001yeah a cou I just want to make sure I glitched it last we are can hear you got another two three things going on yourit good evening everyone thank you for joining us welcome to this month's board meeting if you are able please stand with me for the pledge of believe I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and jusice for all thank you before we get into our meeting if we could have a motion to adopt tonight's agenda I will make a motion to adopt tonight's agenda and a second please I will thank you all in favor I I call to the public do we have any cards Karen did anyone not fill out a a public speaking
002card that you'd like to address the board fantastic thank you and we will move right along to our information and discussion items the first up is recognition of our Chino Valley Unified School District school safety officers all right so about this time last year um the board approved a plan that allowed us to have a school safety officer at each of our campuses we had a um one here at the high school and the town provided a a police officer um at Heritage and through some grants and other things or a school safety Grant mainly we were able to bring on two more people and another Chino Valley police officer that the town has um supplied to us along with a former police officer and then our one security officer was replaced by a another
003former police officer so come on up guys gentlemen I believe it was last week it was school safety officer recognition day so come on up and we wanted to recognize and um thank them for the work that they do and helping keep our kids safe and so we have a um just a certificate of appreciation our first goes to Hector Torres yeah Hector is um and he has we placed in a position that's been at Heritage Middle School for many years and provided by the town our next goes to Matt gronik Matt is at Del Rio and Matt is a former Chino Valley police officer that's um working at Del Rio we have Jeff fizzy Jeff is a former Chino Valley police officer working at Territorial and last but not least is Josh noden and
004Josh is our school resource officer at Tino Valley High School we're gonna come in and take a picture so [Laughter] cute thank you again we really appre appreciate them being on our campuses helping K keep our staff and particularly our students safe and they've I I do want to say that they've really embedded themselves into the culture of the school and I I think them I think we have four great officers great personalities that really fit with our our campuses and so thank you very much for everything you [Music] do go home you're welcome to take off you thank you all thank you item 6B our Yavapai County Education Foundation Grant update looks like we're going to have Rita and Julie there's Julie Rita and Julie with us this evening I do want to say
005we have two representatives from the Ed Foundation if they want to come up maybe or one of them in come up and introduce themselves just real quick and and yeah tell just a sentence or two about the foundation what the what the purposes good evening Madam chair and members of the board superintendent SCH my name is Trish Winters and I am um actually employed through P Ro Creek School District and I serve on the avai County Education Foundation um the foundation is something that is very close to my heart and something I'm very passionate about because um I've spent the majority of my career in education uh as working as support for teachers Administration and working closely with school budgets and I'm very aware of the funding challenges that many of our schools in Arizona
006face and um it really brings joy to my heart to serve on this foundation and to be able to help put money back into classrooms for teachers because oftentimes they are forced to dip into their own Pockets to um provide experiential learning opportunities for students so thank you for having me here today I'm excited to see what projects we have and I'm Kelly Burns I'm with the Yavapai accommodation school district and Aspire High School which many of you know and part of the Y ycf um board as well and I am thrilled to watch these two because I know in past experiences the amazing things that they've done in their classroom so this is actually a highlight of the ycf board we all like to share pictures and tell everybody about all the wonderful things
007that are happening in your classroom so thank you for being willing to present thank you for being here guess I'll go ahead and break the bad news I would love to bring the items that I purchased but currently right now they're on back order so it figures but um I'm Julie bias I teach at Chino Valley high school and I'd like to thank Kelly and Trisha both of you for helping out our classrooms and so the funding that I've used I've been able to purchase and eventually will receive the two items so the first one it's called a backyard brains human to human interface and what it allows you to do I'm gonna pass that around it allows you to take the electrodes so you can connect them onto your arm and then run them
008through the device and actually take another individual and connect the electrodes to their arm and so it's going to take the electrical impulses and when you like close your fist for example it's going to force them to close their fist or turn the arm so you're looking at the muscle so the muscular system the brain the nervous system you can even tie it in if you want to with artificial limbs so it just gives that uniqueness to it and then the other option is when you connect to your arm and you connect it to a cloth and so think of like an artificial hand basically and you can pick up a cup or you can turn it or you can do things with it and that's the cloth version here pass that one out so
009once they're received it'll be great and um anticipating that within probably the next two to three weeks we should have them so as soon as they arrive we're going to go ahead and there'll be a little out of order compared to what we've been doing but we'll go ahead and tie it in there so it's greatly appreciated thank you and just while she's up there um I'm going to mention this later in my report but uh Julie was our teacher of the quarter at Tino Valley high school so congratulations can I ask you a question yes sir yeah how where are those that you used once you get them I'll be using them in the anatomy class the anatomy and physiology class okay so it be part of the anatomy class super thank you when
010you receive them would you bring them back and let us see them yeah thank you Miss Johnson all right all right and I want to thank um the Education Foundation and for you both being here tonight um I have uh received this grant in the past and it has been hugely helpful to get the supplies that we need um so the items that I purchased this year are to augment some we already have so we've had one globe that we have used for up to 35 kids trying to send it around the room and look for things as far as like ocean currents and um wind patterns and all sorts of things so now we were able to buy five more so now we've got six so we have um different places around the room
011where they can be stationed and then um kids can go to them use them and whatever they need and we use them quite a bit we have a mapping unit we use at the beginning of the year and now we're we just finished up oceanography where they look at Oceans and now we're moving into weather so they're looking at the differences between the northern and southern hemospheres so we use them off and on all through the year another thing is the um balances which is something that we use constantly in chemistry and has been something that we've needed to share so we've had lab groups where they've been waiting their turn at the balance and now we've been able to get enough of these that every lab group has their own which is a huge
012time saer and it's also then lets us be able to do um Labs like some Labs may take us an hour even just getting everything done so some of them we weren't even able to do without having enough supplies um next thing is oddly enough a haird dryer because hair dryers are great wind sources so one of the units we do is Alternative Energy and the kids design and build windmills that they then test with the hair dryers to see how quickly they can raise a cup of paper clips um and then they erase each other see they put more paper clips in before eventually um they can get and they do all different all kinds of designs and some of them don't work and some of them start over and and it's really we
013spend about a week designing and building wind meals and trying them out and then just recently we've started a weather unit so we were able to purchase anomers which has been a piece that we've been missing out of our um weather forecasting part so the kids forecast weather they give weather reports um so that's the unit we're moving into right now and they can use the hair dryers to learn how to measure the wind speed too and realize they have to actually stand there and count pay attention um so that's one of the other things too and the last piece is um funnels which we have been very short on um the ones we've had in the past have been glass and the kids tend to lay them down and then they roll off lab
014tables so these are plastic which is helpful and they are relatively inexpensive so we were able to get enough for all the groups to have at least two so um so this has been a huge help to alleviate bottlenecks and getting labs done or having to skip over Labs that we haven't been able to do because of lack of supplies so I thank you all very much for being able to do that congratulations item sixc is our Our Heritage Middle School student council update um as you know Mrs Migel principal Heritage Middle School I am proud to introduce my student councel um teacher Abigail moo and fish person and I will let them the students do the talking he hello um thank you for having us my name is abigael mosienko I'm a sixth and
015eth grade ELA teacher at Heritage Middle School I'm also one of the student council advisers and behalf on excuse me on behalf of the HMS Duco we wanted to thank you for this opportunity to showcase what's been happening at our school hey hi I am Trisha person and I'm the permanent substitute at Heritage Middle School and the other student council adviser um we're really proud of what our student body has accomplished this year and we can't wait to bring in more things for next year um but I want to introduce some of our members that we brought with us today so we have um kayen and Addie and um Zach who over here so welcome them hi I am Zach wellet I'm a seventh grade student and a part of and a student council member
016hi I'm kayen benell an eth grade eth grade student and a student council M hi I am Adeline Wagner a some good president and Secretary of the Cent Council we started off our first fundraising event where students could sell products to the community and were able to make hundreds of dollars to make events for the school after that we put on our neon dance party we had so many GL inth D decorations and the high schoolers were even able to DJ this event for us after the dance we put on our dance we kept The Classy with a Hollywood Christmas theme students dressed their best and parted till the doors closed soon the council was able to troubleshoot and test a few things in this dance for for the first time we had extended dance
017it was 30 minutes longer and we we were able to identify what went well and what what could we improve that one of the student body's favorite thing this year has been the assemblies this year we have taken a student Le perspective to our assemblies are by the students for the students if you walk into one you can see us handing out Awards and compliments or playing a minute to win a game we put on games for students and staff we really enjoy putting on one thing that we've learned during this year is entrepreneurship we have learned about demands and sales this year we surveyed the students as to what they might want for snacks at lunch with this information we sold snacks at lunch during Spirit weeks and at dances we learned about profits
018and sales our meetings are some some of the best times of the week we we're all very motivated and in driven they range from formal like when we take votes to very relaxed while we while we set out for events regardless of what we do teamwork is very important and we find a lot a lot of excess in that we're very proud of our ideas and the things we do for school such as kindness week kindness week was one of our favorites we learned so much about the wants and needs of the school while having such an amazing time from this week we learned that our school loves shouting out other students we did this at one assembly and had over 100 submissions we came together and decided that this is something we should continue
019now we have a shout out every day on htn for this kindness this week the student body came together and made a kindness think and a heart our spirit days are always awesome we have had some fantastic ones like camo day PJ day anything but a backpack day Jersey day and Western day we have we have had amazing turnouts and have gotten so many good suggestions about what else students want we have spent time celebrating events on campus to like s Sr appreciation day and National Counselor Appreciation Week all in all we have a great time this we had a great time in this year in suo we're looking forward to we're we're looking forward most to the city Hawk our city Hawkins dance coming up on March 21st and the eighth grade fly kite
020day are there any questions for us would each of you tell us why you chose to be in student council um we haven't I I just wanted to help school I join student council because I like to be a leader and help out with school I joined student council because I like helping out other people and having a large voice someday maybe you'll be a Schoolboard member [Laughter] gos thank you all very very much was very and I mean that I was some student council Al through middle school and high school too so just might never all right item 6D superintendence report Mr SCH so our 100th day was last week so that pretty much puts the the end of the counting now it's all the reconciliation and things will get tweaked here and there
021just a tad bit but we're no longer Counting kids for our ADM it's just a matter of making sure that the data is clean so um as of and there's a a comparison in here in the packet for you but we are at down 80 ADM over last year um so when you figure that out that's about $560 to $400,000 in loss Revenue um from this year compared to next year now we do have and we'll talk a little bit about budget um a little bit but there's been um you know we that's going to be more than what we are bringing in in our increase from the state so um that's you know we are having to address that um coming up next year um legislative update um it's surprising John yes sir before
022you go on yes how do how does our loss and adum compare with humble presc I don't know exactly I know that these are they the area tends to be TR trending downward um part of that or probably a major portion of that has to do with um educ vouchers so families are taking vouchers um there's really two types of families taking vouchers there's the families that already are in a private school or in a home school setting that are taking vouchers to educate their children doesn't really have an impact on the school district it has an impact on taxes but not necessarily on the school district and then there's the um ones that are currently in a in a public school whether it be a charter or a district school like ours that are
023taking those um vouchers and no longer enrolled and so I my feeling is that most of that 80 is is probably due to um esas vouchers and we're probably pretty similar to the other two districts then yeah we're all being we've all read about Paradise Valley having to close schools which was a shock right but you know we're hit but thank goodness not to that extent apparently right and you know there's hundreds of teachers I think or hundreds of positions not being filled in Mesa schools which is the largest school district in the in the state um you had mentioned I think Scottsdale's closing schools Paradise Valley's closing schools and so it's a huge the other thing that that they have is that there's there are more opportunities for private schools down in the down
024in the um urban areas than we have um and we were talking about this today in in a meeting and Cindy brought this up there are now two private schools in Chino Valley that's popped up within the past year or two that didn't exist prior to that so k k uh yes one is um focused on actually it's across the street focused on special needs kids and the other is um I think actually it's K2 I WR I think right now and um the the thing you got to remember for a special needs student is that typically it's about $7,000 what a a regular ed student would get for a um educa a voucher it's tens of thousands depending on what the disability of a child is and so the way that it's another way
025that it has impacted us is we have been asked to provide um evaluations from our psychologist in order to for kids that are not our students but live in our school district were required to provide evaluations of these students to determine if they have a disability they no don't have to enroll with us at all but we're required to provide the evaluation so that they can use that evaluation to get more money from the vouchers I'm certain you don't know the answer to this and I don't even know if the answer is out there would we be able to know how many of those schools in particular particular here in Chino Valley the students are funded by esas all but one all the students all the students in both Charter in both private schools are
026funded with esas with the exception of one student and we're talking 40 50 students somewhere in there $7,000 a student well no no you gotta remember the special needs ones across the street you got tens of thousands per student so it's pretty close to our drop in enrollment is what you're saying it not I wouldn't say it's identical but um because there could be these are just two charter schools here or private schools here there's also um private schools that they could go to in in preset out of the area or they could homeschool and um one of the concerns that we have there are there are parents that are doing fantastic jobs educating their kids at home I I don't want to take away from from some parents doing a fantastic job there are
027other parents that are chasing the money Our concern and we've had I've heard this this concern from Young pist as well 2 three years when the child isn't progressing like they should be at home we get them back now they're our responsibility when we didn't when we lost two or three years of education of educating these kids and now we're beh the child's behind and we're being um raided or on a child that wasn't our student um but was happened just live in our district so one last followup question how much do we get for student it's about well and we get actually we get a little bit more the Val the esas are 95% of what the ADM would be so we get an extra you know rounding 5% um above what they would
028get on a voucher so about $7,000 or tens of thousands depending on what their disability is yeah thank you so John in Lost Revenue to uh 8 students you said about 460,000 560 C 560 yeah and we can expect 2% increase correct which equates into about what uh there's a budget Sheet later I think it's 100 and for student uh actually M increase is actually 334 334,000 total uh that's the 2% is equates to that because it's not 2% because there's some things that the like for example a fair portion of our budget not a ton but is transportation miles that 2% doesn't impact the transportation miles and so the m&o portion that is based on enrollment that 2% is about $334,000 y the um legislative update to be to be honest there's not there
029hasn't been a ton coming out of the legislature that's been overly ous I in my in my opinion um the one thing that if you hear about this that that will be I think um important to the schools is the reauthorization of prop 123 prop 123 was passed about three years ago and what it did is allow additional Monies to be taken out of the state trust lands pot and given to schools well that expires in a couple years so they want to try to reauthorize it this year and if it fails this year then it can they can try again next year it barely passed the first time and some of the plans coming out would actually increase the amount taken out of the state trust lands and that increased amount would go to
030teacher pay or classroom staff pay um and there's a two or three different proposals coming out about one two three so I I predict something will come out um of that for a vote in November it could be multiple plans for all we know but um I imagine there'll be something for a reauthorization in some form or another coming out for a November vote U but that's going to be extremely important for schools um and the state John just just to make sure I remember correctly the state trust money that we keep talking about Land Trust money we keep talking about is the funds from historic all sales of State trust lands that didn't draw interest and then we can tap into that well in some cases it's sales in some cases it's rental grazing
031leases so when the state was formed um I I believe every other section of the state was put into a land trust they started selling that off they now have a big pot of money along with still a lot of land there's a lot of state land that is grazing land or some of it's in the middle of Scottdale that could be very very um lucrative so they there's a the part of the State Treasury office has a state land trust um Department that manages all that and there are there is um Investments so a lot of that money got invest invested into stocks and other other areas there's still the land itself there's rents there's grazing leases so there's multiple income streams coming into the fund um but it was meant mainly for Education
032um well the point I was trying to get at is let's let's say there's a there's a billion dollars in of all those funds in an investment somewhere and of course those yields I presume are typically bonds rather than stocks but you know let's say that they yield 5% a year so our that income source is 5% a year year after year after year of those billions of dollars and I what I'm always curious about is how much of that is actually being sent back to the schools rather than just building the value of that trust right the there's a uh Actuarial calculation that they do to make sure that the trust increases in value and that that what the prop 123 did was change that calculation so that more would come out but the
033the trust has actually been doing really well um and has continued to grow despite the increase in the money coming out um I can't give you exact numbers but okay but that that I've been following at least that part and that the trust has not decreased right because of this increase so people feel that they can actually take more out or some people do and the trust still kind of keep keep the Corpus intact and even grow a little bit and I think that's what's really important to know is that no matter what they're talking about more money directly to the schools from the trust fund it is not jeopardizing either the income of the trust or the balance of the trust has that has been invested and there's other complications because um statehood happened
034in What's called the enabling act and there's and that's what actually gave the trust to the the trust lands to the state federal land the federal lands right um and so when that happens there's some requirements so even though the vote may take place it still requires I think Senate approval in order for this to continue and that was one of the on the first prop one two three they kind of passed the proposition and did the Senate approval afterwards not knowing if it was GNA be passed but it was um thanks to Senator mcain I think was the one that really pushed that through so um it'll be there it's it's not as simple as just a vote there's a it's much more complicated might than that thanks uhuh any other questions about that
035um budget so we mentioned um that the budget the increase from the state um which is the minimum that's required by law is 2% $336,000 there is a sheet in that's um budget protect projections that's in your packet um we got some really good news um this past week we I was budgeting 10% increase in medical um it was seven so that's going to um save a not quite or about a quarter of that amount is going to be saved um or it's going to be this is the based on 10% so um you can decrease that by about a quarter um on the medical insurance um asrs which is our state retirement that this that the both employees and the district pay this the district pays half is actually going down a minuscule amount
036fairly flat 0.02% that's a savings of only $2,300 we have our increased revenues um later tonight you will be voting on um and on pay raises and so um the proposals are for teachers and therapists a $600 pay raise out of m&o and then um they uh keep the base salary the same but increase our classroom site fund by $3,500 by for all certified employees and I'll you can we'll talk a little bit about more details when we get to that point that would bring our starting teacher pay with base pay and classroom site fund to $53,500 and um admin would be a 3% increase class ified would be a quarter increase to the district's minimum wage from $15 an hour to 15 and a quarter um and the total and then also one and
037a half% on the classified the total for for all that would be 264,000 so between our insurance and the salary increases and asrs increase Revenue it would actually a little bit lower than that because that doesn't account for the savings or the the health insurance that's actually decreased but we're talking about $50,000 or so in the whole that doesn't include increases to diesel fuel electricity um a concern that we have and and our facilities department is doing a good job we're going to have a bunch of hvac's that we didn't have um a year ago that are going to kick in in May at least half of them are so we're going to have increases in electrical costs that we're going to have to absorb we are going you know and then the general increase
038and just general stuff so um we we are proposing down the road and we'll again we we are proposing that we not fill we're not laying people off everyone has a job that wants a job um that we not fill eight positions across the district for certified staff and that will allow us some buffer on the budget at the same time the cuts that we're making keep us with in the class siiz model so really we were probably overstaffed this year and we're just um bringing it to in line with the class size model and there's some information down here the next page will shows the average class size the Staffing model for next year this is for the 2425 projected amounts so um and and so we're we except with the exception of third
039grade which is our current second graders and we believe that that will actually come into um into place um okay that we're all within the funding or the class siiz model um and then along with that the next couple Pages show you where we're at this year at Heritage and the high school by Department it's that information is on the class siiz analysis that was done for the K5 classes or grade levels on that first page this kind of gives you by department and you can see for example our electives at the middle school our average class sizes um less than 19 um for um social studies were're 25 and the class size model is 35 at the at the middle school so we're well below and even if by cutting these positions we'll still
040be within the class size model that we're looking for John can I ask you a dumb question about that table yes um I just look at the total St column uhu and as noted for example language arts has 421 math 418 social studies 4 are you on the high school no I'm middle schoolage okay that paage for heritage why AR those numbers all the same doesn't every kid require to take an English and a math and a social studies class some kids may be taking resource math which is which is would be under special ed or resource language arts which would be under special ed so those would be not included in the regular correct correct okay well I just I looked to those numbers J out at me but that that explains it thank
041you um at at the elementary school what is our class sizes there what do we try to keep that is is there there the models the Staffing model is in that in on the one on your left hand oh F back and you can see the third from the right is the Staffing model where we want to try to keep our class sizes so as we increase in eight the class size increases as well great okay so for example at Kinder and first we're at 25 second and third 28 um fourth and fifth at 32 and then 6 through 12 at 35 but I can tell you there's classes that are much smaller than than the class siiz models across the board this year and what what was our goal that we wanted to keep
042the classroom sizes the Staffing model uh and throughout the year there are are classes that are above the Staffing model that doesn't mean we're going to hire a teacher right away um but we keep that in mind and if there's enough kids in each class at that at that grade level then that's when we you know um hire another teacher to fill that position have a question for you yes your question okay a child in elementary school is really struggling with learning to read and all the other kids are above him what what do you do about that well we have some interventions we have uh Title One interventions um we also if it's if it's a special ed student we can provide special ed services um we have so we have intervent we have
043Friday school where they can come to school on Fridays and get additional help so we have interventions in place to try to get that kid up to speed before they even go into special ed that's the last yes the last thing we want to do um we have a series of interventions in the meantime to get them up to speed same thing with math same thing with math and I think I could be wrong for this one um Del Rio Del Rio um um I I think just because I have a kid in third grade um don't we Branch off like as far as um if a kid is in a higher Le they go to different reading groups and so if there's a kid that's in a highly reading group right now we move
044kids around for reading and those class sizes or group sizes fluctuate based on student ability okay that's what was that's answer we differentiate instruction based on the needs of the kid Y and and I would also add not only do we have Friday school and and Title One interventions we also have teachers providing tutoring um throughout the week for kids as well after school my invitation for our most struggling students too their parents are strongly if the student is struggling we they receive a personal invite and it's up to the parent to decide whether they want their child to have additional intervention Bry can you tell them real quick some of the things you guys do interven the same thing we have tutoring Friday school we do pull out and pushin services for title one
045specifically for reading and then based on their abilities and what their needs are so lots of interventions and we do that every classroom has an extra support person in the classroom an hour a day um as long as well as our reading interventionist works on a lot of dyslexic intervention she's part-time have parttime that and parttime instructional coach would just like to see our school district raise those those scores of reading and math and we start at the basics where they're at just learning to read or you know in the elementary level and then when they get to the junior high hopefully they're where they should be as far as their ability is and their grade level so the other thing you have to remember is we take them as they are yes and we
046we do the we we do the interventions and things like that in many cases um we get them in third grade and and they haven't done anything or they're really be far behind and so then we're we are working as hard as we can to get them up to speed um at every level we have kids coming in high school that that are in that same situation so um you know we have a very Transit Community a lot of in and outs um and that's reflected in our in our homeless population and um our elll population and others and so um we we we take them as they are and we work with them to to get them up to speed as best we can and we have lots of lots of interventions that we
047can provide um to to do that I think our Friday schools been one of the cool good things that's happened to our district and I I think that like my my kid wasn't even invited but he heard it was such a great time he wanted to start Ping and it's been really good for him so I think that that's really cool because just to get that extra help is really awesome you know so any other questions on I wonder if I could ask a question please uh taking a look at the Staffing model uh are those numbers advisable meaning what um to do a really good job uh for a teacher to do a very good job um in um teaching and get getting the kinds of results we want um where there steady student
048achievement Etc is a model a classroom model of 25 for kindergarten classroom or 25 for first grade classroom um advisable and I know that that uh there might be varying opinions on that question I actually think that that's a really great question because I was wonder the same thing I think there and so just a real quick where I'm coming from um a lot of states have gone to uh Elementary uh and Roman limits of 20 as uh much of the profession believes that that's what's advisable so just curious and this I don't think we've I think it was a two 2,000 ODS that this was visited if I recall this particular model I think didn't Harold Tenny lead that well and I know Cindy has something but my my first comment would be is
049there's a balance between what we can provide or the class size and budget you know if and and you know you and I have had this conversation it's either salary or people if you have more people you have lower salaries if you have higher salary you have less people and so this is really these this staffy model provides that balance between what we can pay people so that we can actually attract quality teachers and how many people we hire so not it the state doesn't fund all day and so our staffing model is not only based on um the very best numbers John's talking about with with budget balance but you have to remember that half our kindergarten teachers we pay for with zero reimbursement right so is it advisable I I think the lower
050the better but this is this is a number that provides the balance of being able to afford quality teachers versus the classs yeah I understand uh that that's that that is a balancing act that uh requires uh trade-offs um and um there just seems to me that there are other states in the union that um have seen to it to make sure there Primary School classrooms are any larger than 20 and I think we would we would discover also that their outcomes um are better student achievement outcomes U these really been successful programs and I can tell you that um you know people say that money doesn't doesn't impact student achievement it it absolutely does and when you have a state that is paying a per pupil amount that's 48th 49th 50th 47th even um
051there's there's consequences to that including larger class size and maybe not the achievement that we should that our kids deserve well I'm part of home life you know when parents are involved in the children's education the children learn better because the teacher can only do so much in the classroom when the parent emphasizes learning in the home then the children achieve more and they do better you know and I know I always told my parents you're the first your child's first teacher it's not the classroom teacher is what comes out of the home so I just want to emphasize that a little bit too because that's important for parents to know that so having to cut seven positions it looks like eight it's seven regular Ed teachers it's seven regular Ed teachers and one special
052ed teacher okay yeah so is this is pushing up our class sizes compared to right now yes yeah so we are we are making the choice let me ask you other question that the 30 of the $3,500 that from site from that going to go into teacher salaries um could that be spent in in another way other than teacher salaries yes it could however um the district for I'll say decades um has made the commitment to teachers that 100% of the classroom site fund money go to teacher salaries what we have done this and this will be part of the conversation later but I'll bring it up now is that there's been a I'll say a loosening or kind of a modification of the the law that allows us to give if give it to
053more staff members um previously um counselors our therapists our our deans of students our um instructional coaches were not eligible so money went into their salary to compensate them for not getting that that we're reading it that that has that well that there's been changes that now allow them if because they're in the classroom they're helping instruction helping kids that kind of thing and so we're going to we're actually going to be giving more employees classroom site fund money because counselors are now going to get it our therapists are not going to get it when they weren't eligible before and now they are answer your question I looked it up today for a different reason one of our former employees who taught here for 15 years is and John did me a solid a run
054in the numbers um is in a district in Metro Phoenix and their employees only receive $6,000 from cloud room site fund each that's it our employees are will this year will be receiving um between the 3500 for the positions John just described and 16,500 so over 10,000 per employees being withheld for other allowable expenses so under ARS 15977 subsection H I have looked it up today just like that class size reduction is one of the allowable expenses but if we spend the money adding more teachers from classroom site fund that means everybody is smaller paycheck so it's the same it's the same impact if we take it at a classroom site funer M&L um and again historically this district has committed that pot of funds to certified staff what's allowed us to be competitive truefully
055and you want to share your your experience so Heidi and I um went toova to a recruiting Fair a couple of weeks ago because as you all know you know we all need teachers right and we want them to have gone to teacher school first and one of the things that we found out was um we have one of the best starting pays right out of college of any school district at the fair and that's because a classroom site fund so some districts have larger m because they have overrides K3 overrides things like that that allow them to pay more from their um like in their base salary um but they had their total compensation packages listed with signing bonuses um base salary and classroom site fund and I think we beat out all but
056two or were neck and neck with the last two and I would like to point out that there were districts from Texas there recruiting who we beat which I was shocked to tell you the truth um there was a big district from greater Chicago who was there and I asked them what gifts why are you here and they said we need teachers who can speak Spanish and we were like getting ly behind the rest of us people the only District I think there were two that beat us out maybe Sandy Utah and they would their district one from at Palm Desert Palm Desert which was in Southern California yeah which was totally Beyond guess what it's they're like Way Beyond us and what they start at it yeah yeah you couldn't yeah and so that
057translated into how many teachers did you time we happy one so far Ed we had five that were excellent Ed snagged one because of the housing that was the turning point that was the turning point so you know one doesn't sound like a lot but when there's only five available that's a 20% success rate really exed no not Spanish speak the one Spanish speaking lady oh my gosh I'm like people probably would have given her a million bucks and we honestly would have signed all five on the site yes if we could get them to commit one I do not think we will have out of state competition next year and the reason is this is the first real graduating classroom the Arizona teacher Academy it's where the state reimburses them for their tuition but
058the hiccup is they all have to stay in the state and so our first question was are are you planning on staying in Arizona yes I have the ATA good to know how do you feel about living in a rural area how do you feel about living in a shoe box we were it was and the the ladies from Sandy Utah next to us were like oh they're like What's the ATA we told them and they said that happened to them last year in New Mexico New Mexico had their first graduating class of State subsidized teaching degrees and they said they won't go back to New Mexico to recruit because everybody has to stay there which I coming away from that with five solid candidates of all the people we talked to only one had
059special ed certification which was disappointing but um coming away from that I was extremely encouraged well it may not pay off this year for us what I saw was every single person we talked to had to stay in Arizona yeah that's huge and that will turn the tide right because there been the pool has been so shallow that now the pool will be greater year after year and some of the kids wanted to stay in Tucson they were Tucson kids you know wanted to stay there and Tucson districts had tons of openings um and we know even though mesa's letting 482 certified positions go um that those a lot of those are people who aren't fully certified so it's not like it's flooding extra certified teachers across the market it was really encouraging believe it
060or not no I am encouraged that seems like some decisions we've made had had a positive impact on that particular we were so stoked yeah right so we're constantly you're you're your job and sy's job is to constantly be balancing this well um do we have competitive salaries so we can get good qualified people in front of our classrooms and if we do that well we may have to sacrifice on the on the side of classroom sizes yes and it's going back and forth and back and forth like that John why don't you get a budget that that can satisfy both because the budget is out of the I said why don't run for legisl that that that is the that is the issue that is the issue and that's what our our folks in
061in in Chino Valley our parents in Chino Valley they need to understand yeah and that's exactly where this debate needs to happen does happen and so often we come up short and you know people may not understand that the district has almost no impact on its income there's there's it's all determined by the type of student we have which we um the amount number of students that we have the state's amount per student that they'll allocate um and then also federal funds and things like that but there's very this board has very little impact on the income that the district provides or gets exactly you know you guys are as supportive as can be that's really what our job is but but you but you have you have no influence over the income you have
062every influence over the how it's spent that's what what we come to you for and why we're having this disc discussion but zero influence or very little on what comes in that's done at higher levels so it's our state legislature has power and control over the per pupil funding that you referred to earlier yes right right and and we're in a lower 50 lower one or two or three yes yeah we're at the bottom bottom five at at you know best case one of the other interesting things I I've discovered in my research is um is that in terms of the percent of our GDP or the wealth of the State of Arizona that the collective wealth that we have here in Arizona we are dead last in the percent of our GDP we devote
063to public education dead last so what this says to me is we are a state that is wealthier than it indicates by the support they do not give public schools and what's an indicator of that is the aggregate expenditure limit exactly because that even puts a Chokehold on that even further which if without waving that on an annual basis would decrease the amount of funding that this the state allocates to um not Charter Schools just district schools so I it was interesting to me to learn that if we were just at the average in the United States in terms of what we're devoting of our GDP just the average that would be an additional five billion dollar to our educational system in the state of Arizona we have the resources we have the economy to
064do it our economy grows but yet our funding and our effort continues to shrink to give people an idea there's nice round number to use for the number of students in Arizona is a million so at5 billion dollar increase that'd be $5,000 5,000 additional dollars per per ADM almost yeah people have asked me what I would do if we had that kind of money I don't know yeah honestly I I ask me how to run a school district on a Sho string I can tell you all about that yeah ask me how to spend I don't know right right right exactly well I hope we would immediately start to work to reduce classroom sizes and just get more teachers and more people in there right yeah I you know I think there's this syndrome of
065the Desert Rat that we have fallen into um in Yavapai County here and the Desert Rat you know you walk through the desert um and you don't see a Desert Rat very often and if you do you see it's about this big okay and why is that there aren't any resources for them to flourish and to get larger right and yet the Desert Rat probably isn't complaining he's done a very good job of adapting we've all adapted and the status quo that adapting to that status quo this is unsatisfying me it is not fair to the students in our district the families in our school dist in our school district we can do a better job of that um School administrators are wonderful enablers because we have to we don't have a choice absolutely yeah
066absolutely I was talking to some people let's carry on time just to disc I've said enough um any any other than Mr Fogle any other questions from the board about the all of all questions um construction update so really the main construction project right now is still our hbac um we got some an update uh last couple days that we anticipate the west side of the highway to be done April time frame they'll move over to the east side of the highway we should have air conditioning in most of our classrooms by the time it gets warm in May um and then of course come August when we have humidity and heat they'll have air conditioning Heritage and Del Rio um you're going to vote on a um item later that will allow us to
067well there the plan would be right now to put eight classrooms four buildings over at territorial there's a um we're going to ask for the the board permission to actually buy two of those classrooms um territorial is the second largest school with the smallest number of square feet even though they're smaller kids but um we just need that space um in order to um kind of do things that we we're kind of tied at at territorial right now um especially with with um some of our special programs so um the idea and the other thing is that we have to finish it's it's we have no choice we have to finish the territorial cafeteria and what's called the B building which is the strip right in front next to the parking lot over the summer
068we need to have the cafeteria available for school for kids to feed kids and that BB building is licensed as a preschool and we can't move those kids and license another portion of the school it's those particular classrooms that are licensed so we have to finish those two projects as far as those two buildings on the hbac over the summer so what that means is the the consequence of that is um our Food Service program that we normally our summer feeding program that we normally do at territorial will be at Del Rio this summer um I do know that they've um they're trying to do some programming with the library um we usually R you know work with the pool we have the kids attending the pool um and can can eat we will have
069the library try to get those kids at the library when they're done with their program they can go to Del Rio on that kind of thing but that's the big impact there is that um our Sumer feeding program will change and we have to get those projects done in territorial we don't have a choice so we're moving forward um and I I I want to thank John again and then Chris Sheriff we've had some issues with the with the contractor and and um the equipment that they provided was not what we specified and um and Chris Sheriff did a test on what should be there and it worked out and basically schooled the um contractor on this is what you need to do to make um to make our project what we need and so
070um those guys have been doing a great job in keeping this project going forward also want to thank um Larry Fulmer and the IT guys um because we're you know we are moving multiple classrooms over a weekend that means technology moving and things like that um Chris's department has been moving moving um classroom over the over the the weekend so um it's been a um a team effort to get this done and and get this project continuing so want to thank them on that staff of the quarter um you got to see Julie Bas our our fantastic Anatomy physiology teacher from the high school um we also have Becky Massie our administrative assistant at the high school so when you go in to um Mrs Crawford's office you you pass um Becky's um Becky's desk
071at Heritage we have a longtime teacher Pearl Turley along with a longtime prayer professional Beth has been with Beth tomask has been us with us for several years at Del Rio we have our Dena students instructional coach Cassie kower and our library Aid Lily mishow and at territorial we have um Debbie shonfeld our teacher and Lissa Nagel our PA professional and at the district office um we have a Lor Marley's assistant is um Heather Crane and she does a fantastic job for us helping out our our homeless families as our family resource assistant and that is our staff of the quarter um their pictures I think are already on Facebook and so you can kind of see they have a little frame and and um do want to thank Jed's Jed's um restaurant or um
072provides a sandwich shop provides a little some goodies and also a gift certificate for them um to give to each of those people um our calendar our meeting is on Wednesday today because we have spring break next week so the district will be open um but offices may be closed because people are on vacation um on April 1st is our inservice day and hopefully a snow day that we don't need to use um that is the plan right now is to keep it as a inservice day um our governing board meeting in April is April 8th I will not be here I'm hoping Cindy will be but she has an obligation that she may not be able to make it I'm on call for federal jury duty I'm hoping that I don't get called and
073that's in Phoenix yeah so we do have we do have a contingency plan if both of us are gone I'm G to be in San Antonio um the total eclipse is that day so I'm going to be viewing the total eclipse um May 6 is a millionware challenge dinner that's a neat dinner to if you want to attend please let Cheyenne know um we just honor our thanks um in conjunction with the Lions Club we um honor all of our million word challenge um partic partipants uh May 13th is our governing board meeting last day of school May 21 we also have an end of year C staff celebration at 2 o'clock that day for those that would like to attend of course graduation is at Wednesday at 7 o'clock um you get to shake
074160 hands or so um Memorial Day and then our um governing board meeting on the June 10th we do have on May 29th we do um Cindy is having a strategic planning meeting that I think is going to be at Grace Church at the Family Center um behind the church and what time does that start Cindy 7:30 okay and um then on June 27th will be our end ofe fiscal celebration and the fiscal year celebration at 12 o'clock at Chino Valley High School that we do annually and I'm hoping that maybe we have some Smash Burgers yeah yep that's what we talked about last year so um smash bger tacos yes Smash Burger tacos there we go yeah yeah good so that is our calendar I think we should like you should like preview with
075the board like a personal Smashburger perfect well then moving right along to item 6 E1 Financial reports for ending February 29th 2024 we are we are ready pres MERS of the board ation staff ladies and gentlemen take a quick look at the month ended February 29th I hope you're all here in four years would that be 2028 when we have another February 29th report coming up a quick look at our our main funds here there's three I'd like to kind of highlight the percentage of the Year gone at that point is 66% and the percentage of our operating budget spent 63.8% so we like that little drag we don't like it when we spent 70% of the budget when only 66% of the year is gone so that's not happening in our operating fund uh
076about 40% of our Capital fund is left uh we've got things in play things in place $2.3 million budget and our Capital funds spent 1.2 million still have some incumbrances there but we're really sitting on that because we reserve the right to move some of those funds back to operating fund if we need it as the year goes by the last state to revise the budget again is May 15 uh so we'll be coming back to you i' like to do this revision right now so we have some numbers processed in April so we could really prepare for and get those differences right for the next uh opportunity before May 15 to revise our current year budget 691 fund um we've spent 7.4 million projections that's our school facilities board fund projections are by the
077end of this year we will have spent over 11 million um and those projects include total the total purchase orders for Heritage Middle School and Del Rio Elementary School are over 11 million and those are the ones that we're focusing on that's where our HVAC contractors are finishing they've done preliminary work at Territorial and at the high school but that's what I'm counting on basically a rig out from those facilities uh end of end of April middle of May and little Jump Then on the two remaining buildings and hopefully we'll have that 11 Lane spent and then hopefully by next year at this time everything will be completed that's the that's the goal um any questions there's a real quick real quick one John the next one 803 what is the vexo scholarship well that's
078a great question we've had we've had a tremendous relationship with Sodexo for at least seven or eight years maybe maybe more more than 10 we've been through two budget Cycles so we can keep them if we go out to bid for Food Service management companies we can keep them up to five years so this is year 11 then if we've had two two renewals already because this is the first year of our third renewal so they have given a couple of different things that I'm aware of uh at one time they would put on the revenue they would send us ,000 for an academic scholarship and I I believe they reserve the right to keep doing that however recently they've had some sandwich contests future chef future Chef contest swich Y and I was the
079judge with Karen a couple years ago and I think I had a brw on Ry with Fooda cheese or something probably did you get such a good memories so the winner of those are now eligible for for up to I think $500 scholarship and then some of them get a 250 and that's not really a postsecondary we will pay your tuition once you prove you're enrolled in a college scholarship that's a cash award those future Chef uh Awards so so they're not obligated to fund it but they do fund oh yeah that's just a really good will they call it like a public relations promotion because then the students take the course from our voed teacher the culinary arts course but yet they know that they're being supported by a nationally known like sedexo has
080offices on the East and the West Coast I know they have I know they have schools in Alaska and they do correctional facilities they're a big multinational corporation funding this student so there's been talk from the V teacher that some of these students have been influencing a little bit some of that support subtle influence because they like to to win that and some of them haven't won anything before and now they make a a stamy on BR worst with guda and they win a prize so that's a good incentive so thank you John good relationship there so that's 803 that fund is dedicated to their revenues and then to their Awards right so that's that's all I have for want to move into Student Activity FS for us yes thank you so I'm not sure
081if this has been updated but I'm pretty sure it's been updated maybe Miss uh Miss Mel Caitlyn you can can you see then if all those new clubs have been put on there on the financial report I think they have so last meeting February meeting we did add seven student council uh clubs at the middle school and it's it's just a really smart thing to do if students are going to go out and fund raise it's much better to do it with the student council approved minutes that you kind of know what they're doing and can schedule it and it just fits right in there's not a lot of activity on those new ones yet but I think with the students tonight we probably we can expect some AC they're attached to the sports so
082I love how the students are get to engage with it get to control how their money is spent stays in the school so just a real quick summary the way we've got this report the third column there where it's got the cash balance that was our July 1st 2023 cash balance $174,000 we come over to the ending cash balance 174 we haven't moved much there oh excuse me the 149,000 there we go is the far right so we you can say we've spent about 20 26,000 there 25 26,000 in the course of the year and then there's still 24,000 incuman so these are live vibrant clubs that that have an organic nature they're always planning they're always completing activities moving on to the next activity fantastic they seem to like to save well I think
083that the process of I think we discussed this a while ago about this year's money this year's students some of them have that some of them don't some of them want to save it for the next year gr group so I need someone to read this for me because I don't have my glasses that does not say Fight Club does it light thank you we don't just in the very good that's all we have thank you all right item 8 a through f is our consent agenda if we can get a motion to approve tonight it's an agenda I'll make a motion to approve tonight a second please second all in favor all right item 8 b um this is contract renewals I think we're at 8A oh yeah 88 student transportation before student Transportation
084mileage reimbursement so several years ago well we have circumstances in the district where um it's more advantageous to the district and for the parents to transport their student it might be a kid way out on a ranch that we can get them to um the nearest bus stop and maybe um we have um kids that are in like a homeless shelter or something or a hotel that's outside of the area that we need to provide transportation here and then also special ed students and so um we you rely on parents a lot of times to transport kids and we have a process in order to reimburse them for that it hasn't been updated in several years so it had an old rate of pay which used to be the old State rate that we no
085longer use um we now are tied to the the state is now tied to the IRS rate um which is um a better and so these are this is basically a procedure on how to pay parents to bring their kids to school when we can't um and there's some in some cases when it's not a specialed student it's to the nearest bus stop because then we can transport the kid from the nearest bus stop um when it's a special needs student typically they can't ride a regular Ed bus and so we ask the parent that can we'll give them mileage all the way into school um other rules are we don't give them four trips back and forth It's one trip in and one trip out because a lot of times these parents will be
086working and then they can pick up their kid after work and take them home so um so one round trip for T per per household 60 miles per day per household um only one re even though they may have multiple kids they only get one um things like that so we have and then there's also talk in there about IEPs mckeny vento and extenda circumstances the superintendent has the right to or the ability to modify this to meet those needs for both the student and the district and then also this is tied to the IRS mileage rate instead of the old obsolete State all right I'll make a motion let's see if there's any questions any questions for the transportation all right I will make the motion to approve the student transportation parent reimbursement plan
087perfect a second please I will second all in favor I now let's go to ABB please our contract renewals thank you CH board members Mr SCH Miss Daniels um my first request is the district staff is recommending approval for the certified staff renewals for the 20 2425 school year um that the staff is recommending an increase of $600 for a certified staff teachers counselors therapist which um equates to um an average of about 1.3% and then also the classroom site fund for all certified staff will increase from 13,000 to 16,500 um and um so with that proposed increase that'll be putting our um beginning salary at 53,500 as Mr SCH mentioned earlier and um any staff that starts after January 1st with are only eligible for the increase related to the salary scale um the
088600 and then the impact to our budget will be 86,1 $40 including employe related expenses just a quick question so I understand the salaries that we're seeing here that's just a base salary correct because there's so many of these that are actually less than the 53 so so what happens you're talking about the teachers yes yeah okay thank you yeah yeah all right these numbers do not include this classroom site fund which is paid out of this is just m and Grant funding for their base contract pay y thank you thanks for the clarification and just as a as a real quick um you might notice that some teachers get a little bit less than 600 and some might get a little bit more than than 600 that has to do if they get less
089typically it's because they're a part-time teacher they get a little bit more it's typically because they work more days so our typical um contract is 1424 hours for a a returning teacher they may work 1530 is that the 28 1528 is the 10 and a half month and so we have various Links of contract and it's just probated based on that link of contract number of hours other questions comments seeing none this is an action item if we could have a motion to approve 2024 25 certified contract renewals for certified staff therapists I'll make a motion to approve the 20242 certif Contra certifi and a second second thank you Mike all in favor I thank you the request is for approval of the administrative and classified director supervisors contracts for the uh 2425 school year
090the salary amounts include a a 3% increase um the total cost to the district would be about 4 ,6 $360 that will include eight administrators and board directors who would continue to receive a $6,000 medical benefit uh for the health insurance and um just so that you know the network administrator and District nurse do not receive any additional insurance benefit um any questions all right if we could have a motion to approve the administrators and classified directors I'll make a motion to approve the 20242 administrator and director contract no left a second I second okay have two we're excited all in favor I and then moving right along okay um our next request is uh we're proposing to add um 25 cents per hour to the base pay rate for all classifications on the classified
091entry salary schedule for the 2425 school year so you can see the entry this is the entry schedule something new coming in and you'll see that um I gave you an example of last year's and now um for next school year and so the current minimum wage for cbhs is $15 an hour and the current minimum wage in Arizona is 1435 so this will give our teacher our classified staff and in um starting at 1525 an hour can you mentioned there was a change in our CNA addition oh yes I'm sorry about that so if you look on our health aid for um 2425 we have added under Health Services next to certified um nursing assistant we've had we've also added EMT so that we find that a lot of times CNAs cannot do specific
092type of procedures that an EMT can do so we would have have that ability to hire somebody that has that um training so they can help our nurse with taking care of our students because some of our CNAs get nervous about certain things would that be for some of our medically fral students absolutely yes absolutely we have one n well there's going to be a discussion about that um in April the the answer to that question is yes but again there'll be an agenda item in April that um that may change that right any other questions for the classified entry salary schedule all right seeing N I will make the approval of the proposed 2024 classifi entry salary schedule second yes you do and then our next request is for our classified um our current
093employees our classified staff increases for our next school year uh staff is recommending a salary increase of 1.5% and 25 25 cents an hour for classified staff that have been with the district prior to January 1st 2024 um and if they if we hire them after January 1 then they would get the just the 25 c not the the 1.5% increase and this is to make sure that nobody Leap Frogs anybody coming in um and that increase average increas is about 2.6% and it's going to impact our budget by one 11 13,956 grants any questions for Miss wolf on again seeing none can get a motion make motion to approve of the cost by salary increases beginning July 1st 2024 a second please second all in favor the room and again please our next one
094is the good news that John shared about our um health benefits so um we'll increase by um 7% and um in your packet you have um detailed information um but it'll be a 7% increase are about $1 125,340 and um approximately 85% of our um premiums are paid by m so that would equate to an increase of about 106,000 um and our current uh plan consists of life insurance with pyros there's a high deduction plan for 2500 and they can go ahead and also um can choose one that's a better health plan that is a co-pay plan and then we also have the high deductible plan of 5,000 and that and um and in that case that we can have our employees add to their health savings account which is a reduction in cost for
095them and um and for their dependence um and then we offer Dental Envision that the employees pay for and we're going to make a change this year um our dental coverage is going to go up um 3.5% to 4% they estimated and we are moving from um vision coverage from aesis to VSP and um we're finding that a lot of our um eye doctors in the area prefer vssp to aesis I had a up today today yeah noral cut off of visus yes March one and their some of their providers yeah so so that'll be helpful for our our um staff and in summary as you can see there um we will continue our three insurance plans um the district will pay um insurance $760 a month towards our health towards employees health insurance premiums
096um and the full cost of the hdhp 25,000 2500 um Dental Envision Insurance be voluntary employees covering entire premium district will pay for 20,000 in employee life insurance and employee pays for the dependent life insurance that they want um and district will offer retirees only dental insurance where retire must retiree must pay the entire premium and finally we will continue to offer administrators the 6 6,000 year Insurance style all right any questions on insurance um I do have one now retiring gu Arizona State Retirement they can get dental and vision through that but some of them have chosen to go with us up to the cost the retiree version of we don't even offer the medical side because the cost for the they put the retirees in a separate pool and the cost is enormous
097and no one ever takes it and the asrs is much more affordable um and then also for those recent retirees you always have Cobra for 18 months that you can do okay just thought I no good good comment okay seeing no other questions if we can have a motion to approve I will make the motion for the approval of the 20 24 2025 employee benefits plan and a second please I a second all in favor I and that's well all right and I'm not sure if this is my last request but I think I have I think I have one more after this um um so um we are going to talking with our U maintenance um director we're going to change the assistant abilities director position to just say um maintenance too which is
098a um will be more helpful to him and also will help um lower costs than the department I do want to mention that this came as a result of a a retirement of Bruce Nesbit who has been a long time um employee of the district um he was a CO our baseball field is named after him in part um has been a great asset to the district and he is deciding to move on and do other things but we want to wish him luck but this really was the result of him retiring unfortunately and us just using that opportunity to um kind of things change things up that's same go yeah me too good coach and employe um any questions on doing making the change all right the change the assistant facilities director position to
099maintenance too second please all in favor know start the enthusiasm we started high with I worn you down yes we'll see you back in just a moment um item number 8h district office leadership structure Miss Daniels okay try to make this as exciting and riveting as possible might get a second out of um so as you know and we've talked about several times this evening the school district is experiencing a loss and revenue due to loss ADM one of the things that we've asked each building to do was to reduce certified staff positions to per building by attrition not through letting any um specific person go and so in the spirit of uh We're All in This Together the district office would also like to take a position cut to attrition so what we're recommending
100is that that we're just going to let John Livingston go just kidding Chang my mind on the just like that what we're what we're thinking is that with your blessing we would like to leave the position that I currently occupy vacant but we would like to retain the title of assistant superintendent and we would like to move that title to um Mrs Heidi wolf who is our current HR Director she would maintain her HR Director responsibilities she would take over the portion of the job that I currently do that has to do with um teacher certification professional development things that are more closely aligned with HR we would also take some of the instructional responsibilities that go with my job instruction and curriculum and shift those to U Mrs Julie Bryce she is current Curr
101ly the lead instructional coach for the district and it is a grant-funded position and in her position I've already started um passing some of those duties to her you've um seen her speak about curriculum adoptions the uh rewriting the evaluation instrument for certified staff and things like that so she would assume responsibility for um teacher training the part that goes with curriculum instruction Heidi the part that goes with HR and professional development she would oversee our instructional program and the curriculum that we use in the district and I would take with me to my new job title the um competitive fiscal applications and the current fiscal applications that I write for Grant funds and I would continue to do the applications for those and do the programmatic reporting but we're looking at how we would
102shift internally for some of the data a fiscal tracking of that right now um it would save the district some money um will because not not all of the salary in the current position I'm in is Grant funded some is funded by m&o and not only that it would allow us to free up some grant funding to accommodate the raises that we approved tonight because grant funding is never consistent or known over time but I'll give you an example one of the things and I thought long and hard about it because I know and I talked to Heidi about it I talked to Julie about it talked to other district office staff we are all willing to do this because we think the district office should be held accountable fiscally the same ways that we're
103asking the schools to be held accountable fiscally we think it's fair um we all said yeah we can do it probably can't do it forever but we'd like to try it for at least two years because the other thing we know is in this world that we live in now schools and what we're responsible for don't look like they looked five years ago 10 years ago and we don't want to keep doing business or operating in the school district the way we always have and one thing we learned through covid which you know none of us would say hey let's go back and do that again um but one thing that we learned was it was the great interruptor and interruptor are important because interruptor Force us to re-calibrate they force us to look at
104the way we do things why we do them and how we do them and we see this two-year break as an interruptor at the district office as well because we know going forward CTE has become an increasingly large part of what we do for kids it's a huge value in our community and as we go forward and and increase our CTE footprint in our middle school and eventually in both our elementary buildings we may need somebody here who can devote a lot of time and attention to CTE we might need someone depending on if the Arizona teachers Academy really super duper takes off then maybe we don't need somebody who's supporting teachers who come to the profession unprepared maybe we don't need that and so we do believe and I know I'm not speaking about
105anything that's unknown um the two ladies who would be assuming extra responsibilities um we'll be able to to pay some stiens for those from those Grant funds it won't hit M um but I also know that they're within a few years of retirement so it's also good timing because it gives us a chance to figure out how are we going to go forward how are we going to bridge this and it allows the the district to make some decisions together you know one of the things this has been a really funky year with all kinds of weird Grant funds and one of the things that makes this possible is all our Sr funds are dropping off September 30th that's been a big part of some of the things I've been doing the last couple years
106even last night kathern Verner our district nurse and I worked for about two hours after work a grant popped up she got it at about 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon it was for nursing supplies and it's first come first serve so guess what we did we sat here till six o'clock 7 o'clock last night we worked on that Grant together we got it turned around to the state because guess what if it funds if it funds it will save M 20,000 bucks next year because we be able to buy supplies we normally would have been buying from M so some of the weird stuff we've been chasing we all know about feminine hygiene products Grant um that we all the weird things we've been chasing this year have had a positive impact on that but they're
107also very very doable and I wouldn't be proposing something that I thought would um stretch our staff beyond their capacity or beyond what they're willing to do so this is what we're asking for um we in two years will revisit it and because we know that in two years our schools won't look the same way we also have brand new administrators all over the district who need time to get their feet under them and figure out how they're going to allocate and work their staff so we're not expecting massive sweeping changes in anything but we're we also don't know where the esa bits going right um right now what we do know 70% of the private school students who take the esa voucher we're already going to private school 70% so we don't know if
108we're getting kids back we don't know if we're still going to lose more kids and we think in a couple of years the ship's going to have to write itself it's going to have to write itself at the state level State can't go on upside down hundreds of millions of dollars upside down in this program and we also know that after a couple years not everybody will be satisfied with some of the choices that they make so we'll have a lot better idea we think this year's Year One year two and three we think will provide some better longitudinal data for financial stabilization for us so this is what we're asking for I think it's a great plan I do too and I I'm I'm I mean I'm comfortable with where you're delegating things to
109like with Julie and Heidi and I think that that's really great s just one real question all the years that I've watched your work you have been what I call the the grant genius been able to pull grants out of the stones throughout the country will you he called me rumpled stilin I don't know if you know that that Fable spit straw into gold I was like I've been called work all seriousness you have and I have been amazed and AED by it over the years uh will you be sort of dispersing some of that with the other people or were you pretty much trying to keep that be able to keep that yourself depends what it is because I've involved people in some of these weird two bit things this year to help them
110get their feet wet just just one response it can't go unstated two years ago when Cindy wrote from one of the big Esser funds to purchase a social distancing bus in the next three weeks I had school districts four of them call me how did how did we do that no one in the state was doing that and he set the stand so well that's that's my my real question for all the reorganizations talk which sounds absolutely logical and everything else but I just want to make sure that you still will have the time to be able to do your Genius work I I believe that I will and that's and and I would tell you if it if I will put the district in financial Jeopardy by this decision and if it become if
111it looks like it's not feasible then we'll talk about it and I'm definitely willing to do that and I'm not willing to work you know 500 hours a week you know for the rest of my life but um you know Heidi said this was her her last request or whatever her final request of well that sounds really ominous it's not gonna be my final request but I just you know in my heart I just know it's the right thing to do and so we'll see and you know like last night it was honestly it was no SK off my nose to stay a couple hours no big deal yeah I I like that we'll be able to re address it not only for yourself but also for the others that are involved if we need
112to any other discussion okay if we can have a motion to approve I'll make the motion to approve the elimination of one District level administrative position and reassessment of Duties with incremental costs to be covered by grant funding and I'll be happy to Second it fantastic all in favor I thank you now we have an answer for the question I get asked all the time who's in new assistant superintendent she might have to cover the board meeting next month congratulations all right all right so um my final request of the is that um um you have the um Personnel report and the supplement and we have um five new certified staff one new classified sub 12 resignations four retiring thir three terminations five certified changes four classified changes 12 coaches and 184 time sheets any
113discussion or questions on any of the Personnel report so just remember mention number not names all right SE then if we could have a motion I'll make a motion of approval of the personel Report with second please I was second all in favor thank you very much appr item 9A purchase of modular classroom buildings for Tech I had mentioned this a little bit earlier as part of the project so when they move or install buildings over at territorial they're doing a lot of electrical upgrades that would be um part of the project cost and some other things and so we are able to kind of get these buildings at it somewhat of a discount because a lot of the infrastructure is being paid for through the project and so these are not the same buildings
114that are currently at Heritage and Del Rio this would be additional buildings that would come up be used for the project once the project leaves they would remain um John has identified some some money in five fund fund 500 which is our plant and that's things like rental of facilities and the big one is the rental of the cell the cell tower rental Outback so that is goes into a special fund f fund 500 there's um John Field's comfortable and I'm speaking on his behalf with about $120,000 would come out of that fund to pay for for the down payment um the entire cost would be 388 that would leave it um a balance of 268 and that would be paid for through a um lease purchase agreement through a company that we use um
115commonly for often for lease purchases quick question does that fund money incl installation of the of these they do this is basically out the door cost with the with the skirting installation hookups everything else yeah the difference between these buildings and the other temporary buildings um is that we have to put fire alarms in these um because they would be permanent considered permanent the other buildings that are considered temporary don't require fire alarms that also in the price to um furnish it inside not Furnishing no it's just the building C but we may be able to reallocate furniture from around the district correct and two couple things bry's pinched to the seams um this would allow us to expand our preschool at some point and we've been approached um with the possibility of starting a
116lab school to grow our own teachers and use territorial campus as a lab school facility so we'll see we have a waiting list right now for preschool and if we could we'd like to accommodate and bring those kids in and and get them that early start that helps so I I just heard something very interesting a lab [Music] school is this be part of uh a CTE program or wow fabulous R Mike that's the shortest answer to the shortest question any further discussion all right see none a motion I'll make a motion to approve purchase of two modular clroom building that Ted with financing through American second all in favor I item 9B um our expend expenditure budget revision is to the study yes if you go to the section of your packet if you've
117got a printed packet for the legal siiz Pages begin there are two sheets in front of that if you have the same packet I do and they're kind of dark because they were copied from the darker paper and that's what used to be called the budget 25 report and now it's called the budget expenditure budget report report and if you look at the lower left hand of that you see February 22nd so this reports about about 10 days old 12 days old and this report is the one that we use to reconcile the numbers that the district is recording and presenting for Budget numbers as compared to the numbers that the department of Ed has so there's three factors here mainly that account for this need to revise the budget in March first one is
118the last chance to revise our budgets the the May 15th deadline and it's nice to be really close with really small adjustments necessary without making calls to school Finance because like everybody else at ad they're all new I don't know how young some of them are but some of them seem quite um quite inexperienced so when you want to call and get support and and documentation on some of these numbers it might take a week to get the answer because the the assistant chief the assistant superintendent for finance is hard to get in touch with so going down the first page is all M that's on the left side the 19 the only number you really need to know is the 19,5 52023 at the bottom I Circle that one and that's that's a little
119bit uh variable the budget we adopted in July was 19,700 the adopted or the budget we revised in December was 19 mil 503 this is up from there about 45,000 46,000 and there's factors behind that if you go up just a little bit about the eth line up it says 300 million1 time supplemental funding you see the number the state is going to give us 62293 you see the number my conservative estimates took of the state's total enrollment versus our percentage of that the last time we did that our number resulted in 577 th000 so I I like to always be underestimating if you will revenues and overestimating expenditures so we have these little cushions that that brought in another 46,000 and that's basically the difference there uh you jump to the next page you
120go to the lower right I didn't Circle it but I put two two little check marks uh 2,330 332 that's our Capital side and you see the budget we had at the uh December meeting 2,116 the big benefit there is and I brought this to the board back in in May June I was I was concerned the 500,000 that we got from the federal government when we were awarded some covid funds cokano County was the Fiscal Agent I was concerned that even though we requested those funds because we had them spent by June 30th we wouldn't receive them from Copo County uh until later into the year and in fact my concern was justified I went up there Friday September 29th got the 500,000 but it wasn't deposited into our 203 year so that resulted
121in a $200,000 increase in our Capital because we Ed some of those funds and so that's a good number 2, 330,000 an increase of just over 200 well move over 200,000 so that's why we're revising it when we look at this again for the month of March and the month of April those differences will be quite small and if there're zero then May May 1 we won't revise it May 1 well done but you want at least two chances to get everything right before that May 15th deadline any any other questions concerns thank you thank you um let's see I'm sure this is an action item let's double check this is an action item [Laughter] so start reading I'll make the motion for the approval of the first verision of the 2023 2024 expenditure budget
122to align student count factors Revenue control limit District additional assistance Capital class site fund and all local state and federal budgets and programs to approved and funded expenditure budget limits final verified student count for f y23 was 22518 F4 FY 24 student count latest count October 15 2023 is 2,223 FY 24 adopted 001 budget in July 2023 was 19,7 1106 or 19 million 70,600 one budget is 9,534 79 March 6 2024 Revis 001 budget is1 19 m552 23 thou oh my gosh final FY 24001 budget will not be determined until at least April 10th 2024 she said it all're not second all in favor thank you item 10A Heritage medal School character strong supplemental curriculum hi um at Heritage Middle School we are interested in pil piloting the character strong an online character life skills
123curriculum for our sixth seventh and eighth grade students we have an increase in behaviors that we believe can be reduced with school wilife skills curriculum um we have Committee of teachers who are willing to test out some of the lessons in their classrooms this year and I'd like to introduce we already know her our school counselor Miss Nolan to go over the details hi thank you for having us tonight I'm Christine Olan school counselor at Heritage Middle School um so really this um curriculum helps us um build relationships it's always all about relationships so um we have students in our classrooms who are dealing with adverse childhood experiences what we know about those experiences is that it crosses all socio and economic backgrounds and that the more experiences a student has in their life the
124more at risk they are and the number one thing a student dealing with adverse childhood experiences needs to be successful is a consistent positive relationship and then we talk about the why and this is what is important for the success of our students so there are three reasons this work this work matters yeah go ahead and change go ahead thank you um so there's some research back reasons that we're investing in this work go ahead um so the first one is improved academics addressing students character and life skills need needs improves academic performance by an average of 11 percentile points that is an entire letter grade it could be a difference between a student passing and failing graduating or dropping out and getting a scholarship or even incurring student loans second reason this work matters
125is that it can improve Behavior students participating in life skills programs like character strong showed improved classroom behavior and increased ability to manage stress and depression and better attitudes about themselves others and school all of these help us as Educators prevent teacher burnout and make sure students can effectively receive the instruction they need to be successful in school and Beyond and finally the third reason is um families and um educator beliefs a vast majority of teachers and parents believe this type of learning is equally important to academic learning attending to students character and life skills needs helps us not only Foster students academic ability but their ability to function in the world as kind and capable people so character strong has three outcomes for all all the different grades it has well-being belonging and engagement
126um in um increased well-being increased sense of belonging and increased engagement in school and Beyond and research says that these three outcomes are powerful drivers of academic achievement School behavior and long-term student outcomes so we'll just briefly go over each of these well-being um character strong addresses wellbe at a tier one level meaning that it benefits all students so tier one is that first level that we're we're helping everyone right um the aim is to be proactive giving students support in their mental emotional and social wellbeing as opposed to being reactive when their well-being is already suffering the fact is our well-being the way we feel impacts everything we do and if we attend to it explicitly we explicitly we actually have an opportunity to help prevent mental illness poor decision- making and the emotional
127psychological and economical long-term consequences of poor wellbeing then we have belonging um a 2019 study found that 73% of Generation Z sometimes or always feels alone that means a large portion of our students are walking our Halls feeling little to no sense of belonging with their peers or in a school Community yet we know that psychological safety is a universal need if we don't feel in a safe space if we don't feel like we have sort of a common ground or the things that make us different aren't understood or welcomed we won't be able to engage meaningful in that space character curriculum is designed to address belonging by connecting students and staff in intentional ways and then there's engagement so the research confirms what we as Educators already know engagement is foundational to learning it
128is the strongest predictor of learning and it is influenced by practices that we have direct control over implementing like cultivating supportive relationship relationships developing challenging and relevant instruction and establishing a safe predictable and inclusive environment character strong gives us tools to improve these practices in low burden ways so how how do we do this so um the curriculum actually looks like the Middle School curriculum is a designed to be flexible and easy to use and yield outcomes beneficial to both students and staff so there's three things to know about this curriculum that will help us deliver it with confidence and competence so first character strong brought many voices to the table to build the curriculum each session was created and reviewed alongside a student Advisory Board of 30 middle schoolers and 30 high schoolers from
129diverse backgrounds some of these students love school some really don't some knew about character building and life skills and some had no context on top of that over 25 Educators who have served in all different spaces of Education helped create content to ensure that is relevant accessible and meet and meet adults and students where they are in other words these sessions were created by students and teachers for students and teachers second character strong is built to be low burden high impact meaning that it requires little to no prep for delivery which is fantastic for teachers the curriculum follows a consistent structure that helps us as Educators breathe easier and give students a sense of stability nearly every session includes five main parts which include the warm welcome which is like an entry task you walk
130in the class um Community Building um content with direct instruction videos and activities the character dare um slash to be list process and an and then an optimistic closure these parts are clearly um denoted by icons to help us and students know what to do so and then there's character and action um third the ultimate goal of character strong is to give students and staff practical ways to put the concepts we are discussing into real life action the work is about growth and the middle and at the middle school level they call these character dares each year they are introduced over the course of a few sessions early in the year and then students in staff are given new challenges each session the great news is is these challenges and the subsequent discussion are built
131as a 100% participation model meaning that if students and staff don't actually complete the challenges they can still participate in a meaningful discussion so lastly there's a link that will be provided here at the district where families can come and look at every single lesson is all web based um so they can come look at um click on it and and see every single lesson sixth seventh and eth grade and then we also have it printed um and so that is it is there any questions yeah can you cck all that hot by chance should be able to oh yeah so Sor I have a couple questions I'm curious how this is uh integrated into the day so how I Envision this would be next year if we go through the process and we decide
132that we want it at the beginning of the day we'll have a onh hour advisory or home room and it'll be integrated at breakfast and start integrating this also along with the CTE curriculum that we're looking at also so it's that first hour to build with the teacher and the students in addition over the years the the teacher the student that first Home Room stays with that same teacher so it just gives the years to build together and then they can really Bond have those relationships so this would be I'm thinking daily week and doing it that way it affects all students rather than just the ones that are struggling or the tier one approach yeah currently I do this a cou like one day a week and for older grades every other week only
133first semester so I every kid does get it but and it's not this curriculum it's other stuff but um it that's not as Ive as every day every teacher every all of us saying the same thing right working together changing the culture correct yes changing the culture improving Behavior hopefully because we really want to do that and having the consistency also across the teachers and the good question or not I'm still a little confused I see the process you're talking about and I I guess what I'm still trying to figure out is what issues are you trying to deal with and what outcome you expect from it okay so um a really good question so I I I'm seen discipline what got me down this this looking for a solution is I'm seeing discipline issu
134you know I've only been here seven months seeing the discipline issues um on campus seeing a need for an I see bullying reports we have um homie scraps that's has happened those few things and to see that we need a culture of that positive culture with the kids um and to build that because they don't know they need the skills to be able to like understand themselves and how they're how it works when you know somebody suggests hey let's go in the bathroom and homie scrap and and those would those referal old terms would that be the fight club we you're talking it it's like a plan a homies plan but they're not really mad at each other but they go in they're they're like convinced to go in to to do these sorts of
135things citizenship too yes you know all sorts of kids need all sorts of skills they need to understand how they resolve conflict think you land how to do you know how to just be a good person and and and even refusal skills like being able to say to your friends hey we're not going to do this anymore this isn't okay we're not those sorts of things it's just at such a crucial time yes and then mental health as a school counselor I've seen a decline in adolescent mental health over the last few years since Co like dramatically increases in suicidal ideation um increases in all sorts of um mental health behaviors that are very negative and this kind of stuff helps with that as well I have two questions will they learn respect for others
136yes absolutely absolutely you know I mean that's what is missing in our society 100% yeah and how much time during the school day will this take up long as first period first period is one hour but it's shared time with breakfast and another curriculum so I'm really predicting probably two hours a week I was just wondering you know how much time these lessons are short they're like quick easy fun kind of things like 20 to 30 minutes I think it's a great idea to and I hope that the children really learn from it you know because some children aren't having um a positive home life and to come to school and learn how to be positive when they leave things at home you know and come into school and enjoy learning enjoying each other and
137respect for others too so yes okay so I'm curious about the engagement part and how much engagement there will be in their cell phones and social media during the lesson is that what you're saying I'm sorry I don't understand the question yeah during the lesson are you wait are because it's digital curriculum they'll use their devices not their cell phones their their laptops or in the teacher projects really my question has to do with social media and the amount of time that people are putting on it and the Dory effect that that has had on Mental Health um and um I you know I would really like us to see something concerted to try to get kids up to 13 years of age off of it yeah I mean this it's a serious problem it
138is so I was I was unsuccessfully C trying to crack a joke oh got it how much engagement there would be in their phones and social media in this program I would hope there would be zero could affect Behavior so that might move away from that digital citizenship I'm sure part of it oh absolutely so I you're probably everybody in the room is familiar with um character counts yeah which was probably the most commonly promoted character education um for Heritage to formally adopt character coun curriculum so this curriculum costs uh $4,500 to adop formally adopt something like character counts cost 50,000 $50,000 so I see that's yeah this is affable this isn't high impact John quickly researched it so you know so there's been a move from middle school to high school then what happens
139in high school when it's successful when it's successful Miss Crawford and I will work together I'm huge Unity what we're doing a little am I okay to address um what we're doing right now just kind of capitalizing on so Kagan for us uh we are tracking Cooperative learning we have a rubric worked with our instructional coaches and that was actually what I let in with today with my staff meeting I modeled it and and I was just like this is why it's really important and so that's it's that is we're we're we're not bat in a thousand but we do every month it's required every single teacher I don't care if it's a dog and pony show I really don't because if the kids are doing it they're benefiting and when we go in and
140we're monitoring and I've looked at our rubric um our teachers are nailing it and not out of a out of a fourpoint scale not everybody's a four all the time but they're meeting or exceeding um and they're doing a really good job of engaging enging the kids and so if it's once a month I've I've I'm I've asked them to do it weekly even if it's not a full Kagan structure it's like a think par and share because it is that important for them to engage not only with their peers but with their teacher but it also provides capacity for the teacher to walk around and help with tier one instruction because they're not they're not direct instruction is great and it's necessary but it's only a part of what a lesson could be we
141need to be able to walk around and engage with the kids and ask the tougher questions to the higher level and the so it allows us to differentiate so we're kind of capitalizing on some of the things that we already have in place um and then we're on a school improvement process plan um so we're working on trying to improve some other areas for cognia but hopefully we just inherit amazing great children and then I get credit for graduating them thanks gry yes we need to make some adjustments I'm open to that but we're lucky freshman can be freshman um but we are lucky in that by the time that they reach right now their sophomore year we're we have our own issues we do but they do grow up a lot um and we
142don't have quite the the pettiness that you would see in middle school and it just comes with the age you know so and you're trying to shape the m to humans any other discussion I think it's great I do too um so with that the budget Cod want to point out on here that says sr3 and source that that's actually not okay that like that's a lot of money no that's actually not correct okay and that money's going I wrote that okay I will make the motion to approve the pilot and public review period for character strong supplement curriculum a second please a second all in favor thank you so to affirm the printed binder will be available um for review in the hallway with our curriculum library and Larry has graciously provided two laptops
143that Cheyenne keeps fully charged and she knows how to get everybody onto those laptops to see the digital version in case they're curious if the printed version is the digital version or not and it's ready to roll in the morning so so all you approved was just the pilot and the review it'll come back with a recommendation for approval of the actual curriculum okay okay item 11a is the second reading of policy gcca um Mr Fulmer than you again second reading again as a reminder this is a policy revision that came as recommendation from the superintendent employee advisory Council cak so um I don't know if you had any questions since the the last reading uh logical then logical like I said last time I think it's well deserved this is a request years ship
144away sure all right other questions or comments fantastic all right will motion fantastic a second please second Perfect all in favor I I thank you item 11b this is a first reading of revised policies and there's a lot so this is just the first reading no action taken um these have been shared with the appropriate um administrator for the most part that's impacted by these most of these are just technical Corrections and revisions based on state law um there was nothing really significant that that was was being addressed here other than that so um we still have to go through the process we still do the two the two the first reading and second reading but again mostly just technical changes and and changes due to State blw uh does anyone have any discussion on
145just this first reading twice have a wonderful evening okay oh you're so funny I gotta grab them