like in, you know, the day-to-day. Um um it also gives um uh gives just get guides on examples to help staff ensure consistency, protect student safety, maintain public trust and like I said kind of what it looks like in everyday practice. Uh so I will send it out to you. Uh like I said,
108we want to make sure we got it right and I didn't get it back in time from legal to make sure that we can include it today. >> We'll add it for first reading next month as a standalone. as a standal chapter 5 which is students. >> I appreciate this. I know that this is something that needed to be updated. So definitely appreciate >> Yeah, we did a lot of extra work on that one. >> We did. We looked at a lot of other districts to see what they were doing. Um and we really wanted to make it concise so it wasn't so big that it got clunky and ugly. Uh but we also want to make sure that we address obviously all the right things. I will send it out to to the board.
109>> All right. So, this is just first reading. I'm sure everyone has not had time to go all the way through it, but are there any questions for Mr. Katelli? >> No. >> All right. Seeing none, thank you. We'll see you next month at it. Item 11B is our meeting dates for school year or school year. >> Yes. So, I wanted to So, I um submitted for you in the packet some potential meeting dates. And in those meeting dates, the one that I wanted to say, do you want to make it different? And that's definitely um for John's sake as well would be the October date because right now we have it would bump October and I put some asterisks in the agenda item itself. Um, October 5th is off the second Monday of the
110month because the second Monday falls during fall break. The 5th is probably too early for John to get his reports done, in which case it would need to be the Monday after fall break, which would make it October 19th, which would make October and November super close together. But >> whatever works. It's been the third a couple years in a row and that is a that is a pinch. So I appreciate if you consider the 19th. >> So you so in the proposal the dates I proposed and these run from now until um the January of 2027 meeting um which is also proposed in there. So a year from now. Um so that would change the recommendation from October 5th to October 19th. And the other dates would be February 9, March 9, April 13,
111May 11, June 8th, July 13, August 10th, September 14, October 19, November 9, December 14th, and January 11 of 2027. It keeps us consistently on the second Monday of the month, um five o'clock in this room because we have to designate that annually where and when we meet um with the exception of that one date in October. And then um as John needs a special meeting here or there um for you know budget revisions or things like that then we would ask um during a regular meeting to schedule a special >> question for the board meeting dates times locations for February to January and I'll second that. >> Thank you. All in favor? >> I item 11 C is the evaluation of the superintendent. Um I'm actually going to talk about this one a little
112bit. Historically, we have always just kind of got together in executive session and have thought soon as Cindy, our superintendent, whomever it was at the time, um to give us some progress, some goals, etc., etc. This year, just because of some, you know, new board members and different things, um, I chose to put an evaluation packet together. That does not mean that once we get into the executive session that we have to use the evaluation packet. However, what I am requesting from everyone is to take a look at it and then Thank you. and then um go ahead and fill it out and bring it to next month's executive session meeting. And once in there, we can decide exactly how we're going to do it. Superintendent >> Good job. Good job. >> So, Cindy did.
113Well, I appreciate that. >> Do we have um would you prefer to have the executive session prior to the meeting or at the end of the week? >> I'd like to have it with Sue. So, it's kind of a catch 22. Before is good because we have a definitive time limit, >> but I actually prefer after so that we do not have a definitive time. >> I I like after. I like after too. >> After snacks sounds good. She'll fix something together for us. She won't have to make it herself. She just has lots of chickens and eggs. >> All right. And with that, good night all. See you next month. Thanks everybody.